Jeffrey and Jennifer

Geauga Lake Carousel Sign

2011-09-14T20:20:00.000-07:00

Here are a few photos from the Geauga Lake Carousel sign ...

Star Wars Weekends 2011 Trip Part I

2011-05-26T08:04:00.000-07:00

Well we just got back from our quick summer trip to WDW. Unlike the previous trip in January whose trip report was pre-empted by Microbiology I am bound and determine to finish this one. I am also bound and determined that it will not be 20 pages long. It started several months ago, when Jeff and I considered doing a trip to both Disney's Flower and Garden Festival and Disney's Hollywood Studios Star Wars Weekends. When April came around F&G festival was out but Star Wars Weekends looked like it was a go. I won't bore you with the details of planning, but eventually plans were set to fly down Thursday night and come back Tuesday Morning on Southwest Airlines and that we were going to be staying at Pop Century. As a side note, since the original trip was going to be over Memorial Day weekend (it was changed to the week prior for a variety of reasons), we also made plans to celebrate Jeffs birthday, since his birthday is May 28th.

The flight down was completely uneventful, as was the rental car pick up. That was a breath of fresh air compared to January when we had left my bookbag in the rental car! I didn't see it again for about a month. We had rented a mid-size this trip, because of said book bag issue, and ended up with a Jeep Patriot, not bad for $62 for five days including tax! Our problems didn't really begin until we checked into Pop Century or tried to. As in the past we decided on online check in. There was a massive line for normal check in, but no line at all (as in no sign, or separate queue), for online check-in. After checking with guest services, we got checked in, to make my point brief though it wasn't the warm and fuzzy experience I was hoping for. We were assigned a double bed room, which was another minor irritation, but set up to change to a king bed the next day. Next order of business was getting something to eat. We ended up splitting a pizza and two orders of breadsticks, the food was good. The food court... not so much. It was a little bit more disorganized then I would have expected, and they had closed all the soda refill stations except one. A lot like Worlds of Fun, not at all like Disney. After a sour 1st day, I was hoping the rest of the trip would get better...

For our first day, we had debated on what to do... Star Tours, the reboot, was due to have its grand re-opening ceremony today (Friday), but with the lack of a 12PM Star Wars parade, and the fact that everyone was expecting massive crowds (as in so crowded they were expecting park closures), we decided in the end to skip it. It made it an even harder decision when I heard George Lucas was to be in attendance... Overall though it probably wasn't to bad of a decision since everyone I spoke with said that no one except the press could see anything anyway. So we decided on Magic Kingdom for that day..

In the past we have seen a few of the MK Main Street USA "Citizens", but this was our first time meeting up with the Mayor of Main Street USA. Walt's original plan was Main Street USA was to be a re-creation of a real working turn of the century main street. In January we stopped at the Barber shop there (yes a REAL working barber shop) Here is a photo since again we lacked a trip report...

Believe it or not the haircut was only about $14 or so, and they did a really good job!

Since it was about 11AM by the time we got there (issues with getting Annual Passes processed slowed us down), so our first stop was something to eat, and we decided on a new tradition for us, Casey's. While eating hot dogs and corn dog nuggets (with cups of saurkraut on the side), we had a visitor...

After eating we strolled over to Adventureland and checked out the brand new entry way into this extremely well-themed Magic Kingdom land...

We rode Pirates, and then headed over to Big Thunder were we grabbed a fast pass for only an hour later.... We rode the WDW Railroad for a full loop, and then it was time for the wildest ride in the wilderness!

I love Disney, I wouldn't say that they don't care about safety, but they arn't like Six Flags or Cedar Fair with are so liability oriented... its nutty. Disney still allows riders to take their cameras with them on the ride!

Taking the time to smell... the cactus blooms on they way down the Big Thunder Mountain exit.

Of course our next stop was my favorite, Haunted Mansion, which had just received another major update, this time to queue line, becoming a Next Generation Queue Line, or interactive queue line pretty cool.

A "play" organ, those waiting in line can touch the keys and the organ then plays part of the Haunted Mansion soundtrack.

An interactive "bath tub", every one in awhile it squirts water at those waiting in line... That felt pretty good actually as it was about 93 degrees!

After Haunted Mansion we headed over to Fantasyland, and after I rode the carousel there (of course), we rode a ride that I don't think we have ridden in probably 10 years... Dumbo the Flying Elephant.

Dumbo had a 45 minute wait, for what as you can see is basically a carnival ride. So why did we ride it? For this view...

The New Fantasyland under construction! After the ride on Dumbo we ambled over to Tommorowland, and rode TTA, before heading out. It had been a HOT day, and we were both pretty exhausted...

After a stop at the Ticket and Transportation center, we stopped for our annual visit to our brick... 11 years old and still looks good!

We ended up back at Pop, and after doing a quick room change, (see previous nights issues), we settled down for a break from the days heat (it was REALLY hot). About 6PM Jeff was checking the WDWLines App on his Iphone and for the sake of argument checked the wait time for Star Tours... it posted a 45 minute wait... WHAT?! only 45 minutes? What are we waiting for lets head to MGM. err Hollywood Studios.

So breaking our original plans (which was to hit Hollywood Studios at opening the next day), we took the bus to the park, and headed immediatly for Star Tours. It was about a 45 minute wait... the queue line was amazing, the ride which basically now had 56 different ride possibilities (the beginning, middle and end, had about 20 different possibilities). For our 2 rides that night we visited the Death Star, Hoth, Coruscant, and Tantooine. if you have no idea what I am talking about... Shame on you. Go watch a few Star Wars Movies.

After riding we decided to check out Jabba's Hutt, the obligatory Star Wars gift shop for Star Wars Weekends. Since it included several one of a kind collectibles (from what I had heard atleast), it was supposed to have a massive line just to get into it. Our luck we found was holding, the place was pretty much dead. We exhibited significant self control, compared to previous experiences. We walked out with one collectible pin, a book on lightsabers, and a "I was There" 2011 Star Tours Opening Weekend t-shirt. Later on that night I did succumb and buy a build your own lightsaber. What can I say... I am weak minded.

Since there were no plans for the evening, we basically stumbled into the nightly showing of Hyperspace Hoopla, about 15 minutes before showtime. Our view wasn't that great, but even with our lousy view it was enough to make sure we came back later in the weekend for a close up spot. Amazing!

After taking a bus to the park we were worried about how long it would take to get back... Amazingly, and I DO MEAN AMAZINGLY, there were 3 buses in immediate sequence that showed up and hauled the long queue of people waiting back to the resort within just a few minutes of us lining up. It was a relatively quick trip back to Pop, and we went straight to bed... We had a date again with MGM and Star Wars Weekends early the next morning...

Saturday Morning, 6AM... yes we were up and getting ready for another fun filled and sweat filled day at Star Wars Weekends. Originally the plan was to be at the gate an hour before park open to catch the Storm Trooper mini-show, and to get to the front of the (supposably) extrodinarly long line for Star Tours. Since we had ridden Star Tours the night before the importance of early entry wasn't as important. Still we were there at about 7:45, a few minutes before park opening. I found out though they actually opened the gates at 7AM so I missed the Storm Trooper show... but did get a photo with one of the many storm troopers milling around the gate area...

I was trying to look angry.. you know to match the "theme"... didn't work so well. I kind of just look irritated.

Even though the lines never appeared, MGM was prepared for said lines... here is a look at the extended queue lines prepped... I give them credit, they were PREPARED.

With Star Tours not being top priority we moved onto our (who am I kidding MY) #2 priority, Darth Vader. We headed for his queue line, and after standing there, with already 5 people ahead of us, we were advised he wouldn't be out until around 9AM. Keep it mind this was an hour away... So we decided to bail and come back closer to 9AM, and instead headed to Toy Story Mania. A ride that usually (almost always) has a 60+ min wait, had a queue line that looked like this.

EMPTY! Though you have to love the queue line. Its themed to all those old games and toys those of us of the pre-computers generations grew up with. Candyland on the floor, view finder reels, gigantic tinker toys, building blocks and dominos.

After a quick no wait line, and ride, we checked out our favorite exhibit at MGM, One Man's Story (a tribute to the life of Walt Disney), and then headed back to Darth's queue line. It was now about 8:45, and the 5 people in line had turned into about 40 or so. So we got in line... and waited, and waited, Vader then came out... and begin his photo shoots. For being a bad guy he is pretty popular! I am not suprised for a bad guy, he is pretty dang cool. After all he was #1 on my character meet list. Our wait was about an hour, not bad considering.

Next Stop was the queue line for the Disney characters dressed up Star Wars style, Jedi Mickey, Minnie Leia, Darth Goofy and Stormtrooper Donald. They all swamp out, 20 mins on/off. So we had Darth Goofy and Donald. Jeff was excited Goofy is his favorite character! This worst part of this was the 30 minute wait in the direct sunlight... Even at 10AM it was already exceptionally hot!

Our last character greeting was a quick one, I had discovered while waiting in line for Goofy and Donald that there was an Anakin Skywalker, character. Anakin, is my absolute FAVORITE character in the Star Wars universe, so the moment I heard this my antenna went up and I was bound to find him. Found out he was in a grouping with other Jedi Masters, so he didn't have his own line. Like the Disney characters you didnt' really know who you were going to get when you got in line. When we got to their meeting location we decided it was worth the chance, it was only about a 10 minute line. We were the last people to meet Anakin... We also meet with Mace Windu, the Jedi Master played by Samuel Jackson. (notice this was NOT Samuel Jackson, if it was it wouldn't have been a 10 minute wait!)

Playing it up with Jeff, who was wearing his Birthday Button... Jeff was told with 44 years of training he would be a Jedi Master soon. :)

A more straight on view... did I mention before Anakin Skywalker is my favorite character?

We were both pretty hot at this point, (I can't even imagine the people in the character costumes YIKES!), so we decided an airconditioned ride would be the ticket. So we stopped next door and rode the Great Movie Ride, which was only really a So-So Movie Ride. It seriously needs an update.

The Star Wars Weekends parade was one of the major attractions that I knew I wanted a good view (at 5'3" good view means front row), of, so I knew we had to stake out our spot about an hour before. Well we did, in the 95 degree heat, direct sun, hot pavement... we waited the 60 minutes to parade time... You ask was it worth it... 100% absolutly! Here are some photos...

Leading off the parade is this X-Wing/Pilot float, with Jedi Mickey on board!

The 501st, a group of Star Wars fans that actually own their own Storm Trooper/Empire uniforms, and volunteer for these types of special events.
The 501st is also known as Vader's Fist, as it is commanded by Darth Vader.

Emperor Palpatine (Palpatine with a "T"), flanked by the Imperial Guards.

I was sweating buckets in shorts and a t-shirt, I can't even imagine these guys... BTW these are Stormtrooper Tie Fighter Pilots.

Regular Stormtroopers.

R2-D2!

One of the "stars" at the 1st weekend of Star Wars Weekends, Anthony Daniels. He played C3PO in all 6 Star Wars films.

Chewie... with Wickett in front of him (Ewok). Behind them is Jedi Master Mace Windu.

Quite easily the coolest character to come out of the prequels, Darth Maul. To bad they killed him off in the 1st movie.

Boba Fett, I have found it absolutly amazing that characters with such brief screen time, and even shorter lines can become so popular. Boba Fett I think had three total lines, his famous being "He's No Good to me Dead" From The Empire Strikes Back.

The Lord of Darkness Himself.

Even though the heat was worth it for the parade, I was still pretty worn out by the end of the parade, and was SO GLAD I had followed everyone's advice on the Star Wars Weekends websites I had visited prior to the trip, to make a lunch ADR. We had to change the time the night before since the parade was at 12:45PM instead of the previous years 11:45. So we headed towards 50's Prime Time Cafe for our lunch reservation.

The theme to this restaurant is basically you are in mom's kitchen, so no elbows on the table, and eat all your vegetables, or terrible things can and DO happen. I won't say anymore... I plead the 5th :)

Food was good though, and was filling, even though it wasn't exactly a quiet meal, it wasn't obnoxiously loud, and was a good time, in an air-conditioned environment. It hit the spot!

Refreshed, full, and cooled down we were ready to hit the park for an hour or two longer now, and we finished up with a few of the characters we still wanted to meet.

Padme Amidala (Anakin's wife, Leia/Luke's mother), was next... Perfect that she was right there on the front of my shirt too. Amazingly right before the trip I had found a lady that designed Star Wars shirts for girls and women! To think it took only 33 years for someone to realize women liked Star Wars too.

Jeff's one pick, Darth Maul, from Star Wars I (or the 4th one depending on your view), Phantom Menace. Jeff borrowed Maul's famous stare, for his portrayal of a deranged doctor in our own Worlds of Fun's Asylum Island. So of course he had to repeat his portrayal... I think its a great photo.

Me with a Tusken Raider... (Sand People), from Tantooine. They were doing a pretty good acting job, my expression shows I was a bit intimidated! (For those who need a reference, refer to Star Wars: A new Hope, were Obi-Wan refers to the Sand People stating "The Sand People are easily startled, but they will return soon, and in greater numbers")

Last I really wanted a photo with C3PO and R2D2, so we headed back over to Jabba's Hut (also the gift shop) were they were situated. Again this was a rotating character situation, and Leia was taking photos when we arrived. I was hoping that she would switch out by the time we got up there, as Leia... well for some reason she is just not my favorite character. Luke, (or a stand in for Luke, as obviously this is NOT Mark Hamill) was who we meet. I was happy, and by this time (it was about 5PM) I was dead tired and really didn't want to wait anymore.

After meeting Luke we headed out and back to Pop Century. I took a nap when we got back (I was EXHAUSTED). We stayed in the rest of the evening, I did jog a bit while there, for some reason all the walking and sweating wasn't enough exercise...
That let me check out not only the timeline of events Disney has set up at Pop Century along Hourglass Lake, but also check out the construction of the new value resort, Art of Animation. We chilled out the rest of the evening.

To be Continued...

2011 Disney Trip! Pre-trip report I

2010-11-13T19:56:00.000-08:00

For the last 3 months I have been concentrating on things like the extensor digitorium longus (muscle of the lower leg), the basilar artery (in the head) and my favorite Corpora Quadrigema (in the brain). Yes folks I have been studying and living Anatomy class for my quest for a nursing degree. I still have 3 weeks left, but as I have a solid A I feel pretty good taking a few minues to think about one of my favorite things... Disney.

Ahhh Happy Place. nothing like a disney inspired zen moment to forget about the hours, and hours, and hours and even MORE hours of studying. That's a week. *cring*

So where are we? Oh yes. So on Jan 14th for the 9th time in a row (almost) Jeff and are will be heading from cold Kansas City, to wonderful, warm and fuzzy Orlando, FL. We will be there for 9 days until Jan 23rd. Now usually we go down there the last week of January and this year we are moving it back a week to MLK day/week. Why? Well the answer would be school. Yes next semester the "fun" continues with Microbiology. *double cring* just the name is scary.

Four years ago in 2007 Jeff and I bought into DVC or Disney Vacation Club, Disney's version of a timeshare. At disney its all point based (instead of week based) and we started out a little atypical, we started out with on 25 points. Last year we finally made it up to 100 points with a 50 point add on at BLT, that's Bay Lake Tower at the Contemporary, not the sandwich.

Yeah I know you where thinking about it.

Prettttyyyyy... but you know this is only concept art....

I guess one of those times concept art really does live up to the real thing...

So 11 months out, this last February I went to work early to make sure I could call Disney at exactly 11 months out at 9:00:00 mins to reserve a coveted reservation. BLT studio MK view.

Yes a room with a view. Supposedly.

See this wouldn't be a Jennifer Lovesee trip report, or trip in general without something for me to stress about. REALLY! Five min walk to Magic Kingdom, Monorail stop on my doorstep, no money that I have to pay when I check in, seriously I would have to find something to stress about. Otherwise it just wouldn't be me.

So what is it? Well see Disney in their infinite "wisdom" had categorized MK views as 3rd floor and above. 3rd floor rooms are more like parking lot views with a castle in the background. I am checking in on Sunday of MLK weekend, yes I am worried about getting the worst view possible. Could it happen? Yes. I am trying to make myself not worry about it. Its not working.

So to keep my mind off of that I am thinking about other aspects of the trip. First item on my agenda that we finally crossed off just a few days ago was the flights. Two months ago I booked the return flight from Orlando to KC on Jan 23rd using free tickets that we had on Southwest. The outbound flight I had been watching, and watching and watching. Southwest and I have a love/hate relationship you see. I love their policies, their refund/rebook policies, free baggage, etc. I don't like the fact that the seem to love to play with your mind with flight prices. $133, YIKES, $119 a little bit better but still high. Then last tuesday it FINALLY dropped under $100, to $90 I grabbed it. $90 per person for a round trip flight to Orlando. Pretty decent. Especially when one considers it is on a holiday weekend.

I will still be watching though. Should it go down in price again. If it does I will happily take a credit back... southwest are you listening?

So my standard practice after I book the flight is to book a car. Now some people go to Disney and depend on their transportation. I have considered it, I even almost did it, but I J U S T C A N T G I V E U P M Y C A R. Ugh got that out. Seriously I know the minute a try to rely on Disney transportation only I will be stuck at a park waiting an hour for the bus like we did at Port Orleans This summer. I Know This, I will not tempt fate, plus $160 isn't bad for a car for 9 days right? I also expect that to go down to. Right Alamo?

Now in the past I would have also been considering hotel options. Well I still have to consider hotel options but only for 2 days. See BLT is a 7 night reservation. The first 2 days we are going to Universal. I will admit it. Not only am I am a overstresser must rent a car fanatic, but I am also a Harry Potter fan. My name is Jennifer and I am a Harry Potter fan. Ok not nutty enough to show up in costume on premier day. But I might still be there on premier day... Yeah I have a problem.

So right now Jeff and I are considering options. We are considering Royal Pacific a Universal Onsite hotel, $219 a night though, UGH. Yeah it is only 2 nights but still with tax that's like $500. Still it does give you front of the line access to all the major attractions at Universal and early entry so I have been trying to look at different options. One of those has been getting Jeff a Universal Annual Pass.

$299, but that brings the room down to $139, and then Jeff can use it instead of buying 2 different tickets (he is going down on a business trip in a week and can use it then too), so its not a big difference in overall ticket price... That's what we are thinking about now. Check back later to see what happens!

Jan 2010 Trip Report Post IV (THE END!)

2010-03-06T19:11:00.000-08:00

Saturday 01/30/2010

Saturday morning rolled in, and it started out as a rather warm morning, but it was muggy and cloudy so it was pretty clear it would rain later that day. We had an ADR at 1900 Park Fare this morning with friends of ours who had flown in the night before. They were just starting their magical vacation, while we were finishing ours :(

One nice aspect of Polynesian as I mentioned was location, it was amazingly nice to know that Grand Floridian was only just a quick monorail ride or walk away! Now being bad Polynesian guests we had mentioned to our friend Matt, to park at Polynesian that morning and then we could all ride to the Grand Floridian together. Well it worked out perfectly as we ended up meeting up in the Great Ceremonial Hall, and all four of us headed for the monorail. Matt had brought his girlfriend Casey and this was her first trip to WDW in many years, so it was exciting seeing how a Disney virgin experienced the world. For that reason we had all picked 1900 park fare because it featured Mary Poppins, one of Casey’s favorite characters.

When we arrived for our 10:05AM ADR I was shocked at the massive line to check in, it was massively crowded! I had thought 10AM was a late breakfast time and possibly it wouldn’t be as busy… yeah right. We were given our beeper, and it went off maybe just a minute or two later. We were seated right inside the doorway so we didn’t get to see much of the restaurant. Overall I wasn’t to terribly impressed with park fare, the food was ok, don't get me wrong the food was decent (and imporantly.. hot!), and there were quite a few options but I prefer Boma and Kona overall for breakfast. We sat down with our food, and then Tigger came around for photos, we saw him a total of three times, and he was the only character we saw for a long, long LOOONNNGG time. In fact we had finished eating and had to wait around a while before finally Alice, Mary Poppins and The Mad Hatter came around. We had photos with all, and they all stayed right in character, I can’t believe how short Alice was! I know she was a little girl in the movie, but I was shocked to have a character that was actually shorter then me! It was kind of nice. :) Mad Hatter was my overall favorite though, he spent a few minutes at our table overall, while the rest stopped for a quick photo and headed off. I have to agree with other’s comments, he’s pretty funny!

