Disney Trip Report
And now, what you've all been waiting for...an overly detailed recap of my trip to Walt Disney World!
I can't say I'm happy to be back, but I definitely have had all the Disney I can handle for a quite a while. After spending months reading about the World, repeatedly watching vacation DVD's, posting on message board sites, even going as far as getting a paid membership in order to download vidoes of rides, I'm done! At least until we plan the next trip, which probably won't be until 2008.
On this trip, my in laws and brother in law came along with us and even paid for our room at the Beach Club Villas, aren't they the best! They're used to going around the parks at a very relaxed pace, but I had other plans for this trip. I felt I had to do everything, knowing that this probably would be the last trip for a while, and because I did way too much reading and wanted to experience it all. I must say that they did a great job of keeping/putting up with me and I thank them for this!
Being a park warrior was difficult because my back constantly was sore from doing inordinate amounts of walking, but Advil helped me go at a furious pace for five days.
I did just about everything I had wanted on this trip. We visited all 4 parks, all of them at least twice except for the Animal Kingdom, which really only merits half a day at best, Downtown Disney, and lived out my Monorail dreams.
For your reading pleasure, here is my trip, in gory detail and in what is likely to be the longest blog entry in recorded history.
Day 1 - Arrival and Downtown Disney
The trip sadly got off to a terrible start, nothing went right. We arrived at MCO around 1:20 and was greeted by our Quicksilver driver. They're the local car service we've hired for each of our 3 trips because they pick you up in a nice towncar and take you for a half hour grocery stop if you so desire, and we surely desired this as there's no time to waste on breakfast if you want to get to the parks right when they open. He of course didn't speak English very well, but no fears, none of the drivers we've had do, so it was fine. Unfortunately, we soon would find out that in addition to not speaking English, he also couldn't hear!
We had thought he was going to stop at a grocery store along the way, but it quickly became apparent that we were going directly to the resort. Jenn tried to ask him if we were stopping at a store but he said we had to wait until we got to the hotel and get out of the car because he couldn't hear her. Upon arriving, he said he didn't have time to take us to the store because he had another pickup to make, thus we were left high and dry until the in laws arrived.
To make matters worse, our room wasn't ready because we arrived at 2:15 and of course, the check in wasn't until 4. In addition to this, the lobby was a mob scene, totally filled with some large group of people standing around doing who knows what and the lines were insane, and now for the first of many tangents...
The Beach Club bell services and vallet guys were fantastic the entire trip, but the check in experience was bad by any standards, it wasn't something I expected from a Disney Vacation Club resort. First, there's only one check in area for guests at both the Beach Club itself and the Villas, which I find to be very uncool, especially during peak times. The Villas building is totally separate, so you'd think it would have its own check in. I'm sure for logistical and monetary reasons, this isn't so, but after staying at Old Key West, I felt cheated in that they didn't treat us any differently. When you check into OKW, you're greeted with a "welcome home" when you check in. I found that to be cheesy as hell the first time I heard it, but when you're paying top dollar for that membership and are an owner of a piece of Disney, you should be given this greeting even though the check in is shared. I know we aren't the owners of this timeshare, Jenn's parents are, but we're still staying in a vacation club resort, and Disney prides itself on how it's supposed to be your home away from home, so there!
We had assumed our room probably wouldn't be ready, so we had our luggage stored and ate at Beaches and Cream for the first time. After strugg-a-ling to find the place, we experienced just how small it really is! There were maybe 3 booths and 10 small round tables. I got chili, it wasn't too bad, nothing special, especially not for $6. My spoon had some interesting crust that I couldn't scrape off and the waiter really didn't come around at all, so I ate chili with a fork, argh! I'd only go back there to try the legendary ice cream, in the future.
Around 4:15, we returned to the still bustling lobby to see the in laws had arrived! Their room was ready and our's still wasn't, so we decided to sit around their room for a while and continue trying to call housekeeping. An hour passed, still our room wasn't ready, but no real reason for it was ever given. Finally, we got so frustrated, that we simply walked into the room and everything was fine. We called bell services to give us our luggage and the guy was somewhat flummoxed, he wanted to make sure our room was in fact ok. It's still questionable to us if our room was ever considered "ready" by the resort!