After eating, all four of us headed back to the Polynesian, but decided to walk. We stopped at the wedding pavilion, where Jeff and I had been married eight years prior, we took a few photos there, and then finished our walk at the Polynesian. We stopped at our room, to hand the rest of my coke zero off to Matt (as there were a few cans left) and we spent some time just talking, it was a good time.

Soon after Matt and Casey left, they had tickets for NASA for that day, and wanted to get started on their way. Jeff and I were left with a quandary, what to do with the rest of the day? After discussing different options we decided to head first to Contemporary to finish out our resort monorail hopping. We had some fun finding the five legged goat, which came back to visit us in EPCOT later on in the day! We looked around the resort, and checked out a few of the shops, it was probably a good idea as the next January that was where we were planning on staying.

So after wandering around a bit at the Contemporary we had yet decided what to do with the rest of our day. Now originally I had wanted to rent one of the sea racyers but at $42 a piece for 30 minutes, especially after we had just spent $400 on a tour the day before, didn’t make much financial sense. So instead we decided to head to EPCOT as I also wanted to see the American Adventure, especially now that we both knew how it all worked! So that’s where we headed. Of course, it was still threatening rain, and both of us, in our infinite wisdom didn’t think of stopping back at Polynesian for our rain coats….

Yeah smart move.

As we arrived via monorail at EPCOT it began to rain… So we decided to basically stick with the indoor attractions and first headed for Ellen’s Energy Adventure, as it had been closed back in August for “renovations”. First off, not one bit of it appeared renovated (I am thinking cost saving measure), but we both really enjoy this ride so it was a fun stop. As we exited it was still drizzling, but not to bad, so we headed towards World Showcase via mouse gears, and finally, realizing that I was going to have to pay for my decision to forget the rain coat, I stopped and spent $7 for a poncho. While I was doing so Jeff had gotten back into his pin trading frenzy and surprised me with a pin of the five-legged goat at the Contemporary mural. COOL!

The rain was coming down harder at this point, so we hurried into the Mexican Pavilion, and rode Rio Del Tempo, or whatever its called now with the Three Caballeros. I
Like the fact that it has NO line! We both wandered around the Mexican pavilion and soon headed out to stop at the next pavilion with an indoor attraction, China. We hadn’t seen the Circle vision 360 movie there in some time, and we had meant to stop and see it a few days ago, however there was a large special event being held there, so we had to put it off, until now. It was about 15 minutes before the next show so we admired the art displays, and Terra Cotta figures. I wish more of the pavilions would do something like this. The movie was fun, and as we headed out we noticed it had stopped raining for the most part, but it had become windy and pretty chilly. Our reason for visiting was up next, The American Pavilion, and we arrived about 15 minutes before The Voices of Liberty so we waited around the pavilion for the performance, which was great as always! We stayed for the performance of the American Adventure. I will say I had an new appreciation and understanding of how everything worked, now knowing where all the animatronics were, how they worked, and realizing that all the scene/animatronic switches are done in complete silence. That’s a lasting tribute to the fact of when it was designed (early 80’s) and its designers.

We stopped at the shop attached and bought a shirt (Don’t Tread on Me) for my mom, and then headed next door for some food. As it was closing in on about 5-6PM we both were getting quite hungry, and I was craving a hamburger after eating everything but for the last week. As an added plus the American restaurant is completely indoors! It appeared everyone else had the same idea as the place was packed, and not only with families, but also with a quite rowdy group of young adults that were completely wasted.

They were all wearing “Drinking Around the World” shirts, and as they were only about half way I was doubting that they would make it all the way. We did see a smaller contingent of their group (probably several had dropped out at that point!) at the France pavilion later on purchasing wine at the small kiosk, they were all still standing at that point which considering was a pretty major achievement.

The food itself wasn’t too bad, and as we were preparing to leave the Fife and Drum corp can out, played one tune and left! I think the brevity of their performance was due to the previous mentioned rowdy drinkers were “dancing” along with the small band. I would have hurried away too!

After eating, I was pretty set on returning back to the resort, I wanted some last minute resort relaxing time before winding up our trip (and I was depressed as it neared the end), Jeff and I had a minor disagreement as he wanted to try the Kim Possible missions at EPCOT. In the end we headed back to the Poly instead. We got back to the resort close to 7PM, relaxed a bit (we had both bought books at the Art of Disney so we took some time to flip through them). I had been craving a swim all week, and as it was in the low 70’s and close to Wishes time we headed for the main Volcano pool. Jeff took his book as he does not like to go swimming AT ALL. I was really shocked that by 8PM the slide had already closed! The water was a comfortable temperature, but without the jets, and slide it wasn’t really any different the the value resort pools. We watched the tail end of the fireworks, and stayed out for the Electric water pageant parade.

A side story, we used the Main Street Electrical Light Parade music as our recessional for our wedding 8 years prior, this was before I had even SEEN the parade but I loved the techno-retro music. I finally saw the parade a few years later at Disney’s California Adventure (and I am thrilled to hear it is heading back to Florida temporarily). The water pageant makes me think of the Electrical Parade. It is old and a little kookey, but I love it. I also found out something new on our trip about the Water pageant as part of the Backstage Magic Tour (another cudo to Wayne), in that The Water Pagaent was created as a back drop for the Polynesian Luau, before there was a Luau Cove. People liked it so much that it stayed and it has become a fixture at Bay Lake/Seven Seas Lagoon resorts ever since. It also, except for minor technological updates, has not changed. I personally love those small things that while seemingly obsolete, are enjoyable for the simple fact that they are fun, and are the same as they were 10, 20, 30 years ago.

After the water pageant we headed back to our room. Now I had mentioned earlier I was a bit depressed about the trip winding down, but it was awkward in that I was not as depressed as I had been on previous trips. Now that has nothing to do with the Disney magic wearing off, I love it as much as I always have, and the Cast Members we encountered (except for one, you will meet him soon) all lived up to the Disney experience we expected. I THINK the reason I may not have been as depressed was for two reasons. Number one, we now have DVC, we are guaranteed a trip every year now, otherwise we lose our points. Number two, the trip we took this year was 9 days, I think this is the perfect length for us, we could take things slowly, go to the parks for a couple hours, and relax. If we missed something, we knew we could come back later, or see it next trip. It's comforting.

So, here we are back in our room, we didn’t have much to pack up as we had done most of that back at Boardwalk. I made the suggestion that the next day we try for opening at Magic Kingdom. Jeff, who is a steam train engineer here at Worlds of Fun (and now so am I!), had been trying to get photos of all four Magic Kingdom Steam Trains, so far we had the Roy E Disney, The Walter E Disney, the Roger Broggie, but we're missing the Lillie Belle. The reasoning for this that we found out only this year, is that Lillie Belle only runs for the opening show. Its pretty amazing that they fire up an engine (no short or easy task) for just a few moments, but hey that’s the Disney way I guess. 

So to get photos of the Lillie Belle we would not only have to be present for opening, but would then have to high tail it to the Tommorowland/Toontown walkway, which is were the Engines stop and back into the maintenance/storage area. So we knew that as long as Lillie Belle didn’t just back up from where it came from, and took the whole circuit, that we could get photos of it at the Toon Town station. So that was the plan as we hit the hay.

Sunday 01/31/2010

Our last day… *sigh*

We woke up with the alarm clock, I think around 7:30 or so. I had requested and been able to get a late check out for 1PM, so there was no need to pack up anything as of yet, and we were able to head directly for the park. Thank goodness for the monorails! Love them! We arrived at the park about 8:45AM, and only waited a few minutes for the opening ceremony. We have a CD with the opening ceremony music, and I personally love the song, so this was a lot of fun, we try to do Magic Kingdom opening at least once a trip for this reason only.

So as the park opened we headed quickly through the turnstiles, and walked quickly down Main Street USA, every second or so I turned around to see if Lillie Belle would back up, or head straight for the circle tour. As we passed the Main Street Bakery we saw it pull forward finally, and I breathed a contented sigh, we would make it. We slowed down a bit at this point, and I took in all the happy Cast Members with their big white Disney gloves waiving as guests entered the park. The cast members smiling, made me smile. Its infectious, and a smile is free. Can’t beat that. Amazing that other parks can’t understand that.

So we headed into the Tommorowland via the noodle station, and headed next to Space Mountain for the Tommorowland/Toontown walkway. Now at this point we had NO IDEA Toontown didn’t open with the park, we very rarely visit Toon Town, and there were no ropes, signs, or anything. We were alone, but as it was right at opening that wasn’t terribly odd. We stood by the Toontown station for a bit, first the Roger Broggie came out to head for Main Street Station to pick up the park’s first trainload of visitors. A few minutes later, all our patience came to fruition, the Lillie Belle! It stopped right by the water tower, allowing Jeff to get a few desired photos. Then the switch was thrown and Lillie Belle vanished heading backwards for its round house home.

Soon after it pulled out, we walked directly into Toontown, again no ropes, no barriers of any kind. I did find it unusual that there was absolutely no one there, but again I didn’t dwell on it, the park was open right? Well as we casually were standing standing next to the train station, talking about our next plan of attack and enjoying the quiet early morning, a cast member called out to us. At first he thought we were cast members ourselves (Do we really look like we work at a park? I didn’t realize it hung around my neck like that). After realizing we weren’t he callously starting yelling at us that we weren’t supposed to be there, that Toon Town didn’t open until later (he mentioned a time I just don’t remember). Now we are never one’s to break a park rule, and I felt terrible. However, there are kinder ways to advise customers that they shouldn’t be there. We did hurry out though, and soon as we looked back a rope was put up blocking the Toon Town entrance from Tommorowland.

From Tommorowland we headed for Fantasyland. One of the advantages of arriving at the park at opening is the short lines. Even with the crowd calendar coming in at a 7 or 8 for that day many rides had no wait. Our first ride did though, Peter Pan. Of course in all fairness Peter Pan ALWAYS has a line. In this case it was only 10 minutes, and Peter Pan is a fun ride. Next we stopped at Small World which had no line (I wonder why....). I DO like Small World, but Jeff can only handle it once every other trip or so.

We hit Haunted Mansion next (my favorite), and then Pirates of Carribbean, Jeff picked up a hat there which we both thought was funny “The Beatings will continue, until Morale Improves” He wears it to work every once in awhile!

After riding we were getting fairly hungry and it was about 11 or so, so we started checking out places in the area. At first we were going to stop at Pecos Bills but in the way to Pirates of Carribbean I had seen a small snack stand, the Golden Outpost, and I had noticed on the menu something I thought I would never see again, the Fried Chicken Sandwich.

This is pretty important as we have an ongoing theory that Disney has a “attraction rotation program” similar to something Six Flags used to do back in the 1980’s. However instead of moving rides, they move smaller things. parades, roaming characters and mainly… food. (think Main street Electrical Parade). One of these things we have noticed they like to move is the Fried Chicken Sandwich. If you haven’t tried it yet, its wonderful! However it has moved around, and unlike the parades and other attractions Disney doesn’t tell us when they are moving it, and where they are moving it too.

Eight years ago the Fried Chicken sandwich started at Cosmic Rays, a few years later we noticed it was no longer on the menu there. We didn’t search it out directly we had figured it was just gone. Nope, it had been moved, as a year or so later we were at Animal Kingdom’s Tusker House and guess what was on the menu? The Fried Chicken sandwich, and it was the same sandwich! A few years ago, Tusker House changed from a counter service location (depressed) to a table service, buffet restaurant. So the Fried Chicken sandwich vanished again.

However, AGAIN it didn’t really vanish. Last year while heading to Pirates of Caribbean I had noticed the Golden Outpost, it had replaced the McDonalds fry cart (another depressed) and I thought I saw the Fried Chicken sandwich, but didn’t think much of it at the time. Well this year, I remembered that, checked out the menu, and behold! The Fried Chicken sandwich. (que the angels singing!) So was it the same? Yep it was. So it leaves us wondering… where will it go next? Maybe it can go to MGM and be the park’s first decent counter service offering? Nah.

It was getting chillier by the moment so instead of eating the sandwich outside, we headed into Pecos Bills and enjoyed it there. I also checked out the toppings bar. Yep that’s my next stop next year. Wow. Grilled mushrooms on a toppings bar? How cool is that!

Anywho. So after eating, it was close to Noon, and if you remember our check out was for 1PM, so we headed back to the front of the park to exit. As we walked out the crowds were streaming in, so it looks like we had picked the perfect time to visit! We hopped on the monorail and were soon back at Poly, where we loaded up our bags and hauled them to our rental car (which we hadn’t seen since Friday!).

We headed back into the resort, as our flight wasn’t until 4:55 and it was only about 1PM so we didn’t really need to leave until 2:30. I watched the hula dancers for a bit (pretty neat small detail for the resort theming), we checked out the gift shops for a bit, and I purchased a few small items for the folks back at work and then we both sat down to relax one last time in the lobby. It was a chilly day, I think the temps were in the 40’s about this time, so it was like the weather gods were trying to reactlimate ourselves back to Kansas City temps.

Overall looking back at the entire trip was very enjoyable. I am glad I decided on the Annual Pass, and am still thankful for Sean at Guest Relations at Downtown Disney for giving us the viability of that option, it allowed for us to head in and out of the parks without thinking about burning a day. We didn’t get to the water parks or Stormalong Bay at Beach Club (the Boardwalk pool was down for refurb) like I wanted to, but it was never really warm enough on any of the days we had free time, and the one or two days we did we already had plans (like the Backstage Magic tour).

A couple of new things we did this trip were very enjoyable, of course the Backstage Magic Tour, which we found was worth the money and time. Then of course there was our first two character meals, I liked Akershus, but wasn’t too fond of 1900 Park Fare. Last, looking back I am mostly thankful for the ability to simply relax. No need to have a plan of attack, hitting as many rides as possible (many of our park trips are like that, no rest for the wicked), but more the ability to feel “at home”, which is all thanks to DVC. Today, as I finish this trip report it is only three days until I get to book next years trip at Bay Lake Tower at the Contemporary, so look forwarding to next years trip!

*update I was successfully able to book our 7 nights in a BLT Magic Kingdom view studio for next year! YEAHHH!!!*

Jan 2010 Trip Report Post III

2010-02-22T20:21:00.000-08:00

Thursday 01/28/2010

I mentioned earlier that there was no plan on what parks to visit each day? Well Thursday was Animal Kingdom day, we had figured that out the day before. What we didn’t realize at the time, which I only realized after the trip is that we hit the parks in the order that they opened, literally. Monday was Magic Kingdom. Tuesday was EPCOT, Wednesday was MGM and Thursday was of course, Animal Kingdom.

Now we hadn’t been to Animal Kingdom for three years. We had quite literally burnt ourselves out on Animal Kingdom after writing a story on it for our magazine and spending quite literally 6-7 days at the park (not in a row!).

We got up I believe around 8:30 or so, ate our croissants (love those), and headed for the park. It was the unofficial guide’s best park, plus it was a crowd level 4 so I expected the crowds to be low and they were. Our first stop was to head for Kilimanjaro Safari for a fast pass, when we arrived the stand by was 40 mins, and the fast passes were for about an hour later, so we figured we could grab a fast pass, and take the walking tour next door.

The obligatory tree shot

Mr. Anti Social

The Pagani Forest Trails main exhibit is the lowland gorillas, but the trail was packed with people, obviously that's were everyone was hanging out! Going back to the trail though, pretty cool. I am pretty sure Pagani is the trail with the bats, and I have to say Busch shows off the bats better, the have a twilight-like environment were you get to see the bats flying about. Animal Kingdom they were all just hanging there. Makes you just want to go out there and poke one to make sure they are real. :)

When we headed out it was about 11:30 and we still had some time for our fast pass so we went and grabbed lunch. We were near Asia so we headed to Yak and Yeti Anadapur Café (Counter Service), we had tried the Table Service version a few years ago and liked it. Both Jeff and I decided on the Honey Chicken, with a chocolate chip cookie as our dessert. Overall it was good, it wasn’t full of just veggies, and the chicken didn’t taste as it had sat around for awhile. Truthfully though it wasn’t much different then what you could get at a close by your basic chinese restaurant. That can be a good thing though.

Some nice theming in the Asia section.

After eating we saw the crowds pouring into the same line that was non-existent when we arrived at the restaurant so we figured we had hit that just right. Next, we headed to the nearby Everest it was about a 40 minute standby so we picked up a fast pass. We also noticed the in-station steam train effect was working, which was a plus over our previous visit. Turns out that was about the only thing that WAS working. I will leave you hanging for a brief moment as we journey back to Africa though.

We headed back to Kilimanjaro Safari and noticed the stand by stated 20 minutes. We used our fast pass, but found it a waste, the fast pass line joined the stand by line at the same point, causing fast pass to save us absolutely zero time. Overall the wait itself was maybe a few minutes before we were in our jeep vehicle and headed out on our 2 week journey.

Why do all birds like to show off around us? seriously?

Prior to today I had ridden Kilimanjaro Safari several times, it IS the premier attraction at Animal Kingdom, and it is one aspect of the park that quite literally beats Busch to a hilt. It is amazing from minute one to the end. In this case our ride was even better then usual. The Ankole Cattle were right up next to our vehicle, standing on either side of the road. I could have stuck my hand out and touched one (don’t worry I am not that stupid). Amazingly a Giraffe came about just as close, walked right next to us parallel to our vehicle. That’s about the closest I think I have ever been to these graceful creatures. Towards the end of our journey an Ostrich decided to block our path for a few minutes. He (who knows it could have been a she), just stood there, looking at us, thinking what the heck WE were doing THERE. Very funny. Finally, she/he/it moved, and we were on our way. Overall it was a great ride, one of our best experiences on the safari, plus we had an excellent driver, I especially loved his comment about the radio station being the #1 station for the last 11 years. :)

See what I mean about the birds?

My theory is that the animals here ignored us since we visited the animals at Busch first.

After disembarking, we shopped a little bit in the Harambe market, and then headed for Asia once more. Our time wasn’t up for Everest yet so we stopped at the Maharaja Jungle Trek, home to the Bengal Tigers and also a wonderful bird exhibit. I know both walking paths have bird exhibits but we saw several more birds in Asia then we did in Africa. What especially is memorable is that two large, colorful birds (I think pheasants?) stood for a few minutes right in the middle of the pathway! In fact I am not truly sure who was on display, us or them! Since more of the exhibit birds like to hide out of the way, this was a unique experience.

Nope, no Yeti home today.

One of the rarest species at Animal Kingdom, the rare Expedition Everest hawk.

After exiting we headed for Everest. As I mentioned it was positive to see the “minor” steam theming working in the station, but that is were the positive comments begin and end. (ok the hawk at the spur end was working too). However the Yeti. What can I say? Everest was the biggest, I mean THE BIGGEST disappointment of the trip. The first time we rode Everest, during AP preview the Yeti was absolutely amazing, it almost felt like the Yeti was about to pick you up out of your car. A few years later, they had a tether holding the yeti’s arm up, obvious yes, tacky, yes, but the Yeti still moved (somewhat), and was still visible. This time though. Disney should be ASHAMED. If we hadn’t known the Yeti was there, we wouldn’t have known it was there. We saw a brief flash of a strobe light, a bit of motion, and growl and that was it.

Moving on to a more positive experience our next stop was Finding Nemo the musical. The next show was at 3:30 and we were in line 45 minutes before showtime. What that scored us was about as front row seat as you can possibly have, we were sitting right next to the center bump out (runway), Jeff got some great photos and it was pretty cool being that close, and being able to see the details of the actors faces. We had seen the show during the very end of “dress rehearsal” but it has significantly improved since then, the story was intact, the actors and dancers were spectacular and incredibly talented. It almost made up for Everest. Almost.

After exiting the show we headed for Dinorama, we stopped at a pin kiosk and traded a pin or two, plus picked up a lanyard for all the pins we have traded for. As it was approaching 4PM, we decided to head through the Dinorama store, and then head out. As we were heading out it looked like they were preparing for the parade, I thought the parade was at 3PM though? Maybe not. Overall even with Everest it was a good day, the weather was nice, it was sunny and comfortable to be outside.

When we arrived back at Boardwalk the main parking lot (closest to the building) was pretty full, we realized that there must be a convention going on (or two or three) and we found out later that the place was packed! We ended up finding a spot, and walked to our room, where we relaxed a bit and began the awful task of starting to pack. 

We had an ADR for Chefs De France at 7:30, so close to 6:30 we began heading down. Instead of heading directly to EPCOT we stopped by Community Hall first and picked up a movie rental… yep Wall-E, I was on a real Wall-E kick this trip for some reason! We dropped the DVD off at the room, and headed for EPCOT. The walk there just proved how packed the place was, Sea Breeze point had a large convention gathering, The Boardwalk was packed, and the beach at Beach Club, was smashed like sardines full of tables. People in suits and business clothes were everywhere!

We entered EPCOT, and milled around the France pavilion for a few minutes and then headed to check in for our ADR at Chefs. About two years prior we had eaten at Bistro, and while the reviews of Chefs seemed either love/hate I went in with an open mind. Overall, it was okay. Not the worst food I have ever had at Disney, not the best French food I have ever had. (it might have been the bistro we ate at in Montreal overwhelming this Florida version). I had the Roasted Breast of Duck and Jeff had the Filet. Originally, before traveling I had thought for sure I would have the Salmon, I wish I had stuck with that decision. The duck was not the worlds greatest, it tasted as if it had sat under the heating lamps for a little too long. Maybe the duck was waiting on Jeff’s beef, which turned out to be quite good.

The aspect that really sticks with me though isn’t so much the food, but the noise! My gosh it was loud in there! It made our waiter somewhat hard to understand, even though he was quite attentive and checked back with us often.

One interesting point, is that in my decision on where to eat for our anniversary I had a hard time deciding between Narcoosee’s and Bistro, obviously we finally chose Narcoosee’s, but Bistro was a contender for the one reason that it has a soufflé on its dessert menu. I had assumed you could only order that from Bistro. It turns out that in some cases you can order off the Bistro menu from Chefs De France. Interesting.

Instead of a soufflé of course Jeff and I went off the regular menu. I almost chose the crepe, but instead went with my original desire the Crème Brule, while Jeff had, you guessed it, the chocolate cake (he is not the most original when it comes to ordering but you have to give him points for staying the course) The Crème Brule was EXCELLENT. Probably the best dessert of the week.

Chefs in the end turned out to be one our quickest meals, as we finished about 8:30, and with us moving to the Polynesian the next day, we headed back to our room for one last night. 

Okay yes we saw Illuminations Wednesday night but Jeff hadn't uploaded those photos yet, so I figured this would be a good time.

I finished up the packing, it was nice that through the week we had washed almost all of our clothing, allowing me to pack mostly clean clothes. While packing I had put Wall-E and watched it into the evening. The next morning would be a early rise, for the highlight of the trip. I will leave you hanging…

Friday 01/29/2010

Since there will be VERY few photos for this day I figured I would share a few more of the Boardwalk.

You can see our room, its the 2nd to the top room in the yellow section.

I woke up with the alarm clock at about 6:45 and headed for the shower, that was one great shower head, overshadowed by the experience for the next two days at Polynesian (notice I have this obsession with keeping you hanging?) I looked out the window, a beautiful day, the sun was rising over EPCOT, I wish I had taken a photo but alas I did not. Jeff got up, got ready next, and with a minute or two of free time we finished up two croissants that we had picked up at the Boardwalk Bakery the previous evening.

The next thing I knew I was calling down to Bell Services to pick up our bags, this actually was a relatively unusual situation. With Pop Century early in the trip, we had left our luggage in the room and bell services picked it up after we had left. Boardwalk wouldn’t do it, we had to be there for them to pick up the luggage (I wonder if it has anything to do with wanting a tip?) instead as we were on a time limit we pulled our luggage down to bell services, or rather Jeff did, while I returned the DVD we had picked up the previous night.

We meet back in the room, for one last look, I was depressed to leave that room it was so luxurious and amazing, I will never see a standard hotel room ever the same way again…
Thank you DVC.

We got in our car and headed for the front entrance of EPCOT, I still haven’t spilled what was up yet have I? Well I will leave you hanging no more. Two weeks prior to our trip Jeff and I had finally made the decision to book the tour of all WDW tours, the $200 tour I like to call it, otherwise known as Backstage Magic.

The reason I call Backstage Magic the $200 tour is relatively obvious its $200 PER PERSON, for a 7 hour Backstage tour of the four parks (yes I said four). I was hesitant to book the tour, you might assume because of the price but also because of some of the mild reviews I had read. However, we had been discussing taking this tour for about 5-6 years so this time seemed to be the perfect time.

Our group that we meet at the EPCOT entrance included 32 people on the tour that morning and two tour guides, Wayne and Monica. Our guide was Wayne, and he lead our group, which was about 15-16 people total. We were given headsets which proved indispensable allowing us to hear Wayne even if we were in the back of the group.

Before I had signed up for the tour I had read a few reviews, and some of them were not the best. However, what I seemed to get from the reviews is that sometimes people don’t really want to see the “guts” of how everything works, they want the magic, and want to ride rides. There was no riding on this tour unlike Keys to the Kingdom, but that was just fine with us. Jeff and I have worked at our local amusement park for what is now a combined 23 years (and we are going back for more!), we are interested in how rides are pulled apart, refurbished, and how they run behind the scenes. For that reason this review will be very detailed, and if you don’t want the magic spoiled I would recommend you skip the next few paragraphs.

SPOILER ALERT********************************************

We climbed on our motor coach home for the next 7 hours, (yes it was a 7 hour tour! Why else would it be $200?) our first stop after riding behind the scenes, including seeing the backside of Test Track (not near as cool as the back side of water though), we stopped behind the American Adventure. I had read about this, and as I really enjoy this attraction I was very excited to finally see how all those animatronics work, and function as part of the show. Interesting enough at EPCOT the back areas, while very clean, are functional, and un-themed. Wayne mentioned that when the EPCOT resorts (Boardwalk/Beach Club, etc) were built this caused a problem, requiring that they not only plant a tree barrier to hide the unattractive, unthemed, back area, but they also chose to minimally theme some of the upper levels of the back area buildings. Reasoning, these "back areas" were now not entirely "back areas" and had become visible from the new resorts being built. While it’s a human touch that the big shots at Disney didn’t realize that one point until after the resorts were built, (five legged goat anyone?). I also think its a testament to how truly concerned Disney is with detail, that they fixed what is basically a view from a few balconies almost a mile away.

So back to the American Adventure, we learned that they test the show twice before the park opens. We were to see the show from the backside. There is no way I can fully explain how the animatronics function, and as we couldn’t take photos. Well no photos. However, if you think about a roller coaster, all 26 full-size animatronics are enclosed in their own steel structure and then mounted all together on one giant steel "car". When the show starts each time, the "car" then rolls BELOW the audience like a coaster train (in a way). During the show each character raises and lowers as their scene is played. It was massive, and surprising, I had no idea that the show actually sat below the audience! Very cool.

After watching about the first five minutes of the show, we headed back out to the empty World Showcase, while our tour guide explained some details in the construction of the various buildings (force perspective, that type of thing). Jeff and I were called in to serve as dummies, one comparing a short person and one comparing a tall person. I wonder which was which?

We soon boarded the bus again, and headed towards Magic Kingdom. Now most of us know about the new Bay Lake Tower DVC that was built, and Jeff and I feel in love with it so much that we bought in, so its rather personal for us. Wayne made a quick comment that I found funny, of course Bay Lake Tower’s acronym is BLT (like the sandwich) well I guess the cast members had decided that if there was a BLT, then the main Contemporary Tower would be the Toaster.  It sort of looks like one, come to think about it…

Anywho, we pulled into the back area of Magic Kingdom, and headed down for a quick tour of the Utiladors, (for those who don’t know Magic Kingdom, the park is actually on the 2nd floor, the 1st floor is and underground tunnel that contains basic behind the scenes operations, these are known as the Utiladors). This short portion of the tour was very much like what we had seen on Keys to the Kingdom, however I liked the point about the large suction trash tube that runs the length of the ceiling (keep in mind trash cans are straight above), ahh no more smelly dumpsters!

After Magic Kingdom, we boarded the bus once more and headed for the real back area, Central Shops. I had no idea these were covered on the tour, and we were excited to hear where we were headed, though I was worried if it might just be a quick drive by. Nope. We did drive by the Monorail/Steam Train round (square) house, and the holidays warehouse, which had several parts of various Christmas trees outside waiting for packing.

We stopped outside the massive Central Shops. For those that have been to a regular Six Flags, or Worlds of Fun, Central Shops was as large as practically the entire park itself! This is were all the rides, ride units, animatronics, signs, and basically anything that requires painting, maintenance, electric, or metal work gets worked on. Every park I have ever been to has a Central Shop, and really Central Shops at WDW seemed just a much LARGER, CLEANER, more maintained, more detail oriented version of what every other park has. Just better. MUCH better.

While visiting we had to wear safety glasses, for obvious reasons. While there we had the chance to pass by a carousel horse being repainted, and I found it amazing that the Magic Kingdom park has fiberglass copies of their horses, so that when they are repairing the real classic wood version, the guests never know.

Another amazing point, when we were there they were painting one of the dinosaur cars from Triceratop Spin at Animal Kindgom (basically a spin and puke ride). What took me a while to realize was that in order for Central Shops to be working on one of the dinosaur cars, they would have had to have a back up out in the park. Why this is so unusual (besides the extra cost involved) is that at most parks if they were needed to repair a ride unit the park would leave either an empty hole where the car would be, or the ride would be completely down for maintaince. In this case, nope. Disney has back up units for EVERY ride, even basic spinning rides! That's pretty amazing that they not only spend the extra cost just to protect the appearance and operation of one simple ride, but that they even consider the option.

So after Central Shops what more is there to see and do? Well as you might imagine we were both quite hungry, as it was now close to Noon, so our next stop was food! That morning we had been told lunch would be at Whispering Canyon and Wilderness Lodge, one of our favorite resorts, and favorite restaurants. (lunch is included with the tour price) While we had a moment of sadness when we discovered milkshakes weren’t included, the food was good as usual, plus we ran into one of our favorite servers Jeffro!

Back out on the bus after lunch our next stop was MGM for a look at park costuming. A few previous reviewers complained about this stop, mentioning it was basically what you see from the Backlot Tour at the park. I have to completely disagree. It was amazing that Disney creates costumes specifically for the actor playing that major character (Belle, Cinderella etc), and if that person should quit the costume isn’t re-altered, its destroyed. In the lobby area they had several ornate costumes on display as decoration (it was a real working area) including a heavily beaded costume from the Legend of the Lion King at Animal Kingdom, and one of my favorites, a costume from Tapestry of Nations. Inside the work area we got to see the seamstresses, and costume designers at work. This is where all costuming from Disney World, as well as the Disney Cruise line is designed and created. It was pretty amazing. I couldn’t help but think of our small costuming department at Worlds of Fun, and how Donna the head of WOF costuming since the park opened would love to have a work area like that!

After costuming we headed over to Tower of Terror, to check out briefly their small maintainance department (every major ride has its own crew dedicated to that ride or attraction) we had a chance to check out the Tower of Terror ride vehicle that was on stand by should another car go down for maintenance. Pretty neat to see the car up front, and see just how small the “track” really is as it basically just a simple copper wire imbedded into the ground.

We headed back to bus, and after a few minutes headed for one of our last stops, the back, back, back area of WDW, the greenhouses. It was interesting driving through natural Florida, and realizing that this was that 26,000 acres that you always read about! Wayne talked about the tree nursery they used to have for growing mature trees, and “back up” trees to replace more important thematic trees. This was started when WDW opened and there weren’t any tree farms in the vicinity to buy specific, or more mature trees. Now that that has changed, the tree nursery has pretty much been abandoned, and most of the remaining trees were used to fill in Animal Kingdom park.

The topiary Greenhouses were though one of the best parts of the tour. It was about a month before Flower and Garden festival (which Jeff and I have never attended though we would like to), and many of the large topiaries were near completion or had been completed already. Let me say, they were pretty amazing! We were able to take photos here, as they are on a different camera I will add them later. However, for those who have not been during F&G Festival, GO. Hopefully I will have the opportunity myself soon.

After hanging out around the greenhouses for a bit of time, we headed for the buses one more time for our last stop. Previously the tour had ended at Magic Kingdom I guess to see the floats for the mid-day parade. Instead of heading there we headed to the fourth Disney Park Animal Kingdom. Now Jeff and I had been behind the scenes of Animal Kingdom before when we had been working on a story on the park for our magazine. However, in this situation we stopped somewhere we had never been, at the float storage for the Animal Kingdom parade. Of all Disney parades this is one of the few I really like (the others being Tapestry of Nations and Main Street Electrical Parade), as the floats are so unique and fit into the Animal Kingdom theme so well. We got to see up close how each of the floats “worked” though most were pretty basic. After we headed out and met back up with our bus for the last time, it was closing in on 4PM, and time to head back to EPCOT. Overall, it was a very enjoyable tour, our tour guide Wayne was quite possibly one of the best tour guides we have ever had on any Disney tour, he was easy to listen to, and was incredibly informed!

**END SPOILERS****

As we left our bus in the EPCOT parking lot, we picked up our collectible pin, and headed for our car, left in the first line of cars so long prior. Overall, though the tour was incredibly expensive, and if we were to take it again for that reason it wouldn’t be for a long time. However, I would highly recommend the tour for anyone who has a real interest to see the inner “not so magical” workings of Disney World. It was great for us as we had worked at a park for many years ourselves, and both of us have always been interested in just how Disney does everything different, how they achieve such a great final product. Well now we know, atleast somewhat.

So after getting in our car, our next stop was obvious, it was to check in to our final home for the last two nights, a place I had been looking so forward to for two months after it became my Christmas present, the Polynesian. Overall I was underwhelmed with the entire experience, and overall quality. We had stayed there once before for one night, and that was magical, but the magic wasn’t entirely there the second time around as you will soon read.

We had done online check in a few days prior, and I was happy to find out that atleast part of our request, for Tokelau building was fulfilled, but not a high floor. I was okay with that, I wasn’t expecting to get every single one of my requests for all the places we stayed at, and in fact I think overall in the request department we did quite well. We had a bell services cast member who took us by golf cart to our room, we tipped him then checked out the room.

Now maybe it was because we had such an amazing experience at Boardwalk, with such a great room, and great view that maybe the comparison left me underwhelmed, but I don’t think that was entirely it. Of course the room did feel small compared to Boardwalk, but there was some significant wear and tear to the room too. Now a lot of families with small children stay at Polynesian, plus if you consider that many people don’t leave comments with the front desk about room problems I can understand some of the problems with our room.

However it was a downer considering how much we did pay for the room, for some $225 a night is a drop in the bank, for us it was a lot of money. In comparison though, Pop Century was honestly in MUCH better shape. The fan blowed the entire time, and white it wasn't too cold, it was definitely loud! There were holes and peeling wall paper in the bathroom, and when I say holes I am not saying holes in the wallpaper but entire dents in the dry wall itself. The woodwork was knicked in many places, and the desk lamp was either burnt out, or the electric outlet wasn’t working properly. Plus, our refrigerator went on the fritz and only worked about half the time we were there. All minor issues if taken by themselves, together though…

Anyway, we did enjoy our room, it was incredibly large compared to other basic resort rooms on Disney property, and the location couldn’t be beat. After checking out the room, we headed out to check out the shops, and stopped at Captain Cooks to use up our last Counter Service credit. I had the grilled cheese with pinapple for dessert, Jeff had the bacon cheeseburger. To be honest, the chips were very good, everything else… not so much. It seemed the cooks were trying to hard to be gourmet, with what is just basic food. A grilled cheese should be bread, cheese, and butter. Not a gourmet thing, a grilled cheese… I took a few bites and finished my meal with the chips, and pineapple.

After finishing up we noticed it was getting close to 6PM so we hurried towards the front of the lobby of Polynesian for the torch lighting ceremony. We arrived right as the ceremony was starting with the blowing of the conch shell. It was a quick show, but pretty cool, I especially enjoyed the fire dancer/eater. (with real fire!) We planned on heading back the next night for photos, unfortunately we didn’t make it, but it is definitly worth the time.

Our next decision was what to do with the rest of the evening, and we both decided to head for the Magic Kingdom for Wishes fireworks. Now as we headed back to our room somehow we got caught up with stopping at the DVC booth, I think it was to maybe ask about BLT pins? Well to make a long story short (something I really need to work on!) we ended up having a nice conversion with Jennifer the DVC sales lady, and amazingly ended up with a coveted (for me atleast) BLT pin! Multiple thanks to Jennifer and for all those looking at buying DVC, go see Jennifer at Polynesian to set up your tour! She’s wonderful as anyone with the name of Jennifer of course naturally is.

About 7PM we began our journey to the Magic Kingdom, we headed for the monorail which was pretty packed all the way there. We made it to the park in good time though, and after entering decided to camp out on Main Street USA and people watch for a bit as we waited to join the crowd in front of the castle. As the time drew near we got up and waited out about 15 minutes for the start of the show.

Pet peeve time, I hate it when at the last minute parents hoist their kids on their shoulders… GRRR there are adults behind you who would like to see the show too. (it probably frustrates me more then most as I am fairly short) Anyway. We thankfully had very few this time around, and come to think of it I think this might have been the first time we saw Wishes directly from in front of the castle. The show was AMAZING, we had seen Wishes from Tommorowland, Liberty Square bridge, Main Street USA, and California Grill, but nothing beats standing right there in front of the castle itself. Very magical, and to a certain extent I can understand why so many guests feel the way they do about Wishes.

After the show, we hung around the park for a bit, Jeff taking photos of the castle, the hub and most importantly Tommorowland, which looks its best at night anyway. In fact we were there so long we actually were the last people to stand in Tommorowland that night. As the crowds had thinned out we headed back to the monorail, and back to Polynesian for the night.

Jan 2010 Disney Trip Report: Post II

2010-02-17T20:12:00.000-08:00

Tuesday 1/26/2010

Boardwalk in the morning

United Kingdom before World Showcase opens

Tangerine Cafe in Morocco

We slept in this morning, man that bed was comfortable! We got ready, and I put the towels in the washing machine to have clean towels for Wednesday. (One of the many perks of a 1-bedroom villa, washing machine and dryer!) We made it to EPCOT about 10:30AM. First decision of the day was what to eat as both of us were kind of hungry. First we thought UK Fish and Chips, but that wasn’t sounding great, so I began to think, and recommended the Moroccan Counter Service, Tangerine Café.

Several years prior we had tried Restaurant Marrekesh (The table service option in Morocco) and to make a long story short, it wasn’t a pleasant experience. So we had been cautious ever since. Well I am glad we tried Tangerine Cafe (the counter service in Morocco), it was excellent! I had the Shawarma Platter with Lamb and Chicken, Jeff had the Chicken Wrap. Both of us gave this two thumbs up. Definitely better then its neighboring Marrekesh. Plus Tangerine Cafe provides excellent quality for a great price, both on the DDP and not.
Mission: Space

A little live entertainment in Future World at EPCOT, the Jaminators.

Yes those are trash cans they are playing! They were great!

After eating we decided to head back to Future World, instead of walking though we took the friendship boat across the lake. We headed straight for Soarin' to grab a fast pass, but by the time we arrived (about Noon) fast passes we out to about 3PM or so, and as we had a Narcoosee’s reservation at 5:30PM we thought about just not worrying about riding Soarin’ that day. However, just as we were deciding what to do we had another sprinkling of pixie dust, a lady ran up and asked us if we wanted her two fast passes for Soarin' for that time, right then as they had a dining reservation to make. Something very similar had happened to us the year before and we couldn’t believe our luck! We went right on, waited about five minutes, and enjoyed Soarin' with a very quick wait (especially since stand by was about an hour at this time). Our next stop after Soarin’ was for a fast pass for Test Track, for about 2PM or so.

After acquiring a fast pass we pretty much lounged around Future World for the next hour or so. Jeff took some photos over by Mission Space while I checked out the landing moon. We are both interested in space flight and are both devastated by what is basically the moth balling of NASA by our president.

Almost as annoying as the real thing! Almost.

Nemo and friends on the Finding Nemo Ride at the Living Seas.

We next headed to the Living Seas, rode the clam mobiles, and spent a few minutes there admiring the various salt water creatures. We didn’t stay as long as we usually do though and left fairly quickly for our fast pass on Test Track.

Test Track, navigating one of the high speed turns.

Yep, that's the real speed.

Test Track by the time we reached it had about a 40-50 minute stand by wait, and the Fast Pass didn’t seem to help out as much as it usually does, it actually was about a 15-20 minute wait, which wasn’t too bad. Test Track was fun like usual, but we are still depressed that Disney hasn’t seen fit to fix some of the broken parts (such as the head on crash car) for the last several years.

Spaceship Earth's focus is on the history of communication. Here we have a Pharoah dictating to a scribe, using the world's first piece of paper. (papyrus)

Moving a little further in history, Guttenheim invents the movable type printing press.