We quickly unpacked and headed over in the rental car to Downtown Disney for a 6:30 reservation at the Wolfgang Puck Cafe. It was packed and the line to check in was out the door, so us guys took it upon ourselves to make the women wait in line while we drank beer. The plan seemed to work and we were seated within 15 minutes. We had a BBQ chicken quesidilla as an appetizer, it had some suspect looking sour cream swirlies on it, but it tasted great! I had a fantastic four cheese pizza and snacked on Jenn's pumpkin ravioli, it was hard to eat more than a couple of those.
After waddling out of the restaurant, we headed over to the Crossroads Plaza and shopped at the gouge extraordinaire Goodies. I wasn't too impressed with their tourist trap prices and their fruit selection was horrendous, but I was a big fan of them having Yuengling Black and Tan. One of these days they'll sell it in MA and I won't have to buy it every time I see it! We also picked up a bottle of Yellow Tail Riesling. It's becoming clear to me that Yellow Tail just doesn't make good wine. The Riesling had no sweetness at all to it and tasted no better than wine in a box. We left Goodies with bagels and cream cheese as our breakfast for the week, and a lighter wallet.
Day 2 - Magic Kingdom
The second I stepped off the bus, it happened! My back, which only acts up while on vacation in Disney or walking around Boston all day, decided it hated me. I had bought those insoles from Dr. Scholl's, but I'm sad to report that I certainly was not gellin like a fellon, or even like Magellan, however, my eyes were close to wellin when Jenn's mom came to the rescue with Advil, the only thing that got me through the trip.
We strolled right down the middle of Main Street USA and went directly to Tomorrowland, without passing Go, to visit Stitch. This ride didn't impress me the first time I went on it and it wasn't any better this time. The only thing that made it passable was that Jenn's dad took a stream of Stitch spit directly in the grill, bad for him, funny for me! We then did Buzz's Ranger Spin, only slightly more enjoyable than Stitch, and got a FastPass to Space Mountain, my favorite ride ever.
While waiting for the FastPass we went on the WEDWay People Mover (now known as the Tomorrowland Transit Authority) in the hopes that we'd see Space Mountain with the lights on, as it had gone down just as we got the fast passes. Instead, it was back up, no worries though, the People Mover is a must do classic attraction and never disappoints. Still not enough time had passed, so we did Mickey's Philharmagic, the best 3D movie in the World and then finally we got to ride through space.
All that space travel made us hungry so we ate at Cosmic Ray's because for some reason El Pirata y El Perico was closed, much to my chagrine. The caesar salad had comical amounts of dressing on it and a ton of chicken, making it decent overall.
We then made our way back to Fantasyland to do It's a Small World followed by a trip to Liberty Square to ride the Haunted Mansion, where a ghost followed me home. If this isn't exciting enough for you to be reading, we grabbed an FP for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and thought, ok, the line for Splash Mountain is only 30 minutes long and usually it moves along at a decent clip. Not this time!
In the process of waiting, two profound things happened, a woman in a motor cart busted through a Cast Members Only door, ripping out the wood support beam with the hinges still intact, followed by hitting a nearby garbage can before scurrying away. It had to be one of the most surreal experiences of my life, as I watched this all unfold, she didn't seem to care at all! Luckily I had my camera to capture the destruction. Secondly, I coined a new term, the Thumb in Ass (TIA) Effect.
Disney line goers are constantly reminded to keep up with the party in front of them and of course never do. The TIA effect results from a number of causes including but not limited to, having to sit and reposition oneself after each line movement increment, staring off into space, reading signage, talking about absolutely nothing, crotch itching, and general ignorance. You would think that if a person is willing to wait in a line this long, that they must have some sort of interest in getting to the end of it and that this would promote paying attention, but it doesn't. I realize people are on vacation and are wanting to relax, however, in line is not an appropriate place to be doing this.
Anyways, we got absolutely drenched on Splash. Just before the initial ascent into the mountain, a log went down the brier patch and we were hit with a huge burst of water that gets shot up every few logs, brrrrrr.
Big Thunder's FP line went quicker than expected and we were off to see the crown jewel of the park, an attraction I hadn't seen since 1992, the Hall of Presidents! It's every American's patriotic duty to see this gem, I absolutely loved it! Jenn had other ideas and shopped instead, she doesn't like the feeling of being in school while on vacation, to each their own.
4:10 PM came quickly this day, so we went to the wonderful Liberty Tree Tavern where we gorged. I just love the turkey, stuffing, mac 'n cheese, beef, ham, and apple cobbler there, all the fun stuff that tastes that much better when somebody makes it for you and serves it to you ad nausium. Plantation Minnie was her usual self blowing kisses, while Pluto attempted to drink my birch beer. The only thing that I would change about the place is that they should consider adding cranberry sauce to the meal and they may want to change Chip and Dale to some other characters because I don't think kids really know who they are anymore and nobody really knows which guy is which! The Rescue Rangers are buried in the past!
On a side note, we didn't get to eat at Cinderella's Castle this trip because of my outrage. We had called to make reservations for lunch, only to find out you had to prepay and that it was a set price of $34 a person, screw that! There was no way I was paying $170 over the phone before I even stepped into the place, not cool!
Everybody was obviously spent at this point, except for me, of course. I relented and agreed to go back to the hotel and take a swim in the pool under the assumption that me and Jenn would return for Wishes and stick around the park until 11. We took the monorail back and walked through EPCOT Center, stopping by Club Cool for some tasty free soda. After many failed attempts at getting somebody to try Beverly (an Italian aperitif), we left. By the way, Club Cool was better when it was Ice Station Cool and you had to walk through that igloo and see the frozen guy in the snow, now it's very plastic looking and has more merchandise than ever.
I thoroughly enjoyed the sandbottom pool except for the spots where the sand no longer was, causing a few scrapes and the waterslide surprisingly allowed me to build up a great amount of speed, I highly recommend this pool to anybody!
Afterwards, I was greeted with the news that Jenn wouldn't go back to the park that night and after deciding not to go to EPCOT Center by myself for a couple hours, I packed it in for the night. WEAK!
Day 3 - EPCOT Center
Why do I keep calling it EPCOT Center you ask? I know it went from EPCOT Center to EPCOT to Epcot, but one of my favorite memories of Disney is going on the Monorail and hearing the guy say that we were approaching "EPCOT Center".
As was expertly planned by me, we chose to go to Epcot this day specifically because of the Morning Extra Magic Hour knowing that this was probably (turned out it was) our only chance to get on Soarin! Soarin was still being worked on during our last trip, causing me to be denied seeing Living with the Land for the second year in a row and I was going to be damned if I didn't go on it! I walked as fast as I could and got everybody an FP and then we all jumped in line. Our wait was only about 15 minutes, at some points during the trip, it was upwards of 110 minutes, no ride is worth that!
I liked seeing Puddy give us the boarding instructions before the ride and had no idea what to expect when we got on our front row seats. We were shot up to the top of the screen with a good amount of force and were flown over California, it was an amazing ride! The smell coming from the farm and the golf ball hit at us really stood out in my mind and I couldn't wait to go on it again! After a short wait, we headed back on, this time we got the bottom row. The ride was still good, but my experience was somewhat soured by seeing people's feet, they should shield that from the viewers below or else some of the realism is lost.
Between our Soarin adventures, I finally got to go on Living with the Land after an 11 year hiatus, it was definitely worth the wait! Nothing beats going through the farm only to look up and see the rotating restaurant Garden Grille, followed by hearing cheesy plant jokes while going through the greenhouse, very educational!