Moving forward even further, a Telegraph operator.

Our last stop in EPCOT before heading out towards the Grand Floridian and Narcoosee's, was Spaceship Earth. What was so unusual is that while this was our second time in EPCOT this trip, it was our first time at the front of the park! As we were staying at an EPCOT resort, instead of entering at the front of the park like usual, we were entering at the International Gateway in World Showcase, which is actually in the back of the park. Spaceship Earth was good as usual (I love the people mover rides at EPCOT), and we sent an e-mail home to us with our cut out faces.

Our chariot (monorail) arrives.

It was about 3:30 or so, so after exiting Spaceship Earth and stopping briefly at the Art of Disney store we headed for the main exit and the monorail. The monorail took a few minutes to arrive, and we soon switched at TTC and headed for the Grand Floridian. We took a bit of time looking around the shops, and while doing so I spotted a pin on a Cast Member’s lanyard of a marching band Mickey. Now I had been in marching band for six years in High School/College so it was a perfect fit. I ran down to the sundries shop, picked out an inexpensive pin to trade, and two bottles of soda for Jeff and I. I ran back up to where the Cast Member was stationed and made the trade.

Remember how I had bought some soda for Jeff and I to drink before our ADR? Well this simple stop became the catalyst for the great Coke incident. After all this WAS our anniversary. So you are wondering what happened? We were relaxing on a sofa in the lobby, listening to the live band when Jeff, spilled, accidentally the remaining portion of his Coke all over his leg! (It wasn’t the whole bottle but still), Yeah, nice. To late to head back to our hotel, not enough time to let it fully dry out. Jeff headed to the bathroom to see what he could do to dry off the leg. Obviously there wasn’t much he could do there, so once he re-entered the world, we decided to head outside and take a walk hoping that would dry off his pant leg.

We headed outside, and it was a bit chilly but not bad yet. So we headed towards the Wedding Pavilion (where we were married eight years prior!) and then to the Polynesian. The beach was deserted, so we found a swing, and relaxed a bit. It was a beautiful, yet chilly evening.

Soon 5:15 rolled around and we figured we should wander back over to the Grand Floridian. I timed the walk as we would be making the same walk on Saturday morning when we would be staying at Polynesian, and walking to our ADR at 1900 Park Fare.

But tonight was our anniversary dinner at Narcoosee’s and when I made the ADR at 90 days I was unsure about the decision as Jeff is not a big seafood fan. However, I had read nothing but good reviews so we decided to give it a try. We arrived at the restaurant at about 5:30, waited a few minutes as the place was just opening. We were seated by a window looking out at the Magic Kingdom, which would have been the best seat in the house if we had been around for fireworks.

To start off, Jeff, being a very atypical Jeff decided to try to find a good wine. This is unusual for us as we are more beer and chips type people. Our waiter (I am guessing also a sommelier) recommended a white, semi-dry Fess Parker, $37 a bottle, I went with a mixed drink, which I don’t recall the name, except for the fact that it had sweet and sour mixture and coconut, which are both things that I enjoy. Both choices were quite good, and I tried a bit of Jeff’s wine, finding it not bitter at all, which is a problem I have with most wines.

Even though we were on the basic DDP we went next with an appetizer, the artisan cheeses (this was actually more for Jeff as he really enjoys cheese), one was a brie-like cheese, one more swiss-like and one a blue cheese. All were very good.

For our main course I still hadn’t decided, our waiter recommended mahi mahi, which I have never cared for (probably the ONLY fish I have never cared for) and then the scallops, which happen to be the only other seafood besides mahi mahi I don’t care for either! I instead went with my first intuition, the Surf and Turf, lobster tail and steak filet, I was a little worried about the reviews I had heard, but it turned out wonderful! I ate every little inch of the lobster tail, it may have been previously frozen but I certainly couldn’t tell. The filet mignon was good, and the Choron Sauce was excellent. I would give the steak four stars, about equal to what I gave Le Cellier last year. The only reason it is not five is because as good as the filet was it is still not as good as Hereford House here in Kansas City. The potatoes were just ok, nothing terribly special, but Jeff did seem to like them quite a bit.

Last was dessert, and this was a surprise upset for me, I was really looking forward to the Valhora Chocolate tart, it wasn’t on the menu. Instead both of us got our chocolate fix with a chocolate mouse, which while good (when is chocolate NOT good?) it wasn’t a warm chocolate cake with melted center. Oh well.

Overall I would have to say our experience at Narcoosee’s was good, our waiter was definitely satisfactory, he checked back with us often. Also once we received the check we noticed he had included our appetizer (the cheese sampler) as part of our dining plan, even though appetizers are no longer included in the basic Dining Plan. I don’t know if this was a mistake, or a little Disney magic, but I won’t question it!

The only negative I have about Narcoosee’s is the cost. As I mentioned earlier I found the quality of the food not that much better the Le Cellier, a 1-credit meal on the DDP. I understand the lobster brought my entrée up in price obviously, but Jeff just had the filet, and his was almost double the cost for the same thing in EPCOT. Overall I think the quality is good, but the price still seems to high for the quality delivered. A good deal on the DDP, otherwise I wouldn’t probably be back.

Illuminations (fireworks) view from our room!

When we left the restaurant it was about 7:30PM, and since we were about as far from our hotel without a car as we had ever been on Disney property we had to make the decision on how to get back to Boardwalk without a car. We had two choices, go back the way we came through EPCOT, or catch a bus from Magic Kingdom. As the chilly evening had turned to straight out cold (for me that is), we decided on the bus. We took the monorail from GF to Magic Kingdom, I really wanted to beat the fireworks crowds and we arrived at the bus stop at about 7:50. This was our longest wait for a bus from MK, about 10-15 minutes, still not bad. The first stop was Boardwalk and we got back to our room right about 8:30 or so. I turned on the TV, and watched for a bit, and then not long after, the fireworks started for Illuminations. We were able to see all the high fireworks, and surprisingly the top of the inferno barge. Overall it was a pretty nice view, seeing fireworks from our couch and all. It was a great end to the evening.

Wednesday 1/27/2010

Before the trip I had made very minimal plans, Wednesday was probably the ONLY day we had any specific plans on what park to visit, and that was based on our dining reservation at SCI-FI Diner (at MGM) for Noon. We got up pretty early that morning around 8:30 or so, and I got up first, got ready and then headed down to Boardwalk Bakery for a morning snack to tie us over. I picked up a chocolate chip muffin and a cinnamon roll for Jeff. Both were excellent. Boardwalk Bakery overall is pretty small and can be very cramped, but the quality is definitely worth it. It was a great use of a snack credit. Before leaving I again made the bed (I make the bed in our DVC unit every morning). We then headed out for MGM, and decided to walk as the boat stops at Swan/Dolphin/Beach Club and EPCOT before getting to MGM. It was a nice walk, and our room location probably helped make the walk quicker then it would usually be. It took about 15 minutes or so to get to MGM, and as we arrived, probably about 10:30, the entrance was backed up a bit. It took a couple of minutes to actually enter the park, I grabbed a schedule, and we headed to Midway Mania for a fast pass. Even though it was about 11AM our fast pass wasn't until 2:30 or so, that was for off season, on a “best day” park from the unofficial guide. The rides popularity still surprises me.

Just monkeying around at Pixar Place at MGM Studios. (Barrel of Monkey's 200X their normal size)

One of the green army guys. These guys were a hoot!

Lexar, the Pixar Lamp. If you don't know who this guy is.... welll.... go watch a Pixar movie.

Work it.

After grabbing our fast pass we lingered a bit near the attraction to see Lexar, the Pixar lamp. Very cute mini-show. I think some people had no idea what was going on though! Next, we headed over the Streets of America to catch one of our favorite park live entertainment shows, Mulch Sweat and Shears. Jeff is a big 80’s rocker and well, I just like the music! It still amazes me that Disney can come up with such simple, but unique live entertainment options, that if you really think about I aren’t that expensive to put on! I mean trash cans? Marching band uniforms? A truck with landscaping materials attached to the back? Really, any park could afford to pull it off, but only Disney seems to realize the final product and pull it off.

Mulch, Sweat and Shears!

Extreme close up!

This guest is REALLY getting into the action!

From Streets of America we headed over to the shops by the exit for the Backlot Tour (which we had tried the previous year and were quite depressed to see the level to which it had dropped to), I went directly the plush for the Pixar films. The previous year I had become enamored with Wall-E and after seeing the Wall-E and Eve plush practically everywhere at Walt Disney World, I still decided not to purchase either. Bad idea, this year, when I actually wanted to buy one, I couldn't find them anywhere! The clerk pointed me to the AFI shop, and we headed there and first checked out the exhibits. Amazing unlike the Backlot Tour the AFI exhibits are kept relatively updated. I also found a selection of Wall-E plush. It was about $9.95 so I figured I would think about it and maybe come back later.

It was now about 11:30 so we had time for about one more attraction, I of course choose one of my favorites, Muppet Vision 3D, I was a child during the tail end of the Muppet’s shows, so Muppet Vision for me is pretty much a can’t miss attraction. It never grows old. However, it could maybe use some updating to modern 3D. We checked out the shop briefly and then headed for Sci-Fi Diner.

The interior of Sci-Fi Diner

Hmmm.... I wonder who these people are.

Sci-Fi seems to be like an every five years restaurant for us. Last time we ate here was only a year or two after our wedding in Jan 2002, and as both of us like old science fiction movies, it sounded like fun. Plus I had been wanting to go back for awhile. Overall, it probably will take another 5-6 years to get back to Sci-Fi again. It is fun, the atmosphere simply can’t be beat, (love the campy sci-fi previews and pop corn & snacks heading to the snack bar!) but the food is average at best.

For our entrée’s I had the Shrimp Pasta, Jeff played it safe with the Angus Chuck burger. Overall as I mentioned the food was pretty average, though the Shrimp Pasta was actually quite good, lots of shrimp and it had good flavor with the olives and spinach. The only flaw that I had with it… was that I couldn’t really see it. Literally, I had to fumble around with the fork and had no idea really what was on the fork until it hit my mouth.

For dessert I had the hot fudge sundae, Jeff had the peanut butter fudge cake. I had thought about the peanut butter cake, but the ice cream really called out to me and I am glad I chose what I did. The peanut butter cake was almost hard as a rock, and I kind of felt bad for Jeff. The hot fudge sundae, which Jeff helped me finish was GREAT. That hot fudge sundae was the best thing there at Sci-Fi, plenty of hot fudge, and for me that is the defining aspect of a good hot fudge sundae.

Service again was fairly average, no long waits between refills, but nothing that made our waitress stand out. It was pretty busy so I imagine that had something to do with it. Last, they were taking walk ins but I am glad I had an ADR as walk ins were being seated at the round picnic tables at back, and they had LONG waits.

After leaving Sci-Fi we headed for the coffee shop/book store that is attached to Sci-Fi, it is one of my favorite shops, and we found an Imagineeers Guide DVD to Magic Kingdom. Of course we had to have THAT. Plus the 20% AP discount that we had discovered earlier that week came in quite handy!

A mock up of Walt Disney's office how it looked back in the day.

A model of the Sleeping Beauty Castle (aka the Putt Putt Castle) at Disneyland in California.

A model of one of the two TWA rockets. One was at Disneyland (and I believe still is) the other is still at the top of the TWA building in Kansas City.

This was new this year, its a model of the gangster scene as part of the Great Movie Ride.

After leaving the store we were left with the decision on what to do? We were walking by One Man’s Dream, and since this is another tradition for us, we headed there. I was thrilled to see some updates, adding designs and models from the design of MGM Studios, as the park was quietly celebrating its 20^th anniversary. (I had no idea until then). The movie was unchanged but definitely good, full of lots of warm and fuzzy moments. I personally will never forget the one man who started it all.

About that time our Fast Pass time was up so we headed to Midway Mania, with our Fast Pass the wait was less the five minutes. Midway Mania was simply fun, but one thing that got me thinking later was that Midway Mania seems relatively simple for Disney standards. We really haven’t seen a new Pirates of Carribbean or Haunted Mansion style ride (super headliner) since the the 90’s, Eisner Era. I guess I should further clarify, a super headliner that continues to operate LIKE a super headliner. Everest doesn’t count, as you will soon read.

The Great Movie Ride!

The Great Movie Ride is a collection of animated scenes (through use of animatronics) of various movies through the years. Here we have a scene from Mary Poppins.

The Wicked Witch of the West.

First we saw the model, now the real thing. The underworld in the Great Movie Ride.

Anyway, off my soap box. So after Midway Mania, we again had the decision, What to do? Jeff was wanting The Great Movie Ride, so that’s were we went, even though I think Great Movie Ride should be the next candidate for a major ride rehab. It’s a great classic ride and always fun. We spent quite a bit of time afterward checking out the handprints after the ride. I have never done that before believe it or not.

Disney's re-creation of the Chinese Mann's Theater. Here is is the entrance to the Great Movie Ride.

Last attraction we decided for the day was The Animation Tour, like the Backlot tour we hadn’t taken this tour for about 4-5 years, so it was about time. I remember when the tour had a real artist talking to you about the tradition and process of Animation. Of course that ended almost 10 years ago, Now we have Mushu, and still a live host. It was pretty cute, and served its purpose I guess. Plus I did find it interesting that they actually added live artists back to the walkway out of the theater. I am not sure if they are just actors, or real animators working on real projects, but I guess it adds a bit of “realism” even though I thought all Florida animation was moved out years ago too?

Usually we would walk past the character meet and greet area, but Mickey was there, and it seems both of us had a boost in “dealing with characters” moral, Before it just seemed wrong I guess for two adults to get their photo with a character. Now I really wanted that picture with Mickey, after all he is my favorite character (that and Mulan) So we got in line, and I got my photo!

We ran into these Streetmosphere actors performing an informal comic skit. The basic premise is a group of street workers on break, and one brings Meow Mix and tries to hawk it off as Trail mix.

By this time it was getting towards late afternoon/evening, maybe about 4:30 or so, so we headed back down Hollywood Blvd. We stopped for a bit to watch one of the street skits (I think that's were they moved the folks from Adventure's Club), they were absolutly hilarious! Plus I got picked on, which almost never happens to me. At that point we decided to head towards the exit, we checked out a few of the shops, and of course stopped at Sid’s at front, that’s home to all the autographs, movie memorabilia etc.

Before we headed out I was surprised Jeff hadn’t wanted to ride Tower of Terror, supposedly one of his favorite rides. That’s the thing though, we would be back, if not this year, next year. Great thing about DVC #235.

So we headed back to Boardwalk, arrived back probably about 5:30 or 6, and watched the Imagineers DVD we had purchased. Since it was Wednesday night and I had only used the tub once, plus I had been inundated this trip with blisters, I decided to take a bath. I used the Mr. Bubble I had brought with me, and let me tell you nothing feels better. That spa tub was worth the thousands of dollars we had spent on DVC all by itself.

About 7PM or so we headed downstairs to check out a few of the shops, I had become obsessed with finding a nice Disney hoodie this trip. My old Disney jacket from 8 years ago was starting to wear out and the zipper wasn’t working the greatest. We started in the Dundy’s Sundries, inside of the Boardwalk lobby, it closed at 9PM and I knew it had the DVC merchandise. I tried on the DVC fleece, and it didn’t look so great. However if you remember the comment about pin trading, this is where the spark turned into a flame. The cast members pulled out their panel of pins available for trading, and there were two that we liked. Usually if we find one or two on an entire trip to trade, that’s normal, we buy a $6 pin and trade. Well after yesterday and now today we figured why not buy a 7 pack of (cheap) pins and trade for them? Wouldn’t that be fun? Yeah it was. I ended up with the Mickey ghost I had been coveting and the DDP hidden mickey pin.

At about 7:30 PM we figure we would head to EPCOT this time for Illuminations, which is my favorite fireworks at Disney. We left close to 8PM, and walked towards the Italy pavilion looking for a spot, as it was about 8:20 or so by the time we arrived. We also had a counter service to blow, even though neither of us were terribly hungry. (I figured we probably would be later on though and didn’t want to be starving in the middle of the night). We thought about the China pavilion, but I thought we didn’t have enough time, so instead we looked around a few of the shops while waiting on fireworks. About 8:45 we went out to scope out a spot. Amazingly that night the Italy isola was not being used that night for a private party, and since we consider that the best view of Illuminations, we considered ourselves lucky and found a spot on the railing there and waited out a few minutes for Illuminations to begin. It was a great show as always, I especially love the raining white fireworks at the very end, never fails to amaze me!

After Illuminations and exiting EPCOT I thought it would be a great idea to head to Beach Club Marketplace. Everyone seemed to mention that it was a good choice for Counter service in the Boardwalk area (actually one of the ONLY CS options). As you will soon read the experience was far from exemplirary. In fact for us the only redeeming quality of the Beach Club Resort seems to have is Beachs and Cream, as otherwise we seem to have really bad luck with the Yacht/Beach Club restaurants.

However, I wanted clam chowder, and as I wasn’t too hungry (plus it was already Wednesday night) I no problem “wasting” a CS credit on a $4 cup of soup, soda and fruit tart. Overall it was pretty good, but I have had much better clam chowder before. So I don’t think it was worth the drama. I thought Jeff might get a sandwich, but next thing I knew he had sat down looking quite upset, and with nothing to show for it. I asked what had happened. Jeff not liking the type of bread on the sandwich asked if it could be changed, now I knew the sandwiches were pre-made, I think he did too, but it really does never hurt to ask right? Wrong. They guy behind the counter from what Jeff told me was quite rude about it. Jeff, had what I like to call a “Six Flags” moment, very unusual for Disney (not so unusual for Beach/Yacht Club though). So he sat there while I finished my soup, we looked around in the shop for a bit, and then headed for the Boardwalk to try to find something for Jeff.

We stopped by Boardwalk Bakery, and Jeff picked out a turkey/swiss sandwich, with a bag of chips. We ended up splitting it back in our room, and it was quite good, especially the bread, which seemed very fresh. (even though it was also pre-made). In the end I think what we should have done was just both stop there instead of even going anywhere near Beach Club, the food, honestly was better overall, and the customer service was what I expected from Disney.

While at the Boardwalk Bakery we had also picked up 2 croissants for breakfast the next morning and headed to the room. I threw some laundry in while we finished off the special features on the Last Samurai DVD we had started at the beginning of the stay. Jeff took a bath afterward, while I read a bit, and we went to bed pretty late that evening.

Jan 2010 Disney Trip Report: Post I

2010-02-15T19:12:00.000-08:00

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.

2010-01-12T15:18:00.000-08:00

Pre-Trip Report III

So here we are, 11 days out! WHOO!!! Freedom sweet freedom is less then 2 weeks away! Since my last post there have been lots of changes, and lots of weather. It all started Christmas eve when “THE storm” hit, and it kept goiiinnngg. Just like the energizer battery bunny. Snow, then more snow, then more snow, then EVEN more snow! ACK. To top it off it was COLD! For over two weeks non-stop. I can’t wait to see a place with no snow. Its supposed to be in the 70’s down in Florida when we are there.

So does Florida sound nice? You better believe it!

Now as far as changes. Lots of them. First, AT&T announced their plans to change our schedule to 8-5 Monday through Friday. Sounds good? No working Saturdays? Easier to take a night class? Somehow I think that AT&T is not just being nice. I hope they are but not drinking their wine.

When the schedule changed though it meant that IF I keep my job (hopefully), that I will not have to use as much vacation, you know for Saturdays off. So I made the decision to fly out earlier on Saturday, get out of the stop in Milwaukee finally, and booked us on the 12PM outbound, non stop to Orlando. Since then that has changed to the 3:15 PM flight. My gosh I have changed my flight THREE times! Whats wrong with me?

The flight price did go up $115 one way to Florida (that seems so high), but our rental car has gone down, its now at $106 with tax for 9 days. Pretty good I think. I don’t expect any lower. I was doing the happy dance a few days ago when that went down!

I also went through with the plans to book a value resort for Saturday night, we are staying there for $59 a night before tax, Disney will move our bags for us, and its less expensive then the Tampa hotels.

I haven’t booked any tours for our trip, I am hoping to finally rent a water mouse (sea racyer) at the Polynesian, I think we will play that one by ear. Kind of like my plans for Typhoon Lagoon.

Last but certainly not least is the college class condendrum. On our last program I had enrolled in the online version of Intermediate Algebra. Well last night (Monday) I went online and looked at the syllabus, course work, etc. Uhhh.. I guess I forgot a lot more then I thought I did! So back to the drawing board, not what I was wanting to do AT ALL. However this morning I dropped Immediate Algebra, and enrolled in Beginning Algebra, Monday and Wednesday 6:30-7:45 at Maple Woods. I have to thank AT&T and their schedule change for making this even possible. To be honest… it probably was for the best that what transpired, happened the way it did. If I had stayed enrolled in Beginning Algebra the way I was originally scheduled I would have had to change anyway (it was originally 8-9AM in the morning). It looks a little simple from the book at first but I think that will get me back into doing the harder math that I have’t done in 13 years!

Disney Pre-Trip Report Post II

2009-12-21T17:04:00.001-08:00

It was not to be. You guessed it, no online classes. That night I spent hours considering different options, moving the trip to the 1st of January, moving to a Wednesday – Tuesday trip (so that I would only miss one class), etc. Finally I went to bed at 1AM that morning with a massive headache. My husband tells me I worry to much, and I have to agree. I called the next morning to Member Services and they did have Fri/Sat available for the BWV standard view, I didn’t take it, and I am glad I didn’t. A few days later, after some serious research I decided to take a different class. Intermediate Algebra. After researching the nursing program a bit more I found out about a test I would have to take that involved a lot of advance math. I had been having a few problems in Chemistry this semester with very basic algebra, it had been 16 years since I had taken it… disaster averted. November 2nd came for enrollment, I was enrolled in Algebra. I hope I do as good this time as I did way back in 1996!

After one disaster was averted I was back to full planning mode. I had made dining reservations on October 26th (using the original plan of attack), right now we have still not decided on the Dining Plan or not… It seems by the math I am working that it is still a pretty good deal, the jury is still out though as the Boardwalk area is not heavy in counter service options. Oh the horror of having to decide on what to eat!

I am sure I will re-organize numbers until I am blue in the face. A few weeks later, after the “college class fiasco” I received $200 on my AT&T rewards card, figuring it was a great time to book plane tickets that’s exactly what I did. Flying down Saturday Night, Jan 23rd, and flying back Sunday Jan 31st, outbound we stop in Wisconsin, coming back is NS, I am waiting on the NS on Jan 23rd to open up for a decent price we shall see.

So where are we now? Free plane flights, pre-paid hotel room (I love DVC!), AP rates for the last two nights, wow its over 2 months out and I almost completely planned out! How did I ever change from a by the seat of my pants to an over obsessive uber planner?

Here we are now, barely a month out, much has changed, much has not. Still flying out on that Wisconsin flight, I can’t believe the prices have not gone down one bit! NS is now $169 ONE WAY on Southwest if we didn’t want to fly into Milwaukee. I hate Milwaukee, especially in JANUARY. Yikes. That much hasn’t changed.

I have enrolled in my College Algebra online course, that starts Jan 11th, joy. I hated Algebra the first time, I don’t imagine much has changed… :P

I have since my last report also rented our car, it started at $180 right now I have it down to $146, which is a pretty good drop, but again no where near last years $96! Oh well it is one more day, so I figured it would be a little more.

The biggest change, I am SO EXCITED about! Jeff has asked me what I wanted to Christmas, and I had no idea. Then FINALLY queue the Hallelujah Chorus the regular AP rates came out! So how is that related to my xmas present from Jeff? Actually they are pretty linked. Here’s the deal. AP rates come out end of November, the CBR room had gone down in price from $119 to $107, but I also noticed something else. Polynesian was lower then it has been in a decade, $200 a night. Yeah living the caviar lifestyle on a beer budget. I know I know. Disney trips are my one and only splurge though, I don’t spend hundreds (or thousands) on clothing every year, don’t live in a big massive house, and taco bell is my usual dine out option. (after all where else can you get a decent meal under $3? Okay decent is debatable). We had stayed at Polynesian years before, one night in 2003, and it was beyond beautiful, plus it was on the monorail line, gotta love that. Did I mention I loved the theme? South seas… in Florida.

So I discussed the options with Jeff, he was intrigued, but agreed to stay with the more rational (affordable) option at CBR. The little wheels in Jeff’s head though had begun to spin and I was in the dark, like usual. So about two weeks ago he comes out with door #3. What if we upgraded to Polynesian and that was my Christmas present? I loved that idea! Christmas is only three days from now and I still love the idea! So early Saturday December the 12th morning, as I was waking up to go to work (yuck), he tells me to book the Polynesian. I was on a high, but with a high, also comes a low, and I had the aweful thought that Poly wouldn’t be available, after all it was $200 a night, but for Poly that is a great rate.

So I called Disney… I asked if Polynesian was available for Jan 29-31st. First they offered me Magic Kingdom view… not likely to have that kind of money anytime soon! So I asked cautiously if Garden View (the cheapest Poly view) was available. Someone must really like me, because it was available. I was giddy, I was super excited, yes I was happy, like an 8 year old at 3AM on Christmas morning, seeing the pile of presents under the tree happy. I called Jeff, who was already on his way to work, and told him the news.

Jeff never gets excited he says that’s my family nitch, I get excited enough for both of us. I guess that’s true. Next I had to decide what area of the resort to request. After much searching, reading unofficial sites (love those), I decided on Tokealau, 3rd floor as some say it has partial views of the Lagoon and Magic Kingdom. Keeping my fingers crossed. Oh well, I am happy we are going, I am happy with where we are staying, I am just happy in general.

I skipped an important part in this trip report. See early December Jeff and I (as part of the American Coaster Enthusiasts) host Coaster Christmas, a regional event at Silver Dollar City. This year, despise the cold, and just being five short months after the national Coaster Con had been in town we had a decent turn out, 41 people. A good friend of ours Matt was also in attendance (well we haven’t seen Matt for awhile because he now has a girl friend), and that significant other was part of my little addendum here. See they were going down to Orlando too, and they were arriving on Jan 29th, 2 days before we were scheduled to leave L

We discussed the possibility of meeting up Saturday night for dinner, well shortly thereafter dinner turned to breakfast, and we all decided on 1900 Park Fare at the Grand Floridian. It will be my first character meal, I am excited about that too. Turns out Jeff is too. Who knew? That should be fun, and guess what, Grand Floridian is not only walkable distance from the Polynesian, but its also only one monorail stop OVER from Polynesian. It just so happened to work out peeerrffecctlly. *evil laugh*

So here we are 33 days out, (yes I count), I have a rental car, which I am now not even sure I need, we still have no hotel room for Saturday night, but hotels for every other night, dining reservations, and I have just spent the unholy amount that I will not even mention to renew Jeff’s Annual Pass, hey its for 15 months now, it’s a good deal right? ($366 BTW) I am just getting a regular park hopper ticket when we get down there.

So between now and Jan 23rd I am left with a few decisions to make. First I still have to decide on the Dining Plan or not.. I am thinking not as the counter service options at Boardwalk are not exactly overflowing. I also still have to book a hotel night for Saturday and I am looking at probably a value resort at Disney. Why? When we are going to Tampa and Busch Gardens on Sunday? Easy Tampa hotels are $100 a night, Disney is $54 a night. Why does this matter when I am paying $200 a night for Polynesian? Because deep down…. Way deep down I am always looking for the best deal. I also have to get a decision out of Jeff on whether to do any of the tours or not… probably not we have so much else scheduled, but we will see.

Pre-Trip Report for January Disney Trip Part I

2009-10-30T14:29:00.001-07:00

I solemnly swear that this trip report will NOT be as long as last years. Well we will see where that goes!

Every year (well almost) my husband Jeff and I head to WDW for our anniversary, this year 2010 will be no different. Several years ago, actually right after we were married I took over the planning duties, and since then Jeff has pretty much gone along for the ride. I tell him planning is part of the fun! Three years ago Jeff and I joined Disney Vacation Club (DVC) and have added on points twice since then, quadrupling our original “tiny” contract. We have 100 points now. So last year, after returning for our 2009 trip I starting thinking about this year. There were a lot of options we threw around, but Jeff was absolutely sure that he wanted to stay in a 1-bedroom. 1-Bedrooms are huge suites with whirlpool tubes, living rooms, king beds and washer and dryers. Yep guess which one is his favorite? So I began looking at options.

We would have at the time of booking 100 points, (borrowing for the next year included), not a lot of options for that, pretty much two, Old Key West, Boardwalk Villas Standard View. Now OKW is okay, but I had been wanting to stay at BWV for years, its themed after a turn of the century amusement park-boardwalk. Right up our alley! However, as we owned at OKW we would have to call at 7 months out. I also knew that standard views, being so economical on points were VERY hard to get. Atleast that’s what I had heard.

For a check in on Jan 24, 2010 our 7 month window opened on June 24th, 2009. For those that are familiar that we right smack dab in the middle of ACE Coaster Con! Another event we had been looking forward to for years. ACE Coaster Con is the largest conference of the American Coaster Enthusiasts during the year. Its always one week, starting on Father’s Day, and this year it was in Branson and Kansas City! So as you might imagine as regional reps for the area we were quite busy building up to the event and during it. Literally once it was all over I needed a vacation from my “vacation”.

It was a great event, we had a blast, and I think all 350 other ACER’s did too, highlighting it all was the fact that the week of June 24th was the hottest week of the year, with temps hovering around 100 F all week! I promise folks it is NEVER that hot during that time of year. I felt so bad! But it made it very memorable. June 24th actually feel right in the middle of the week, a Wednesday. So in the middle of the hottest week of the year, after several days of going to bed at 1AM – 2AM and getting back up at 7AM, I woke up early for the sole reason to plan a vacation at WDW 7 months later. Yep, nuts.

So out on the deck of the hotel, 8AM in the morning I prepared to call Member Services. I am a pretty pessimistic person so I was pretty sure getting that BWV standard view was not in the cards. I called, got right through (amazing!) and was connected to a great Cast Member. Sadly I don’t remember his name, but I told him my dates, what I wanted and he put me on hold to check availability. You want to talk about 30 seconds seeming like eons? He came back on the line, I held my breath…. BWV standard view, Jan 24 – Jan 29th was available! I snatched it up, was booked, everything was right with the world.

Or so I thought.

You see at this time I had just started my first semester of a hoped for nursing degree from Penn Valley Community College in Kansas City. I was taking an online class, Human Lifespan Development at this time, and having glanced at the previous spring’s schedule felt I was safe with taking an online class at the same time as the January 2010 trip. Yep you know what’s going to happen.

I am just going to leave you hanging though.

Before that bridge came tumbling down I had one more milestone to cover. The room reservations for Friday and Saturday night. At DVC resorts Fridays and Saturdays are higher point nights, so for the last trip, and this trip we had to spend those nights paying cash. Usually we will book these nights under and Annual pass discount rate, so the waiting began… and I waited and I waited and I waited.

I was about to enter the Twilight Zone, Disney Purgatory if you will. The dreaded pin codes. In the past, for the last 10 years mind you, Disney has released AP room-only discounts available to all AP holders. You called, made your reservation and had an AP ready to show at check in. Simple right? For some reason in one of the worst economy’s, Disney instead of released an AP discount for ALL AP holders, they sent out SELECT e-mails, with a PIN for an AP rate. You couldn’t reserve at AP room rate without the code. I was heated, I still AM heated about this situation. I think its abusing their most “valued” customers.

The first e-mails went out Friday night, I spent a few days stressing, calling Disney, and e-mailing Disney complaining about the policy. Finally, on one last attempt, last ditch effort I called Disney to ask if we had a PIN attached to our name, and that maybe, possibly, we hadn’t received the e-mail. I again didn’t have much faith. (remember the glass half empty discussion earlier at BWV?) Luck shinned on me, once again, and we had a pin code! I was beside myself! I even remember the CM’s name, Greenleigh, who even listened to me vent about the whole situation, and didn’t seem to mind. Now mind you I am still upset about the whole handling of the situation, requiring a pin code, when I still firmly believe no pin code should be required. I think maybe they should start requiring check in Cast Members at the resorts to start checking for Annual Passes… Anyway that’s another argument for another day.

I booked our first choice which was at the Carribbean Beach Resort, king bed room, $134 with tax (the only place I would pay so much for basically a motel style room!), and we had a place to sleep for almost the entire trip. (excluding arrival night but I won’t book that until a few weeks out)

So we had rooms, but I hadn’t booked the plane tickets, car, etc yet, (we usually wait until about two months out for those), things are going good, I am planning the dining options, and you know this is always when the floor falls out…. Man did it. October 22nd, schedules are released for the MCCKC (Metropolitan Community College of Kansas City), I was ready to schedule for Anatomy and Physiology for Spring semester, hybrid online class. These had been in the schedule for the last few semesters and I thought this would work great.

Anniversary Trip 2009 Part 2

2009-02-10T20:33:00.000-08:00

Wednesday 01/28/2009

This was the first day of the trip that we had absolutely nothing planned, no parks, and no ADRS zip zilch. Jeff had wanted to get back to MGM for Lights Motor Action stunt show again so that he could bring his big camera for photos, so we decided that was the plan for the day. We got up rather early this morning (early is a relative term), about 8:30-9AM, got ready and drove to MGM, this was the last time in the trip we used the car for getting to a park. We arrived at about 10:30 grabbed a park schedule and figured out our plan of attack.

We knew that the first stunt show wasn't until about 1:30 or so, so we had plenty of time to kill. We had done Toy Story Mania on our previous trip in November, so while it wasn’t a high priority on our first visit on Sunday we figured it was fun so we should fit it in today. So our first trip was over to Toy Story Mania for fast passes, it was about 11Am but we weren't able to get fast passes until about 4pm! It would be one of the few attractions that needed a fast pass this time of year. With fast passes in hand, we headed off to an attraction we visit on every trip, One Man's Dream. By this time it had limited hours and had found out on Sunday that it closed at 3PM. We both truly enjoy this small attraction and of course sat for the movie at the end. I personally think this is one of the most overlooked attractions at Disney world as a whole. For after all none of it would be there if it wasn't for that one man. After the show we both decided we were getting hungry and it was about an hour and half before the Stunt show time, so that gave us plenty of time to find something to eat.

We had counter service credits to spend but at MGM those are few and far between (plus the quality is always well... iffy quality) I never realized that I had eaten so little Counter Service at MGM, mostly if I have eaten at MGM (which has never been often) it was at a table service! In November though we had eaten at ABC Commissary and found it to be decent so we headed there as it was right around the corner anyway. Last time, I had wanted the Cuban sandwich but they had ran out by the time of day we visited, this time it was earlier so I knew what I was getting. I ordered the Cuban sandwich with apple slices and chocolate mouse, Jeff ordered the cheeseburger (any surprise?) and chocolate mouse. I don't think he ordered to Cuban because it had ham and for some reason he doesn't like ham. (Weird in my book) We were both given large size coke and diet coke.

I greatly enjoyed the Cuban sandwich, and LOVED the pickles (I am a pickle person), it tasted somewhat panini-like, but had more flavor I think. Apples well they were apples. Jeff thought his cheeseburger was ok, about the same as everywhere in Disney, but did taste my Cuban and thought it was good. (See told yah!). Feeling very full I only ate about half the chocolate mouse and gave the rest to Jeff. Did I mention the dining plan is a LOT of food yet?

After eating we headed over in the direction of Lights Motor Action, we were quite early (we knew we wanted to get there 30 minutes before show time for good seats), but had to wait for the gates to open so we caught about five minutes of the High School Musical show that was preempted there from their sorcerer's hat location.

About twenty minutes before show time they let the group of us waiting for the 1st show into the stadium, and we choose to go to the left side, about 1/3 of the way up. It was a great view, and great for photos. The show though... did I mention that we broke rides? Remember Soarin' and American Adventure on Monday? Well that luck followed us to MGM and Lights Motor Action. The first segment, the ballet I think is what it is called; the red "hero" car broke down about half way through the segment! This briefly caught the host off guard, but they switched out the cars in a few minutes and started over with "take 2". All was well and good until the very end, the last stunt where the "hero" car flies down a ramp and then jumps through the flames (it’s used for the logo of the show)? This worried us a bit, as the car came off the jump it appeared a little crooked, and after the car entered the tunnel, everyone on the "shoot" came to a standstill, and the show quickly and abruptly ended. What we heard just a bit later is that the car had crashed through the main exit/entrance tunnel. We worried about the driver, but as nothing was ever announced and nothing was in the news it sounds like he was ok and with the later 4PM show going on as planned, it seemed that what happened may have been relatively minor. We do hope that the driver was okay though.

After exiting the theater (which took awhile longer as they did not allow use of the main exit/entrance tunnel), we stood around outside of the theater, watched as reddie creek fire dept showed up and an ambulance (why we were worried!), it seems that most people didn't realize how unusually brief the ending of the show was. Finally, figuring we weren't going to find anything out, and figured everything seemed okay anyway, we headed back out to the rest of the park. Our first stop was one of my favorites, Muppet Vision 3D, then we headed back to Toy Story Mania for our fast pass time. When I first rode Toy Story in November it caught me off guard as I didn't quite know what to expect, it made the 2nd time that much more fun. While I don't consider it an E-ticket like Tower of Terror it still is a fun ride, and after all not every ride needs to be an E-ticket. With that being said our next stops were the E-tickets! We figured we would check out the wait times and decide what we would do at that point. Turns out Rockin' Roller coaster advertised a 10 minute stand by time; this was about 5PM at the time! We walked in, waited about 2 minutes in the outer hallway, and then we went directly into the pre-show. Both Jeff and I are Aerosmith fans (our wedding's 1st dance song was the Aerosmith from Armageddon) and I love this ride.

The only thing that always leaves us a little surprised is that Disney the company known for high quality went with the Dutch coaster firm of Vekoma to build Rockin' Roller Coaster. Vekoma, the direct child of the American Arrow Dynamics firm (who built all those looping coasters back in the 1980's) are not known for their smooth rides. It is true that Rockin' Roller Coaster is not as bad as some, or even most to be honest, but still there are so many BETTER options, smoother options. Oh well, it’s still fun.

Last ride of the day was Tower of Terror again, and it had a stand by time advertised at about 5 minutes, it was a complete walk on, we waited about 30 seconds at the door of the library, but that’s it.

After riding we slowly head back down Sunset Blvd, had a photopass shot taken in front of Tower of Terror and then I put my deceptive plan into action. I stopped at the DVC booth on Sunset blvd to inquire about the member’s open house. Me being at a loss for the CM’s name, he was very outgoing, (to be honest our entire week we had great experiences with CM's everywhere we went) and confirmed the information on the open house at Saratoga Springs Resort, he advised me of the location, how to get to Saratoga Springs and times (5-7PM), we went into a lively discussion about DVC, he wished us a happy anniversary and chided us for not picking up "Happy Anniversary" pins (we had done this every year but this one for some reason), and just before leaving I found out he was a retiree of AT&T (the old AT&T) the same company that I still work for. Even though I realize AT&T employees thousands of employees, it was a wonderful turn of events to find another DVC membership that AT&T had a hand in paying for! My relationship with AT&T is truly a love/hate relationship, love the paycheck, hate the... well you get the idea.

We next headed over to the Star Tours area, and checked out the shop. I am a little bit of a Star Wars fan and almost bought a shirt there, Jedi Academy Est. 1977, as I was born in Sept 1977. I didn't though, and we headed back out. Our last stop was at one of my favorite shops in the park, the Hollywood Stars shop (green bungalow) at the very front of the park. We tried our hand at the trivia questions out front, and got all but one. We spent quite a bit of time there looking around, and then headed back out to our car, now it was about 5:30PM, and we spent almost our entire day at a park.

Instead of heading back to the Villas at Wilderness Lodge, our home for this trip, we headed to Saratoga. Jennifer's hidden agenda was coming to play, I really wanted to see those Contemporary villas, get Jeff interested in buying more points and yes, buy DVC logo polo at the Saratoga store (WL didn't have much DVC merchandise). We spent some time there, Jeff loved (as expected) The Contemporary 1 bedroom villas and has since been very interested in adding more points and dedicated to stay in 1 bedroom villas from here on out (YES!). We then headed over to the merchandise store, and while I was surprised that a DVC polo was $50 I still paid it, as my first major purchase of the trip. It was about 6PM before we headed back to WL, with a brief stop again at HESS for more coke for Jeff.

When we got back to the room, Jeff sat down the download photos and check his e-mail (our first time using the free internet), we also went online to check point charts for various resorts, and I also spent some time on the dis boards, posting on the point chart increase for 2010 thread. Gosh what a nerd I have become! Getting online on vacation. After spending some time relaxing we had to decide what to do for dinner, neither of us was particularly hungry, but figured a snack would be a good idea. Jeff again got a brownie, and I got a bowl of chili. The chili was very good, and felt it was a great deal (as it was basically a meal in itself) for a snack credit. Jeff to his credit said he just really liked the brownies. Oh well.