We grabbed a FastPass for Test Track after finally leaving the Land pavilion, but it wasn't for 3 hours, so we went to Mission: Space. Jenn's dad is an HP retiree, thus we got to see the outstanding HP lounge and were given passes to go directly on the ride. While inside, we were given soda, ate some candy and recorded a video postcard to send to my dad, he loved it! They also have a laptop so people can check email and such, it was a really nice setup. To add to the grandeur of the experience, an employee's son barrelled down the hall to the bathroom after going on the ride. Eventually, I decided I should use the facilities myself, and was entertained by the wretch of the young boy who probably didn't stare straight ahead and keep his eyes open like the ride instructions say to!
The ride itself just wasn't for me. I didn't like it before and I certainly don't like it now! I can go on any rollercoaster, but for some reason this ride really gets to me. It's something about the combination of simulated motion combined with actual motion. For the next few hours I felt like ass. I say now I'll never go on it again, but I know I will.
Next we went over to Mexico to grab some chow, and surprisingly, our wait for a table was only about 20 minutes. Instead of looking at sombreros, I dragged the family onto my favorite attraction in Epcot, El Rio del Tiempo! The river of time was fantastic, the animatronics, the cheesy, campy videos, the fireworks, the odd looking map with the little kid on it, they were all there for my enjoyment, just fantastic. My favorite view in all of the World is when you look out to the right after the boat is launched to see the San Angel Inn full of people eating under the dim lights, it needs to be seen to be understood, it's perfect.
San Angel Inn was just ok, my choice of food probably didn't help. The rents had both ordered the Plato Mexicano and of course I can't order what everybody else does, thus I got the beef tacos. It was very plain, just a shell with some beef and peppers and onions, no sauce or anything. There was guac on the side to dip it in, what it really needed was some hot sauce. Also, the staff was kind of dry, I know there exists a language barrier and all, but it didn't feel fun at all. On the plus side, the salsa there is great and has much more of a kick to it than I would have expected.
We went through Test Track with all the thrills I've come to expect and then my opening came! The rents were tired and Jenn wanted to shop, this was my chance to go on the attraction nobody likes, Universe of Energy! Before coming face to face with Ellen, I had Jenn take a couple pictures of me in front of the Wonders of Life pavilion. How sad it is that this wonderful pavilion is finished. She first took a picture of me standing proudly in the line of sight of the sign. As I stood up on a plantar, I saw some people with IBM name tags walking out...very interesting! Next, I pretended to cry in front of the sign saying that the pavilion was closed. I hope that whatever attraction takes its place provides a good amount of educational value, Soarin is fantastic, but Epcot doesn't need another thriller type ride, it needs something with an interactive feel to it where people can actually come away having learned something new.
Supposedly, the Universe of Energy is next on the chopping block so I made sure to take one final trip through it in case that's really true, let's hope it isn't! The ride could use some retooling, maybe made shorter. Watching movies in the dark on something incredibly slow moving for 37 minutes is difficult for anybody so I can see why the ride is losing favor. For a dork like me, it was a great time and had I had more time, I may have gone on it again!
I still had another half an hour before I had to meet up with Jenn, so I got right on Spaceship Earth, gotta love that burning column odor during the Roman ruins scene. I caught the end of Off Kilter and looked around the toy shop in the UK, then we headed back to the hotel for some rest.
We went back around 5:30 to catch Impressions de France, I had never seen it before, and thought it was ok, I honestly can't remember anything about it and I just saw it 6 days ago!
I wanted to watch this movie to help get us in the mood to eat at Chefs de France. I was very concerned about this reservation from the beginning because I wasn't sure there would be the food choices to suit everybody, but that turned out to not be the problem at all. There was plenty of choice, but I clearly made all the wrong ones! We started out with the cheese plate and after having had real cheese plates in real France earlier this year, we were tremendously disappointed. It only had 3 kinds of cheese (and very little of each), a few greens with some funky dressing on them, and that was it for $10! I didn't expect to get the monstrous cheese plates that are all the rage in Paris, however this was really pitiful!