While out in the main lodge getting food, we also stopped at the mercantile and used another nice DVC perk, free movie rentals, and I have to say for being such a tiny DVC resort it has a HUGE movie collection compared to OKW. We ended up with "Wildhogs", and headed back to the room to eat and relax. After eating Jeff had his weekly "Lost" fix, and I figured as I was so out of the loop on Lost (I don't get home until 7:30 at night and miss quite a bit), that I would actually relax a little bit in the lobby (Iron spike room) of the villas. I had visited the villas numerous times in the past, so this would be the first time I would be using those lounge chairs "legally" so to speak! I spent about an hour reading "John Adams", and then went back up to the room to see what Jeff was up to as Lost had finally ended for the evening. We heard the water pageant going on, and decided to turn on the movie. I ended up falling asleep ALMOST at the end, but Jeff finished the movie and then fell asleep as well.

Thursday 01/29/2009

It was Wednesday night when I began realizing that our trip was half way over a very depressing thought. Thursday morning came though and with the threat of rain we headed out early for Magic Kingdom via boat. We had already visited once, but my main goal today was Splash Mountain as the rest of the week it was supposed to cool down, but it was still warm this particular morning.

Our first stop though was for an early lunch on Main Street USA. Originally, I wanted Cosmic Rays (we hadn’t eaten there for awhile and I knew it was a great value on the dining plan), but Jeff wanted Casey's, I figured we would be having a big meal later that evening at EPCOT, and Casey's turned out to be the wisest decision. Jeff had the beef hot dog meal (Jeff could live on hot dogs I swear), and I had the corn dog nuggets with apple slices, we both had the brownie. After finishing we sat there in front of the Main Street Bakery for awhile and people watched. We had done this quite a bit at other parks but I am surprised about how little we have done this at Disney, it was a great time, as it seems so many people hustle down Main Street USA and miss its charm.

After awhile I felt the call from Splash Mountain and we headed that way. It had a posted wait time of about 20 minutes, and I timed it, it was about 15, so not too bad. Like usual I didn't get very wet, and Jeff, poor Jeff he got soaked! Oh well he took one for the team and I said it was his fault for talking me into riding it originally in the first place (I used to be scared of the drop). After exiting we saw that Big Thunder's wait time was only about 15-20 minutes so we headed there next to dry off. The wait didn't seem too bad, and in actuality I think the wait time was more like five minutes! During the wait a CM came in over the PA system to announce that inclement weather was in the region and may cause the ride to shut down and then let out a high pitched cowboy yell (Imagine a person with an Asian accent doing a cowboy yell and you will get the idea) He came back for announcements one or two more times before we loaded always with the same cowboy yell. Now I am not trying to dis the poor guy for his cowboy yell, actually quite the opposite, Jeff remarked that someone had had an overdose of pixie dust this morning it sounded like and I had to agree! Great spirit in all its forms is always to be commended.

Also, letting guests in line know of an approaching storm front is to be commended as well. It was a nice Disney-like gesture. We ended up about 3/4 of the way back on the train for this ride and it was good fun like always. However, with weather heading in we knew it wouldn't be such a bad idea to get out of the area. Our last stop was for Haunted Mansion a second time and then we decided to head out of the park. We took the boat back, and it started sprinkling on the ride back to the Lodge, we ended up back home about 2PM.

When we arrived, there was no real consensus on what to do, we had several hours before our ADR at EPCOT, and we had no plans. People all the time say DVC has changed their vacations, well I guess now it has changed ours too, as for several hours we really didn't do much of anything park wise. After about an hour of watching TV and relaxing I decided to do some laundry, and realized I hadn't brought any duffel bag with me for laundry. My luggage and Disney store bags would have to improvise. I rolled the luggage down to the laundry room and found only one washing machine working; the other had a great puddle of water surrounding it, and a mechanic hard at work (turns out it was actually fairly new!).

I ended up doing three loads, one at a time, and learned a trick from a lady who was drying cloths while I was down there, to start the dryer about 10 minutes before the washing machine is done. It really helped out in the drying process and while it took awhile it gave us all clean clothes.

After cleaning clothes, reading, and watching TV, time was going by fast, and it was now about 5:30, we had an ADR at Teppan Edo for 7PM, and we figured leaving soon was a good idea. I put on my DVC polo and jeans (first time I had worn jeans since Sunday!), and rain coat and headed out. Now it had been raining slowly but steadily the entire day, and it made for a beautiful sight. Jeff didn't bring his camera (a good idea as you will find out!) but I think at some points he wish he had. Wet surfaces and a rainy evening make for some nice photos.

We headed for the boat dock, and for the first time decided to use Disney transportation from WL for another park besides MK. First we took the boat from WL to the Contemporary. From Contemporary we took the monorail to the TTC and from there to EPCOT. With all the transfers it took about 45 mins to get to EPCOT. When we arrived, it was about 6:45 and with the walk at World Showcase in front of us we figured we better get started. Well we made it as far as UK with a slight drizzle, and then the heavens opened up and it poured! I have never walked so fast around WS as I did then. We both had good rain coats, but my jeans were soaked by the time we arrived.

Teppan Edo was a restaurant I had wanted to try for many years, and while I may have approached the restaurant in not the most beautiful fashion (completely soaked and cold!) it was overall a great experience. Of course I knew ahead of time that the Japanese people are incredibly polite, however I was still struck by their friendliness even on entering the restaurant. The hostesses there were handing out dry hand towels to dry off with, and plastic bags (the ones that Disney uses for souvenirs) for our wet rain coats. I can't think of any restaurant I have ever eaten at that has ever done that!

We were given a pager, and same thing as Liberty Tree went over to sit down and literally less the 30 seconds later the pager goes off! We were the first couple seated at our table. It took a few minutes before the two other groups that would be dining with us were seated and in that time we discovered our hostess was from Hiroshima. Most know the history of that city as it relates to US history, however few realize that it is our home town's sister city, Independence, MO, for it is the home town of Harry S Truman.

Two families would soon join us, an older solo couple, husband and wife that sat next to us from Boston, MA and another family that joined us across the table (I think they were from Nashville, TN). We had a lively discussion with the two next to us (as there was no way we could have a discussion all the way across the table, we would have had to yell to be heard!) as they had been coming down to Disney every year same as we have been doing.

The hostess soon came back and went over the menu explaining what was included in the plan. Jeff and I settled with a Coke and Diet Coke. I ordered the Shrimp and Steak combination meal and Jeff ordered the chicken and steak combination. I should mention every time the hostess came out with drinks, menus, chopsticks, forks, etc they would be especially polite, there was a lot of bowing involved.

Our chef came out after awhile, introduced himself, it seems he had been a chef for I believe 27 years? (quite a long time!) He created the onion volcano, (which was made of the entire onion, it was over a foot tall!) and made a great show of it all. If he might not have been the greatest comedian, he made up in his cooking skills. Everything was cooked perfectly.

Over the years, I have found the sign of a great cook is that he can make anything taste good. This was true in this case as I usually hate onions. In this case though I tried them with the noodles and zucchini, and they were amazing! That was just the beginning though, as the shrimp and steak were also extremely good, especially with the different dipping sauces provided. I wasn't exactly starving when sitting down, but I cleaned my plate and it was a lot of food! Jeff and I both gave the meal two thumbs up, and have officially voted it our 2nd favorite restaurant in the World Showcase. It also means we are only missing two restaurants in WS, China and Norway. We have eaten in every country at least one time previous.

For dessert we picked ice cream (sorry for being so boring), which was well... ice cream. We again gave an excellent tip and packed up to leave. The rain had tapered off, and as we headed out the announcement that Illuminations would start in 30 minutes was broadcast across the park. At that time being cold, and wet, we decided to skip it, even though with the park being literally dead we could have picked anywhere in WS and had a great view. We did stop at the Norway store as the couple who dined with us at Teppan Edo had mentioned the great sales there, and I could only dream of my $400 sweater being on sale so we stopped. Sadly the $400 sweater was still $400, though I did seriously consider buying a raincoat there as they were marked down to $150. Me, being a little bit budget conscious, realized I had a good raincoat already and let it go.

As we headed towards the park entrance, we were both tired and wet, and didn't want to go back through the series of monorails and boats that it would take to get back to WL. Instead we decided to use the bus. Luckily as we approached the bus parking area (it was the first time we had ever taken a bus from EPCOT) the WL bus was already there and no one was on it! Yippee! We climbed aboard, and waited about five minutes before we were off. About 10 minutes later we were back at WL. Being an all around Disney bus hater I must admit the transit was faster then even a car would have been, and yes it was nice not to walk through a wet and cold parking lot looking for our car. My opinion of Disney Transportation was elevated on this trip as you might imagine.

When we arrived it was getting late, but we had two movies that we had "rented" (for free!) at The Mercantile earlier that day waiting for us, and we decided to watch Invincible. We had seen this at the movie theater, but it was a nice winding down end to a great, if somewhat soggy day.

Friday 01/30/2009

Move out day... Yes another sad day to add to the trip. We had packed everything up pretty well after washing the day before but it was still sad to leave our villa. Believe it or not it was one of our earliest out of beds of the entire trip about 8:30. We showered, finished packing up and headed out at about 10AM, and headed for the front desk to check into The Lodge. If you remember from eons ago (I certainly write a lot don't I!) the 2nd part of our trip, or last two nights, would be at The Lodge itself, as we only do have 50 points, and that wouldn't do us any good for weekends. At least not until we add on! :)

I was realizing that there was a possibility of our room not being available. I also knew that attendance was low at the parks so far, and that WL probably was not at capacity so a room being available might be likelihood.

To back track a bit first though, on Wednesday night when Jeff had logged in to check his e-mail there was an e-mail from Disney Destinations confirming our reservation at Wilderness Lodge for a courtyard view room. Courtyard view?! I had booked a standard? Was this one of those upgrades I had heard about? On check in, our wonderful CM confirmed our $144 a night Courtyard view room, and gave us a room that I had always wanted but never really asked for. A 1st floor pool view room. One of those that when you are sitting at the pool you are envious of as they can walk directly to their room through their balcony door. Yes, it was one of those! (Too bad it was too cold to use the pool but still we had a great view in the morning of the friendly ducks). Room 1155, not only had I not asked for an upgrade, not asked for a location, I didn't even request a king bed room (though we had on every other trip). Well Disney pixie dust was with us that day, our room was ready, it was a king bed, with a pretty decent upgrade and in my opinion great location! Okay it was HA, but I didn't really care at that point!

What made our check in CM so memorable was his friendliness, being as there was no line for check in, we entered into a long discussion about the furniture at The Lodge. Many people don't realize this but much of the furniture in the lobby, and Artist Point is Gustav Stickley. Solid quarter-saw oak, hand made, hand polished, those chairs in the lobby usually sell for $2,000-$3,000 each. Yeah it is a travesty for us to put a wet drink on one of those arms. He also told us about the furniture at Whispering Canyon, but I can't for the life of me remember the artist, but originally Whispering Canyon was to be named in his honor. Overall the conversation went on for several minutes, and it was enjoyable to speak with someone who not only knew such rare facts about the Lodge, but who truly enjoyed talking about it.

So with suitcases in hand, we rolled our way to the hallway near the Mercantile (yes THAT hallway), to the elevator and for the first time, went DOWN to the 1st floor. We checked everything out, took pictures of the towel Mickey head waiting for us on the bed, and sat down to check out the flat screen TV. I will have to say, and Jeff agrees with me that when we first saw photos of the remodeled WL rooms, we were less then happy with them, to put bluntly they looked bad in the photos. Though I still have to stand by the original design (I liked it better), the re-design looks a lot better in person, and WL still stands as one of my favorite room designs on property.

We relaxed for a bit, and unpacked a few things, before deciding the plans for the day. Now, originally the plan was to go horse back riding at Fort Wilderness before our Hoop Dee Doo ADR at 7:15PM. As it was I who wanted to do the horseback riding in the first place, I quickly vetoed that idea, it was cold, wet, and just would not have been fun. Yes, I became upset that I missed an experience I really had looked forward to, but looking back, I am glad I did. It would have been a waste. Instead we decided to head to Downtown Disney, and use our final Counter Service credit at Wolfgang Puck Express. In almost every trip in the past to Downtown Disney we had driven using our own car, this time though we decided to take the bus. And there must have been some serious left over pixie dust from earlier in the morning as we headed to the bus stop, what bus do you think was waiting there? The Downtown Disney bus! Wow! We climbed aboard and headed out for a quick ride, with no worries about finding a parking spot.

Upon arriving, our first stop was at the Christmas store, Art of Disney and Disney Home store. We made two purchases, our trip Christmas ornaments. Every trip we buy at least one Christmas ornament, usually two. The first one we bought was the round Wilderness Lodge resort ornament. I have been collecting them since they were porcelain, brass trim, and ribbon, since then they have downgraded, even though they are the same price. Jeff talked me into continuing the tradition, so I bought that first, and then second, we picked the Mickey and Minnie Tree Farm ornament to fit the woodsyness that we love about the lodge.

It was getting later on and we decided it was a perfect time to get some food, so we finally headed over to Wolfgang Puck Express. Jeff got the spaghetti and meatballs with cookie and I got the rosemary chicken with mashed potatoes and also a cookie. One thing that drives us both nuts is that there were kids all through the restaurant saving tables, there were almost no tables available inside when we were ready to sit down. Rant done. We picked one of the two tables in the kitchen area, sat down, and ate our cookie first while waiting for our food. When the food came... oh my gosh, that chicken dinner needs to come with a warning sign. It was HUGE, a full 1/2 a rotisserie chicken, and a huge serving of mashed potatoes.

Now I was pretty hungry and amazingly ate about half of what was there. Jeff doesn't like chicken much so he was no help! It was very good though, Jeff told me the meatballs were some of the best he had ever had, they were half pork, half beef, which if memory serves me is the more authentic way of making them anyway. They were very tasty from the brief taste I had. When we left, we were stuffed, and I felt terrible about leaving all that food, but there was nothing I could do. One thing that suprises me about WP Express is that is almost a quasi table service, kind of like Pepper Market at Coronado Springs. Waiter brings your food, and re-fills your drinks. It is a GREAT value for a CS credit.

When we left it was getting a little bit warmer which I was thankful for as in the jog to the bus I had forgotten my hoodie sweater. We headed for The World of Disney, otherwise known as the store that drains your pocket book. On check in we had been given a sheet to turn in for a free print, which we did first (we actually already had it from a previous trip so it was a duplicate, oh well free is free) and then we went shopping. Either I have been to Disney too often or the merchandise is getting boring but very little stood out to me there. We had already bought a few things already that trip, me the DVC polo shirt, and Jeff had bought a micro-suede WL jacket that was at the Mercantile. While there though we still purchased a few car window clings (the boy/girl/cat Disney stick figures!) and a few things for next years scrap book, not too much though.

After World of Disney our last stop was the LEGO store, one of my favorite places. A few years ago out in Disneyland I had filled one of those buckets you can fill for a set cost. I never have cared for the sets with directions to build things, I like just building whatever is on my mind. I guess just like Disney my mind never realized that I outgrew LEGOS (is that even possible?) :) About 1 o'clock I had had enough of freezing to death (remember me forgetting my hoodie?) and decided we should head back to the Lodge. We made our way back to the bus stop, this was one of the few times we waited, and at most it was a five minute wait. When the bus arrived it was pretty full and we had to stand for a few minutes. At the 2nd stop, Pleasure Island/West Side, a group of cheerleaders disembarked and opened up more then half of the seats on the bus. We all had plenty of room to find a seat, which we did. First we stopped at GF and then back to WL. I guess with our upcoming plans it might have been just easier to get off at GF but oh well.

When we arrived at WL, we sat down a few minutes to relax, I thought about swimming but quite frankly it was just too cold. After all the life guards had full cover up sweats on and they still looked cold! Now we had reservations for Hoop Dee Doo at 7:15 so we figured first to pick up tickets at concierge which we did, and as it was still only about 3PM, we had several hours ahead of us, and it was cold outside. We hadn't yet done our annual resort monorail hop, so Jeff mentioned this as an idea; I thought it was a great idea so we headed out to the boat to start at Contemporary first. Our stop at Contemporary did depress me, as I had so much wanted to add on at the Contemporary, but with the now required 100 point add on, that is no longer possible :( Maybe that will change. We only stayed at Contemporary for 30 minutes or so before heading over to the Polynesian. Polynesian is truly one of our favorite deluxe resorts, we stayed there once one night but haven't since. I actually considered it for this trip when the rate had dropped to $225 a night (AP rate) but I had also wanted to stay at WL so that won out at least this trip. We wandered through the shops, and I must say the Poly shops are some of the best at any deluxe.

A few days ago while at the Magic Kingdom we had stopped at a souvenir shop in Adventureland and noticed a couple buying a coconut postcard, $25 including shipping. Now we had wanted to bring back something for a couple which are friends of ours in Kansas City and this seemed like a great idea, but we had waited and hadn't been back to Magic Kingdom since then. Well guess what the Polynesian gift shop, had those same coconuts too! We decided nothing could be a better "souvenir" I filled out the address and short note with a sharpie (very hard to do on a coconut!) and after paying for it, handed it off to the Polynesian front desk for mailing. Even though I had some concerns about the legibility of the address, we found out it did arrive a few days after we got home.

Our last stop at the Polynesian was the Wyland Art Gallery. Turns out they were having a gallery opening for the bronze frog sculptor. We always stop and admire the work there, but we were offered free white wine this time, and I actually felt a little bad accepting it considering we had never purchased anything there. Maybe someday when we have more financial ability (AKA more money!).

We had spent quite a bit of time at the Poly and it was about 5PM before we left and headed for our last stop the Grand Floridian. Though our goal is to stay at every Disney resort hotel, I would have to say GF is not high on the list; the theme is just not that appealing to either of us. We did spend a few minutes browsing in the stores, and listening to the GF band, but Jeff had an idea to head for our annual stop at the Disney Wedding Pavilion. See a little over 7 years previous the Disney Wedding Pavilion was were we had married and it never failed that we had to stop there once a year.

So, we headed out to the walkway and slowly wandered that way. Being that it was Friday there were no weddings that day, only two rehearsals that were long over by what was on the marquee in front. However what was unusual is that the gates were open! In the last 7 years this had never been the case. So for the first time in seven year we would get to go back to the location we had originally been married at! Little did we know that more pixie dust would be sprinkled on us soon afterwards. As we made our way across the bridge I remarked how we had had one of the last dove releases (They discontinued it in 2002), and we found our way to the actual pavilion door. It of course was locked, but a nice cleaning man (I think), allowed us in anyway after we had mentioned we had been married there. It was a very special moment, being back in that pavilion for the first time since our wedding. It was amazing how little had changed. Great experience that cost absolutely nothing but meant so much.

Not to abuse his good will we left after just a few minutes and walked out to picture point, and after a few minutes of quiet solitary, we headed back out the way we had came and back to the GF. We knew it was getting close to the time that we should be heading to Fort Wilderness, so we caught the monorail and headed to MK to catch the boat to Fort Wilderness. We waited for about 10 minutes for the boat, and when it arrived sat inside. We caught a view of the old River Country on the way over, docked and headed for Pioneer Hall. Never having done Hoop Dee Doo Review previously we weren’t exactly sure what we were supposed to do on arrival, but were told by a CM to wait in line to check in which we did. I can't for the life of me remember our table #, except that it was close to 100, and then we had our picture taken. Amazing I didn't have to talk Jeff into taking that photo! It was about 7PM at that time, and it was cold waiting outside! We stood outside among the group waiting for entrance and were let in promptly at 7:15PM.

Our table ended up being almost in the very back of the main floor, right under the balcony; it was a 2-person table. I kind of felt bad for the couple that sat behind us; their backs were practically at the door! We started out with water, corn bread and salad. Our server CM never seemed very into all the action, and was actually kind of slow, but overall it was a fun experience. I really enjoyed the show, and was rather relieved that we were not picked on! (They got the people at the table right next to us though!) Jeff had once been picked for the UK traveling show as Sir Galahad, and since then I think has been absolutely terrified of being picked out of a crowd, so I think he was a bit more then just relieved! Overall we did enjoy the show, and I am glad we went to see it, but its not anything we are racing to go back to over the next few years at least. The food itself was pretty plain, the fried chicken was good though, and Jeff thought the ribs were excellent! Strawberry Shortcake, which was dessert, was also good, but I found the dessert at Liberty Tree Tavern much better. Overall as I mentioned food was just average, the show was definitely the best part! I do honestly think for the money though I would rather just go to Port Orleans Riverside for Bob Jackson again, just as good as a show I believe and it’s free!