Disappointment again would follow with our splitting of the French Menu. First, the waitress brought out two bowls of french onion soup even though I said we were splitting, I told her that we had only ordered one. She took one of the bowls back and we were on our way. The soup was good, but the rotisserie chicken was weak with very little flavor, the tomatoes were harsh and the mashed potato was in some odd shape and tasted funky. The creme brulee was tasty and made me temporarily forget about the chicken. Our waitress, like the one in Mexico, really didn't talk at all to us and was blah overall. I do like how Disney strives to have native people of each country, however, it would help if maybe some Americans were in the mix to help out because the language barrier can get overwhelming at times and kill service.
For the second part of our patriotic duties, we saw the American Adventure, my first time doing so since 1995. It was basically the same show as before and just as good as I had remembered. We then took a walk around Morocco and Japan. I had hoped to do the Treasures of Morocco tour, but unfortunately, the person I tried to ask about it couldn't understand what I was talking about and I felt too annoyed to ask somebody else fearing the same thing would happen. One day I'll go on that tour if it still exists!
To cap off the night, we stood near Japan to watch Illuminations, I just love to watch them illuminate the nations! Good times were had by all.
Day 4 - MGM Studios
We started the day by taking the boat from the Beach Club over to MGM and decided to get the two most thrilling attractions out of the way first, Rock 'n Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror. Our first move was to grab an FP for the coaster and then head over to the Tower, it's still the only ride in all of Disney where I actually feel fear. After the first drop, it's not too bad, you just need to get past the initial ticklish feeling.
Rock 'n Roller Coaster was business as usual, it feels as though it doesn't go as fast as it once did, still a good time nonetheless. As Luke from the Vacation DVD would say, "you get to hear Aerosmith pumping straight into your mellon!" You sure do Luke, you SURE do.
The day quickly slowed down after this, we went on the Great Movie Ride and then headed to lunch at 11:10 at the SciFi Dine In Theater. While I love sitting in those carlike tables and watching clips of the cheesiest looking SciFi horror flicks, the food just isn't good! My chili was saltier than ... and in an attempt to combine a bowl of fries with it, I made the situation all the more worse. If not for my delicious vanilla milkshake, all would have been lost!
From there, we went to see the Beauty and Beast show for my first time, amazingly, Jenn's parents, who have been to Disney 25+ times, have never seen the show either. I'm not really a fan of Disney movies and characters, but I have to admit I really enjoyed myself at this show. Before the show, these guys bring out these mics and stands, you assume they're just there to set up. As they're walking away, people begin to cheer for them, I was assuming as a joke. Then, without warning, 4 of them go through a little comedy routine and sing acapella for about 15 minutes, very entertaining! The show itself was even better, it makes me actually want to see the entire film after seeing their condensed 25 minute all music version.
Next, we went to the absolute best show in Disney, the Lights, Motors, Action spectacular! The tricks they did with the Opel Corsa's were amazing to watch and seeing Herbie drive onto the set and then split in half was quite the surprise. I would recommend that show to anybody despite the painful wait you must endure in the holding cell under the grandstand while waiting for the gates to open, they sure have packing people like sardines down to a science there at Disney MGM studios.
After spending 15 minutes just trying to leave the stands, we stopped into the Narnia Wardrobe. It more or less is a trailer for the movie so you'll buy the DVD and there's a guest appearance by an Ice Queen lookalike. Overall, the scenery inside the wardrobe is quite true to the movie, but there really isn't much replay value to it, you basically see a movie and are shoved out so the next group can come in.
Everybody was pretty beat by this point, and after consuming my second ice cream sandwich of the day, I went off on my own in a frantic pursuit to do all of the rest of the rides I had hoped to go on before we had to eat 2 hours later at Prime Time. I hauled ass over to Star Tours, only to find no line, but did have to put up with a spaceship full of guys who were hootin' and hollerin' the whole time, ugh! I then ran through the gift shop, over to Muppets 3D, and caught it just as it began. Half way through the show, I looked at my park schedule and saw there was an outside chance I could see the next Millionaire showing.