Hoop Dee Doo would be our 2nd last use of credits on the Dining Plan, and after looking the receipt, we both felt it was a good use of the 2 TS credits. It was over $100 not including tip.

It was about 9PM when the show let out, and it was colder then it was even earlier in the morning! We were unsure by the signage if the boats were running so we went over to the bus stop area, which seemed very congested. We waited about maybe 15 minutes before the WL bus appeared, and then two of them appeared at almost the same time. We climbed on, waited about a minute and then left for WL. Last point of business for the night was our last remaining snack credit. We had had two each at the beginning of the day that had to be used by midnight that night. The first twp I had used up at Goofy's Candy kitchen at Downtown Disney earlier in the day. The 2nd snack credit we used for breakfast the next morning. I picked up a chocolate muffin and I can't remember what Jeff had... maybe a brownie again? Basically though we stretched the DP to the max and it fed us almost exclusively from Sunday Afternoon to Saturday morning!

We headed back to the room, and believe it or not Disney pixie dust was at it again! I had mentioned when making the reservation at WL that we were celebrating our anniversary. On entering the room we found our bed had been turned down (without asking), we had a wonderful little WL chocolate heart and a card signed from Mickey and Minnie! Plus… we had a towel animal! In the bathroom was a towel canoe, filled with unidentifiable towel animals. Very cute and wonderful surprise! We don’t usually tip maid service but this time, believe me we did! It was so appreciated!

Saturday 01/31/2009

Our last full day.... still I wanted to make the most of it with the time we had left. We slept in again this morning and got up, and ate the snacks we had bought the previous night with the last of the dining plan. The muffin may have had more calories then I wanted to think about but it tasted great! We thought about what we wanted to do and decided to again head to Magic Kingdom, we didn't arrive until 10:45 and it did seem quite a bit more busy then it was earlier in the week. Overall though we found the waits to be still fairly short. We wanted to take things slow, and it was a beautiful but chilly morning, the high today would barely hit 60. We walked through the lower train depot, looking at the photos of the four engines before they had been refurbed. We then headed up the steps to ride the train, and I stopped at the music box and had a quarter to spend. I love these old fashion style music players, especially the old Wurlitzer band organs that operate at a few classic amusement parks across the country. Just thinking about a time when it required a significant amount of human ingenuity before the electric circuit and computer to control everything. After watching we boarded the train, in this case the Roger Broggie, and rode it around to Mickey's Toontown Fair. It was a great opportunity to take photos of Big Thunder since you can't see a lot of the detail while you are actually riding it. We exited the train, and headed for Tommorowland. Space Mountain it appeared was down temporarily so we hoped aboard the TTA to see if the lights were on inside, they weren't but it was still a fun little ride. On exiting, I decided I wanted to ride The Speedway; it had been several years since I had rode it, and while it had about a twenty minute wait, these rides are always a lot of fun! You will notice a trend as you continue reading that on one of the busiest days we picked the rides sometimes with the slowest capacity (lowest number of riders per hour).

As we walked out of Tommorowland towards the hub we spent quite a bit of time strolling through the rose garden, down by the old swan boat station, and Jeff took quite a few photos, as the sky was a bright blue, perfect for photos! As their was no stage show at the time we headed into the castle to see the wall mosaic (which I love) and take a look at the menu at Cindy's Royal Table, we had considered maybe eating there for next year’s anniversary but I wasn't impressed with the menu so maybe not.

We headed directly into fantasyland, and another ride we hadn't ridden in awhile was the Carousel. I being the classic carousel freak, Jeff asked if I didn't consider it a "real" classic carousel as Disney had made some considerable alterations to the original before moving it to Magic Kingdom. I mentioned that no, most carousel fans, will take any classic operating carousel that is in as good shape as Magic Kingdom. I figured that this time would be a great opportunity to ride, and though we had to wait about ten minutes it wasn't bad (the ride cycle is pretty quick!). When we boarded one thing I noticed was that all the horses had a brass number on the opposite side of the horse, and after riding walked quickly around the floor trying to see if #1 was there. Nope, only #2. After exiting I had a realization. Cinderella’s' Carousel is a PTC, in fact it is PTC #45 (referring to it being the 45th carousel manufactured by Philadelphia Toboggan company, and every PTC carousel I have seen, usually the lead horse or #1 horse has a PTC shield on its saddle. It looks a little different on every carousel (as each was hand carved), but it was usually there. Obviously Disney would not have wanted a horse with another company’s logo on it, so #1 or the lead horse was removed. So in essence Cindy's Carousel has no lead horse, or if it does it is #2. Amazingly horse #2 was also the horse we used during our Magic Kingdom photo session after our wedding in 2002!

Wow what a long winded person I have become!

We headed back towards the hub and at the Liberty Square bridge we ran into a Photo Pass CM, who took our photo in front of the castle, then we moved down to the "the rack" near Haunted Mansion (sorry I am not sure of the official name), and through the help of a nice couple had our photo taken, we of course also took their photo too.

At this time it was getting close to 1:30, so we slowly headed out of the park via Frontierland/Adventureland and headed out to the monorail. It was here that I thought about possible calling about the Fort Wilderness horseback tours, I really had wanted to do that! When we reached the monorail station, I tried to call, but decided against it. I figured it would give me something to look forward on the next trip right? Turns out I really wish I had then, but oh well.

We ended up waiting for the front of the monorail, which took about ten minutes, and road over to EPCOT. First thing we did was grab a fast pass for Test Track, it had a wait time of about 40 minutes and figured it wasn't worth that wait, the fast pass wasn't until about 6PM so we had plenty of time. As it was a beautiful day we headed to WS via the Odyssey walkway and spent some time taking photos. It was all about smelling the roses today! We were getting hungry so we thought about going over to Beaches and Cream later on for lunch. Instead of going via UK and Canada though, we decided this time to travel WS via Mexico. We had checked the show schedule and decided to stop at the American Pavilion for the fife and drum corps. A little background we had visited Williamsburg, VA a few years previous and due to poor weather the fife and drum corps were out of commission there. It was depressing, so I knew I wanted to catch them at EPCOT as fife and drum corp. is not a common occurrence in Missouri! We ended up at the American Pavilion about 20 minutes before the next performance and we were pretty hungry so we decided *big shock* to eat at the American Pavilion.

Now when we count WS restaurants we never consider the American Pavilion, as well we never thought of the menu as anything special. However this is where we decided to eat and it wasn't actually too bad. I had the chicken Buffalo wings with fries and diet coke, Jeff had the shredded pork sandwich with fries and coke. We weren't on the dining plan at this time but it became the first meal of the trip that we paid for in full out of pocket. Even though it was completely dead when we entered the restaurant, once we ordered it took about 10 minutes for our food to be finished and set out. Overall it was pretty good, I thought the sauce on the buffalo chicken pieces was somewhat hot (as in flavor), but it was a pleasant surprise. Plus, now I can officially count all but two WS restaurants!

As we finished up the fife and drum corps came out and began playing so we went out to watch. It was nice to watch, but does anyone ever consider that four of the players are wearing red coats? Isn't that who we fought AGAINST? :) Just a little funny. Next up we decided as we had had so much bad luck with the American Adventure on Monday to try it again. This time it worked perfectly, Roy Rogers had no neck problems, and it was nice to see the update to the ending film footage. It doesn't just end in the 1980's anymore!

Next place we stopped at WS was in the Japan pavilion, I hem’d and haw'd about buying the bag I had seen in the store earlier, I am such a cheap skate! I ended up deciding to buy it to take into parks with me, it’s very small so it only holds my wallet, cell phone and park map but that's all I need it for. At that same time Jeff was sitting outside the store, on one of the concrete benches to check into our southwest flight via his I-Phone. We checked in and were in a pretty good position A 23 and A 28.

We also stopped in the UK and Canada shops. I am somewhat disappointed in these last few years with the Canadian shops. Several years ago I had bought the Roots perfume there, and fell in love with it. Two years ago when I went back to buy more they no longer carried ANY of the Roots products. I had to go to the real Canada to buy it! It’s disappointing that the shops on the 2nd level are no longer open.

We headed back out and decided to visit the Future world attractions we hadn't yet. It was about 5PM or so, and we first stopped at The Imagination Pavilion. As the sun was setting Jeff took a bunch of photos, we then went in to ride and like usual it was an absolute walk on. It's a fun ride, but sometimes I wish for the original version. It’s funny that they had a shirt in the exit show with the Dreamfinder on it! How long has it been since Dreamfinder was last in the ride? It was pretty cool.

We next visited Living Seas, the ride is cute, but I was there for the exhibits. Which were better then usual, the dolphins and manatees were both out and about, and we saw several small sharks and tons of sting rays. It was funny while there looking at the sea horses, a little girl and her mom came up to the exhibit, and little girl says look sea horses! Mom says, oh no those can't be! Little girl, showed her mom the sign, I guess maybe they had never seen a sea horse before? Its not to unusual to imagine that, as I have only seen them at Living Seas and Sea World!

One of our last two stops was the Coca Cola Cool Zone (I think it has a new name but that's what I have always called), fun like usual, and then Test Track for one last ride. Test Track was great as usual, and then finally we figured it was time to head out, as it was almost 7PM and we had been out in the parks for several hours now.

Instead of heading back via bus though again we decided on the monorail, but once we stopped at TTC, we didn't trade off for another monorail; instead Jeff mentioned walking to the Polynesian. First though we had to stop and visit our brick. Back in 2000, Jeff proposed to me in front of the Magic Kingdom, via a brick on the walk around the world. Only a year afterward of course it was moved to TTC, and has been in the same place that it is still today. Overall our brick is in great shape, especially compared to those surrounding it! We took a photo, and then headed to Polynesian via the walkway. I was really surprised how close the POLY is to the TTC. It was a very romantic evening, with the cool breeze and tiki torches. we headed into the main building, decided to by a Imagineering DVD we had seen there the day before, and sat down to take in the atmosphere. As I mentioned earlier it is a great resort and I think it along with the WL and AKL are the few resorts that seem to really get the theme.

A little while later we headed for the monorail, which we took the Magic Kingdom. About this time Wishes was starting, and as much as I hate crowds it was so beautiful I wish we had stayed to watch. Next time I guess too. We headed for the boat, and watched the fireworks as we sailed away. It is an image that is still burned in my head. They are truly spectacular. As we approached WL, it was our last night there, and it was sinking in, we would be heading home tomorrow. It made everything sparkle that much more brilliantly. We headed to the room, and with no DVD player we decided to watch the Imagineers DVD on Jeff's laptop (I know sad, but we both really wanted to see it!). After a little bit we heard the Electric Water Pageant, and went out to the beach to watch. It was a beautiful ending to our last evening there, and I wanted it to go on forever. Tomorrow would come soon enough.

Sunday 02/01/2009

It was the last day... I needed a shoulder to cry on! In foresight a few days earlier I had made last day reservations at Whispering Canyon for breakfast. I always usually talk Jeff into one breakfast a trip (he doesn't care for breakfast and I love it!) plus Whispering Canyon is a tradition for us every trip. (Well almost). We woke up early (for us) this morning, about 8:00 ish and were ready to go and out the door by about 9:15. Jeff had (thankfully) taken the hanging tag of doom off the door before I had a chance to see it. We loaded our luggage in the car (first time we had seen it in 3-4 days!), and headed back to the lodge for breakfast. It was about 45 minutes before our ADR (which was at 10:15), but I still went up to check in desk at Whispering Canyon to see if we could get seated earlier, we were given a buzzer and then went to sit down in one of those nice Stickley chairs. Only a few minutes later it went off and we were seated. I learned very quickly breakfast is much more subdued then dinner! We both ordered chocolate milk, and the skillet. Amazingly we were both pretty full from a week on the dining plan, so we only asked for seconds on the biscuits, everything was great though! They had pony races during our seating and the table next to us made the mistake to ask for ketchup! That is always classic. We used our TIW card that we had bought last January for the discount, and being completely stuffed headed out to face the world one more time.

Of course being COMPLETELY predictable we headed for Magic Kingdom one last time. It was a nice ending of the trip as when we arrived, the "Trolley Song" just started at the Hub on Main Street. We had to watch as I love the song, and as we were in the area checked the board of activities for the times of the Dapper Dans. I really wanted to see them and had missed them on the way to a ride it seems on every previous trip. That was the sign that for once it was NOT a trip that we had to hit every ride 15 different times. We took it slow this time and appreciated all the small things, the attractions that make Disney, well Disney. Of course their first show was until about Noon, and we figured we would catch them on the way out about 1:15. We headed around to Tommorowland as we had only ridden Space Mountain once during the trip and well this was our last time riding it in its "original" form. The stand by wait was posted at 20 minutes so we figured that wasn't too bad, and waited. It turned out the wait was about 30 minutes and we road the alpha side again. When we exited, we found the stand by time was posted at 40 minutes, so obviously the line had grown while we were in it!

We headed over to the opposite side of the park and hit the two classics Pirates and Haunted Mansion one last time on the trip, and then we figured it was getting close to 1PM so we headed towards Main Street and found the Dapper Dans. It was a great show, and like usual I loved watching also the people watching and walking by. It was amazing to watch the expressions as they seemed to be catching something they never expected, it was like watching the "So this is Disney!" moment over and over again! It was great, and of course so were the Dapper Dan's they. It was about 1:30 when they finished and for our last ride of the trip, we picked of course... the train. It was a great last ride. It was time; we had to head to the boat, for the start of the ride home... It didn't hit until we hit the Lodge, and we walked through the lobby one last time. It was a slow walk, trying to make it last, but we knew it was time, and then we headed for the car...

What made it worse of course was that we had arrived exactly a week prior. I don't know about anyone else but sometimes on a trip I think about exactly what I was doing a week prior. How happy I was arriving, listening to the radio on the way to Disney, and how I had that thought about my friend leaving while I was arriving. It was our time now. I guess to quote star trek, all good things must come to an end, and I began looking forward to next year!

Disney Anniversary Trip 2009 Part 1

2009-02-10T10:35:00.000-08:00

The Trip Report that ate all other Trip Reports.

I tried very hard but I couldn't come up with one title that fit the bill for this trip. It could have been The Trip of breaking down rides, or the trip of gastromic delights (this was our first trip on the dining plan) but truly it was a great trip, one of our best and one that I hope to remember for a long time.

Jeff considers me an uber planner, I love to plan trips, not down to the exacting detail of minute by minute, but I get a high from finding a lower price on a car rental, or by making hotel reservations. I find it fascinating that when Jeff and I went on our first few trips he planned everything, and starting probably about 2003 I took over the reigns.

Where the actual planning for this trip started is a little bit harder to nail down. Every year, except for one, we have voyaged down to Disney World for our anniversary; this year would be our 7th anniversary and our 6th anniversary trip (we missed our 5th when we headed to Chicago instead!). I guess you could say the planning for this trip started when Jeff and I finally bought into Disney Vacation Club (DVC or Disney's version of a timeshare), we closed in June 2007 on our first 25 point contract, and then added on again this year another 25 points in August of 2008. Last year, 2008, was the first DVC trip to Old Key West, three nights in a studio. This year though for some reason felt more real.

After closing on the second 25 point contract in August 2008 I called to make our reservation for January, and here is where you need a flow chart to follow along, literally. I started with a 6 night reservation at Old Key West (OKW), and then I waitlisted for Wilderness Lodge Villas. Then I called about once a week until I was able to secure 2 nights at OKW and then 4 nights at the Boardwalk Villas. Finally, only about a month later I got the call. My wait list had gone through at Wilderness Lodge, and I had booked 5 nights in a studio.

Easy enough right? Actually this is only the beginning! I still hadn't decided whether to fly down Saturday night or Sunday morning, of whether to fly back Saturday or Sunday either! It was up and down for a few weeks until I finally booked the flights to fly out Sunday Morning and fly back the following Sunday Night, Super bowl day! Turned out that even though the return flight was expensive, it actually was completely free as we were able to use our rapid rewards free tickets for that flight.

Then the decision came on where to stay the last two nights, Friday and Saturday. It was a simple decision in theory, and though I briefly considered other options it only made sense to stay one place, The Lodge, and I booked a great AP rate of $144 a night for it too! Standard view but who cares about that right? The whole idea with staying at the Lodge for the entire 7 nights was to be able to use Disney transportation, not rent a car right? That never actually happened as in normal form I was able to secure Jeff and I a car through Alamo for $118 a night with tax included!

So we had a car, had a hotel, had a plane flight, and I had my itinerary and The Unofficial Guides best days and we were ready to go!

The final week came, then the last day before leaving. I worked a full day Saturday at AT&T, and then came home to pack and get a good night sleep. Yes we never pack until the day before, it’s pretty sad but it’s always worked out well! All in all I still wish a little we had flown out Saturday night, as Sunday morning 4AM came very quickly! 4AM I was up, got ready to go and we were out and on our way by 4:45AM. We did our usual trick of parking the car at the terminal parking garage so to have easy access to check our luggage. Then with luggage checked I found a somewhat comfortable seat inside the terminal and waited while Jeff, being the sweet guy he is, took the drudgery ride to and from the economy lot to park the car for long term. He calls this putting the car in jail.

There are some in Kansas City that want to build a new airport. I for one love KCI. It was designed back before the advent of airport security points with the original plan allowing people to walk from their car to their plane in a few short minutes. Of course with the advent of security it now is fairly unusual having security for every few gates. (There is not one big security area). I love this, as it only takes maybe a minute to get through security and to your gate. You are literally RIGHT there!

As our flight didn't leave until 7AM, we had a few minutes to sit down before lining up for southwest boarding. We meet a wonderful solo couple going the same place we were! This happens so rarely that I get to meet another couple that goes to Disney without kids that we talked during the short wait and they ended up sitting right behind us! Considering at this point and time I hadn't eaten a thing, its interesting to look back and realize a lot of our conversation had to do with food, and where to eat at Disney. It also made me consider doing a character lunch/dinner in the future, as Jeff and I have always been fairly cautious of those thinking it odd with us having no kids so far.

Our flight was very uneventful, it was not totally full so the two of us had the entire three seat grouping to ourselves, and we touched down an amazing 25 minutes early! Did I mention I love Southwest Airlines? We weren't supposed to arrive until about 10:50 but arrived at the gate instead at 10:25AM. A friend of ours, who usually goes down to Florida with his family during the same week as us, had decided this year to go a week earlier. How I remember thinking about him being on his way out, and Jeff actually called him from the plane (after we had arrived at the gate!) to find out he was already on his plane only a gate away from us! Very depressing looking at in from this stand point, but I remember thinking how glad that our trip was just starting.

We disembarked, headed for the fake monorails, (buses in trough as Jeff calls them), to retrieve our luggage. No problem there, we headed for Alamo. Now about five years ago on a rainy night in Baltimore (BWI) we had rented from Alamo and had to wait two hours (I am not kidding!) in a shack somewhere on airport property for our car. It was an awful experience and had soured me especially from renting from Alamo again in the future. I figured it was worth another shot, and with the rate being exceptionally low, $118 for 8 days with tax! It was a no brainer. I was happily surprised to find it one of the most painless experiences I have ever had renting a car. We headed for the Alamo kiosk, Jeff using the confirmation # found our reservation, declined the insurance and away we went. It was unique to find the set up of selecting a car somewhat similar to National's Emerald Aisle. We picked a Kia Rio I believe, and were out of the airport, only about 15 minutes after we were supposed to originally arrive! We were very happy with our car rental overall, and especially loved the free Sirius Radio! Score! Would definitely rent from Alamo again and it’s on my short list now of preferred rental car companies.

Now before I get into the next part, I must mention that Jeff and I have been to Disney over 10 times together, Jeff had been going since the 1970's, (my first trip was in 1991) so to say that Jeff at least knows his way to Disney World and around Disney World is an understatement. So you will forgive us both when I tell you the next saga of our trip. The Toll Road. Any normal, rational thinking person would think it might be a good idea to have some quarters on them when they hit a toll road. Who said anything about Jeff and I being normal or rational? Well to our defense we did have cash, and the first toll booth wasn't a problem as there were people working the toll booth who could hand out change. Well to make a long story short, that wasn't the case with the I-4 toll booth interchange. Now I can understand smaller, toll booth’s being automatic, but for I-4 not to have anyone there to give change? What gives? Literally, Jeff had to get out of the car and go ask three other cars being us to break a $1 bill. Ok a bit of poor planning on our part, but still.. I-4!?!?!

Anyway so after transversing the toll booths we were on our way to Disney, and for the first time in a long time we were staying at Wilderness Lodge (last time had been 2004), it was exciting to be able to take the Magic Kingdom exit, and let the toll booth attendant know that we were not only coming to eat this time, but to check in!

When we arrived, Jeff being Jeff and being adverse to Valet Parking (even when its free I don't get that), we parked, and headed for check in. Would our room be ready? Would we be stuck with a studio ending in 60 or 62? (otherwise known as the dumpster view rooms!) It was about Noon and we would soon find out our fate. Check in had no line so we headed straight to our check in Cast Member (CM), who confirmed our five night stay at the Villas, and was originally going to assign us 4262 I believe. Though I obviously didn't come prepared for toll roads I came prepared with knowledge of the Villas room #'s. I politely asked if there were any other rooms available to choose from. Our CM being a gracious, and helpful CM pulled out the VWL map and asked what I would prefer. Wow. I get to pick my room? I asked if anything on the short hallway end (sorry for my lack of technical terms) was available. There was, 3503. Not a Handicap room (I asked) good location, but not ready right now. Expecting that, and knowing that I would not be guaranteed a room until 4PM, I accepted the room happily, was given the card to call to check on my room availability and then moved on to the next point of business, food.

Yes, if you remember from the multiple titles this was our first excursion on The Disney Dining Plan. I had considered it for previous trips, but always for some unknown reason felt Jeff wouldn't like being pinned down to certain restaurants at certain times. I have no idea why I felt that way, because Jeff came to become of the biggest proponents of the Dining Plan. We actually both loved abusing the dining plan (oh did I say that? I just meant USING the Dining Plan). The check in CM gave us the Dining plan brochure, the print out of dining plan credits and a full explanation. With all of our paper goods in hand, being done with check in, having a room number, key cards and all of our dining credits we felt ready to use them! Of course having nothing to eat yet for the day helped too. We were starving!

To Roaring Forks we headed. Now I had thought about trying to eat healthy (somewhat) on the trip, but that whole idea was thrown away very quickly. Jeff talked me in to ordering the double cheeseburger meal and chocolate brownie. I really thought there was no way I was going to be able to eat it all. Well except for the brownie, I did eat it all. Yikes. I was really hungry is all I can say. About this time it was 1:30 or so, so Jeff asked if I wanted to call and see if our room was ready. Me, being the "glass is half empty" type of person thought no way. But I called anyway, hurray it was available! We walked back to our car (did I mention Jeff also has an aversion against bell hops?) grabbed our luggage and headed for our room. 3503 was at the end of the short hallway, great location, had a view of trees and the Lodge itself. I noticed about a day before we checked out that if you turned to the right we also had a view of the lake. It’s amazing that I never tried to see if I could see the water pageant show from there. Oh well. The room was clean, and we had a towel Mickey head on the bed welcoming us! I unpacked everything, and we settled down for awhile. One thing I have begun to notice in the studios is the TV, its small! I think the value resorts have bigger TV's? I hope that they do upgrade those sometime in the future.

So about 2:30 we decided on our plans for the night, and decided to head to MGM, sorry Hollywood Studios. It was late magic hours there, and was the park to stay away from per the Unofficial Guide but we went anyway as this was a relaxing no hurrying vacation. We hopped in the car and arrived about 3:00, it seemed crowded (for January), and so we headed for a slower attraction, the great movie ride. It was about a 20 minute wait I think? On of the longest of the entire trip, but what both of us found amazing is that it was our turn for the western scene on this ride through. Not to unusual, usually. However for years every time we rode it, we ended up with the gangster scene. I never even realized there was a second option until when last year Jeff ASKED for the western scene and got it. Well what do you know, next year rolls around, and we get it again this time without having to ask for it. It was great, but I think our CM was a little new at his job. Our next stop was Lights, Camera, Action Stunt Show for the 4:15 show, we got there about 10-15 minutes before show time, had a decent seat, and as this was only the second time we had seen it ever, greatly enjoyed it. We would head back a 2nd time later in the week to see it again!

Our next stop was at The Little Mermaid, while it was going to be down later in the week, we decided this was a good time to hit it, and Jeff, for some odd reason really likes it. It's ok; it does seem a bit dated. The Last attraction of the night was Tower of Terror, it was only in November that I had first rode TOT, and I really like it, its probably one of my favorite rides at MGM. (Sorry Hollywood studios). It seems though that with the addition of the new Midway Games ride that TOT has no line to speak of anymore. Tonight it had what was advertised as a 10 minute wait; it was for all intensive purposes a walk on. After TOT it was getting to be a little after 6PM and as both Jeff and I had been up since 4AM, we were getting a little tired, and decided to head back to the room. We did stop at the HESS station for Coke and Diet Coke and we got back about 7PM. From there Jeff and I called a few friends, and our respective parents, I put in Patriot, and watched it until I feel asleep. We didn't set the alarm clock, a trend that would continue through the rest of the trip.

Monday 01/26/2009

Today we our actual anniversary, and beginning a trend we slept in until 9AM or so. I got up first, got a shower and headed to Roaring Forks for breakfast. Throughout the trip we ended up using our snacks to supplement meals, especially sense it seemed we were continuously full! First breakfast was a croissant for me and a chocolate croissant for Jeff. With Coke and Diet coke in the room it was a good quick breakfast. Today and Tuesday were the only days I had planned on specific parks, today was EPCOT, as it was also the location of our anniversary dinner at Le Cellier. We used the car this morning to drive to EPCOT, but if memory serves it was the 2nd to last time the car would be used to drive to a park in the entire trip. Turns out Disney transportation this trip was better then I expected. But we drove parked in Row 7, EPCOT being such a big park never feels crowded, and such was the case today. Except for the The Land Pavilion which was our first stop, it was also our first significant sprinkling of pixie dust. As we headed for the door at the Land pavilion an unknown guest, with two fast passes for Soarin’ that expired 10 minutes later ran up to us and said "do you want Soarin' Fast passes? Here they expire in 10 mins" and he ran off, leaving two of the most covited fast passes in our hands. Only about a minute later did we realize that we should have maybe stopped him to say that he could have used them later on that day, but he literally handed them off like a relay runner, and was gone like a flash. So not wishing to tempt the Disney gods, we headed for Soarin', bypassed the 50 minute standby line, and were loaded in about 10 minutes. Loaded, not Soarin' just yet. It seems with good luck comes bad luck, in that we sat there in our hang glider/erector set seats for about 10 minutes while they figured out why the ride wouldn't run. It seems there was a problem with the computer recognizing all the seat belts were locked?

*little side story, Jeff and I have worked at the local amusement park here in Kansas City for several years, and have some experience with rides having technical difficulties. Most complex rides have a system for telling that each seat is locked, and the ride won't start until the system shows are seats are locked. I think that was the problem here.*

So the ride started, and it was great like usual. We have ridden it so many times though it’s not a ride that we usually ride over and over again. (I rode Disney's California Adventure Soarin' over California a few years before it opened at EPCOT). After disembarking, one of my next points of interest was "Behind the Seeds" tour, I had wanted to take that tour for a few years and it seemed it never got accomplished. well this year I was going to do it, dang it. Jeff and I both have loved Living with the Land ride since way before Soarin' came to town (and ruined The Land pavilion as I like to say) so it was a perfect fit for both of us. We signed up on the spot for the 12:45 PM tour, used our DVC card for the discount, and we both greatly enjoyed the tour. I have a terrible time with names so forgive me if I don't remember our CM's name, he was an intern in the fish dept, and he seemed a little new but it was a great tour, and I think a great value.

With the tour ending at about 2PM, Jeff and I were both starving, but where to eat? We discussed The Land Pavilion counter service, Sunshine Seasons, but Jeff didn't see anything he liked so we headed for the UK for Fish and Chips which while not being the best value for the dining plan still hit the bill, as we would be eating a huge meal only 6 hours later so we didn’t want to stuff ourselves.

It was a beautiful day so we ate at the nearby picnic area overlooking the World Showcase lagoon, there were a lot of birds, and unfortunately a few people feeding them, which didn't help matters, but it was enjoyable. We decided next to journey around World Showcase itself. We stopped in Morocco first, as it is one of our favorite pavilions. We ran into a manager CM who was interested in our overall experience with the pavilion. We mentioned how much we enjoyed it, and he gave us some history on the pavilion how the king of Morocco sent his own architects over to design the pavilion, it gives a great sense of the real country I think. (Well as much as possible!). We did mention our bad experience last year at Restaurant Marrakesh, and he apologized, and gave us a free fast pass to Maelstrom. Now usually Maelstrom doesn't have a line but tonight it did so the fast pass came in handy and we were very appreciative, it was a nice gesture.

We headed on to Japan, and did some shopping there, we didn't buy anything yet but I did come back later on in the week for a bag I had seen and liked. Next we stopped at the American Adventure. We hadn't seen the show in quite awhile (last January it had been down for rehab). Our luck seemed to follow us around the world from Soarin' as in the Roy Rogers scene; Roy couldn't seem to get his head up! His head was hanging all the way down, and about when his scene ended they stopped the show, and we all had to leave. Our luck certainly wasn't with us that day! Next stop was China to see the Chinese Acrobats, actually it was something I wanted to see, Jeff could have cared less, but I enjoyed it, and was pretty amazed at their flexibility, ouch! We briefly stopped in Germany but we finished our 1st World Showcase tour at Norway. We used the previously mentioned fast pass, and ended up at the front of the boat! The front ended up offering a great view especially in the scene where you come to the dead end and you go down the flume in reverse. Of course we stopped at the store, and I mourned my $400 sweater that I couldn't afford, (I love them but I just could never make myself by a sweater for $400), Jeff does have one of the rain coats from Handson Hailey (Sp?) and has had it for 10 years, he uses it all the time. I have one similar to it but a different brand. Sometimes, at least with rain coats, it’s worth the money.

At this time it was approaching 6PM, and our Le Cellier ADR was for 7:30, so we headed back to Future World to see what the waits were like there. Our first stop was Test Track, and it was DEAD. Literal walk on, no waiting for the pre-show, no waiting after the pre-show, right on. The only other time the line was like this was in January 2002, right after our wedding. After riding we took some time in the GM car display area (does it have a name?), and sent ourselves some car information and checked out the 2010 Camero they had on display. After hanging out for awhile there, we decided before eating we would make one final stop at Spaceship Earth, and then headed backwards again to World Showcase for dinner. We arrived at Le Cellier about 7:15PM for our 7:30ADR and waited maybe about 20 minutes, which wasn't too bad considering we were early.

The contrasts between last year’s anniversary dinner at Yachtsman Steakhouse and this year were night and day. To make a long story short we had a bad experience at Yachtsman, and we will never return (at least not for a long period of time). Our experience at Le Cellier was MUCH better. The experience started while waiting for our table, one of the check-in CM's kept those of us waiting entertained with Canada Trivia. I ended up with about 7 stickers and gave most of them away to some of the kids waiting. Definitely two thumbs up there.

We were seated at a four person table in the middle of the dining room, and though I can't for the life of me remember our servers name she was helpful in explaining what was included with the dining plan, attentive, and seemed happy and outgoing. All VERY definite differences from last year at Yachtsman. We started our meal with drinks, Jeff ordered a Coke, and I had the Mango Smoothie, which was excellent. We had our first delivery of breadsticks and CM was quick with refilling said breadsticks.

We ordered and shared a bowl of the cheese soup appetizer, as we knew we would never make it through the whole meal having our own! (We were already pretty full), but it was very good. We then both had the Mushroom Filet, I had mine medium rare, and Jeff had his medium well. The medium rare seemed almost rare to me, but it was still excellent. For desert I had the Maple Crème Brule and Jeff had the Chocolate Mouse. Amazingly I almost finished my dessert I was so full at that point! Everything again was great; Jeff loved his Moose and said it was very thick and rich. Plus it was quite cute!

I have to say though the best part of the whole experience was NOT having to pay the full $100 bill! Of course we paid for tip and for the cheese soup but still big difference between $25 and $100 are quite significant on the bank account. I was beginning to enjoy the dining plan but I also began wondering how ANYONE could eat a full appetizer every day. Yikes!

We left Le Cellier at about 8:45PM and called our friend Matt to check and see how his flight back was (this was the friend that left the same time we were arriving), sounds like his family had a lot of fun, and at that point we realized one of our favorite shows Illuminations was about to start and there were some pretty good views still available. We ended up standing behind another couple right at the railing near the UK and I feel we had a good view overall. It seems we have seen Illuminations so many times in so many different places that I think the UK/Mexico/Canada side of the lake has the best unobstructed views. The show was great as always and the icing on the anniversary cake was the refurbed globe. Oh my gosh, so much better, you could actually recognize some of the smaller pictures on the globe, some of the faces, it was like watching HD TV for the first time after watching analog for ever! It was a perfect end to what I have to think was a pretty great day.

After Illuminations, we slowly headed to the front of the park, and checked out the Art of Disney store before leaving. We then headed back to the room and relaxed. I wasn't feeling well so I went ahead and started watching the last part of Patriot that we I had missed the evening before Jeff went out to take some photos of the Lodge at night, he stayed out for about an hour, came back, we watched the very end of Patriot and then feel asleep.

Tuesday 01/27/2009

A view from our room.

Today was a crowd level 4 the lowest of the trip from the Unofficial Guide, and again we slept in, a little later today maybe about 9:30 or so. Today was Magic Kingdom day! It is my favorite park as it is home to my favorite attraction Haunted Mansion. I got up first again took a shower, and repeated Monday's routine, headed to Roaring Forks and spent two more snack credits on a croissant and chocolate brownie (hey its vacation!) for our breakfast. Headed back and we ate quickly and left for the boat to MK. This was our first use of Disney Transportation for this trip and the whole trip we had a pretty good experience with the transportation system. The boat was at the dock when we arrived; we boarded and were on our way.

We arrived at Magic Kingdom about 11:15 and our first ride of the day awaited us just under the station, The Main Street Trolley. A lot of times the trolley doesn't run due to high crowds but me being a lover of all things classic (read: old!) this was a major pixie dust moment for me, plus it was literally waiting for us right when we arrived. We exited at the hub and had already decided to head for Tommorowland for a Space Mountain fast pass, or to check the wait. I believe the wait was 25 minutes so we grabbed a fast pass for later and headed for Mickey's Country Fair. Now while I like the characters somewhat neither of us wait in line for characters so we weren't heading that direction for the normal reason (after all we aren’t normal!) we headed there as the walkway from Tommorowland to Mickey's Toontown Fair is the best location for photos of the Magic Kingdom Trains.

*Side bar moment! Jeff has always had a fascination with steam trains in general, he took the Steam Train tour the 1st time (yes I said FIRST time) back right after our wedding in 2002 with me. For the last three years he has also been a steam train engineer at our local amusement park in Kansas City and has since taken the Steam Train Tour a 2nd time. He wants to take it again but I told him to wait another year. I can only take so much of the 6AM start time.*

We had noticed (or Jeff I should say) when we arrived that instead of running the Walter E Disney and Roy Disney engines, Roy was no where to be seen, so we knew it was a different engine which both of us were excited about. We found out upon arriving at Toontown station that Walt was running but they were also running the Roger Broggie. So now we have photos of three of the four engines running. Lillie Bell usually only runs for the morning show so it will probably be awhile before we will get #4 in action. After spending some time on photos Jeff and I hoped about the Walter E Disney and took our first train ride of the trip to Frontierland.

Splash Mountain was up and running (a first for a long time as it seems it’s always out of commission while we are there) but Jeff didn't want to eat wet so we passed it by for today. I didn't mind as we headed for my favorite ride, Haunted Mansion. I still can't get over how much better Haunted Mansion is after the refurb! After a date with 999 happy haunts we headed to Jungle Cruise and had one of the best skippers ever, I laughed at the comment about the butterflies being $3.95 a dozen at Wal-Mart and $3.95 each at Disney World! I should also mention there was only about a five minute wait for Jungle Cruise and afterwards we headed for Pirates of Caribbean and the Pirate Tutorial. I had never seen the Pirate Tutorial from start to finish, but found it entertaining and our version of Jack Sparrow was right on. Afterwards we headed back to Space Mountain for our fast pass but found the fast pass pretty much useless as there was not wait for Space Mountain it was a walk on! Can't wait for the refurb on this one. Then headed to one of our favorite rides TTA, and last Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, also a walk on. Truthfully on Tuesday almost everything was either a walk on or a very short wait.

Mack of the Pirate's Tutorial has a closer look at Jeff's Camera!

For our last attraction before our ADR we decided on Country Bear Jamboree. It was my last attraction at Magic Kingdom (I think WDW!) that I had never experienced. Well to be completely honest I found out there was a good reason I had never experienced it. I wanted to cover my eyes in shame it was so er.. Embarrassing I guess? One time and one time only for me. Why didn't they keep Mr. Toad and put Winnie the Pooh here like at Disneyland? That was okay though we were onto another great experience this time at The Liberty Tavern.

Liberty Tree Tavern has been one of our favorite restaurants at Magic Kingdom for years, however for years we have been confined to eating there for lunch only, not due to price but due to characters. Jeff and I as you may have already realized are not big character people and I personally feel If I am going to pay to eat, the food should be where the attention is at. So we were both very happy when Liberty Tree discontinued the character dinners and I went ahead and booked it for Tuesday evening at 4:15 PM (well originally it was for later the one ADR I did change!). We arrived almost at 4:15 on the dot, and checked in and told it would be a few minutes. No sooner did we walk to a bench to sit down then our name was called! The restaurant wasn't to terribly busy, but it wasn't dead for sure, and we had a nice table for two in the Betsy Ross room. Our server, Michael was wonderful, attentive and seemed very happy to be there, (he must have been good as I remembered his name!), and brought our drinks out first, (Coke and Lemonade) and then the salad and bread. Maybe it’s my Midwestern palette, but the rolls and butter were wonderful! Nice, warm and fluffy. We ate through the entire basket before the full meal was brought out and had to ask for seconds.

After devouring the rolls and salad the dinner course was brought out. It included the usual mashed potatoes and gravy, mac and cheese, green beans, stuffing, and turkey, ham and roast beef. Overall all the food was all good, except for the ham which I found very dry and tasteless. We immediately asked for more turkey as that was the best of the different meats available. There was enough of everything else that we had plenty without having to ask for more. Michael (our server) gave us plenty of time, and then came around to pick up the plates and bring out dessert! All the menus online had mentioned dessert was a cherry cobbler, but this night it was an apple crumble cobbler served with vanilla ice cream. It was VERY yummy! I ate about as much as my stomach could fit in, and we both left completely stuffed. Poke me I'm done! Michael brought out the receipt and again it was nice to only have to pay tip, which we ended up leaving him quite a large one for such good service!

While leaving I wasn't feeling to well so we made the decision to leave, except that’s not exactly what happened. We stopped at Snow White's Scary adventures, as it only had about a 10 minute wait, and spent some time taking photos (especially of the carousel which will come up later in the trip) then decided to head out. We left about 6:30PM, and there wasn't much time left anyway as the park was scheduled to close at 8PM that night. We took the boat back to Wilderness Lodge and decided to relax for the rest of the night. About an hour after returning I decided that with it being such a warm day (the high was around 80 I believe) a swim was in the cards, as usually we are rushing around so much on trips that we don't have time for that luxury (plus it had been quite cold on the previous trips). One of the hot tubs at the main pool was down for refurb and we had noticed earlier that the Hidden Springs pool wasn't being used much so we headed there (especially since it was closer to the Villas anyway).

I spent some time in the pool, Jeff found it too cold but I thought it was heated well for a normal swimming pool (I wouldn't want to go swimming if it wasn't warm out!) and then headed for the hot tub which is where we stayed for the next hour or so. We had a good time talking with the others there too, about their trips. It did make me notice how unusual Jeff and I are that we go to Disney ever year, most of those there hadn't ever been to Disney world before.

After being well steamed, about 9:30 we heard the Water Pageant start up and we grabbed a towel to dry off and headed out to the beach to watch. I must say I am a BIG fan of the Main Street Electrical Light Parade (I have seen to twice now that it’s at DCA), and we used the music for our wedding recessional, I guess I just like the kooky old fashioned-ness of it. Same thing with the water pageant, it’s the same kind of thing so of course we stopped and watched portions of it three times again over the remaining visit.

After drying off we headed back to our room and with it being after 10PM we were both tired so we feel asleep quickly!