I barrelled out the back of the theater and got to Millionaire just as it was about to close its doors and became literally the last contestant allowed in. There, some goofy lady got the 1000 point question wrong, "What item do you use to clear away frozen precipitation?" Luckily for us, she answered "Hail bailer" instead of "Snow blower", and all was well until this uber geek made the hot seat. According to him, it was his 34th time he had made it there, wtf I say! He was wearing the shirt and the hat that are given as prizes, then later on, proceeded to tell the audience how he had 25 of those shirts at home, way to win over the audience! On the plus side, he made it to 250,000 points just as time ran out so at least he didn't have a shot at winning the 4 night cruise for getting 1 million points.
In only an hour, I had gone on 3 attractions and tested my luck on the Backlot Tour, which had been closed on my way over to Millionaire, but this time I got in and saw the whole show. The backlot itself is much smaller due to Lights, Motors, Action, however, it still has the old favorites like Walt Disney's private plane and you could see the stunt show going on from the tram.
My luck finally ran out when attempting to see the Little Mermaid show! Don't make fun of me, it's a good show! I had missed it by minutes, so I decided to find something else to do. I considered for about 2 seconds that maybe I should try Sounds Dangerous again, luckily I thought better of that, and once again went on Star Tours, except this time, there were no people yelling at the non-responsive animatronic pilot, very relaxing.
Finally, it was time to eat at the 50's Prime Time Cafe, where Auntie Claire was our brute of choice. I guess she's probably been there a long time because she had a huge photo album and a collection of letters people wrote to her, I found that to be really cool and she was highly entertaining. My meatloaf was alright, about what I've come to expect from Prime Time. One of these days I'd like to check out Mama Melrose's or Hollywood and Vine, but I haven't heard the best things about either and I don't have the urge to go to gouge city at the Brown Derby!
We got to Fantasmic 5 minutes before it started and just happened to get 10th row seats all the way to the right side of the theater. You'd think the view would have been totally distorted, instead it was great and there was no splashback from the water screens by the wind, always a problem when I've seen the show in the past and had been front and center. In the future, I'll just show up right before the show instead of wasting an hour sitting around waiting for the show to start.
Day 5 - Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom Part 2
There's something that just doesn't sit well about Animal Kingdom, it really does feel zoolike even though it's nahtazu, I'm not sure how else to feel when everything is based on animals and every attraction deals with animals in some way! The park, although it has the largest amount of acreage out of the 4 major parks, seems to have the least space for humans to walk around in, everything gets crowded around specific areas, such as the entrances to the Kilamanjaro Safaris, Kali River Rapids, and all of Dinoland USA. At least now Expedition Everest is able to alleviate some of this traffic with its 80 minute waits! I also find it questionable that a major "land" in the park, Rafiki's Planet Watch, can only be reached by taking a train and Camp Minnie-Mickey, a place for kids to meet their favorite characters and see the Lion King show, is quite a hike away from the Tree of Life area.
I started the day by scurrying over to EE for a FastPass, which I had been looking forward to the most out of any ride. It was pretty difficult to actually locate the kiosks, I managed to find them within a few minutes and got a ride time for only 1.5 hours later, not bad at all!
All the while, the rest of the family was chowing down on sugary breakfasts, no thanks! We quickly got onto the Safaris with its inappropriate gun sounds that somewhat ruin the tranquility inherent in this simulated savannah and headed over to our date with the yeti!
Even though EE was probably only 1:30 long, it was worth the wait and worthy of the hype! There aren't really any significant drops on the ride and you don't go upside down, but it does go backwards for a long time and there's quite a rush involved when you go under the yeti as you escape from the inside of the mountain, good times were had by all.
At It's Tough to be a Bug, children, and possibly adults, seemed especially scared of the 3D effects. I can see how kids would be scared of bugs flying at them and when you get poked in the back by the seat, it's not that cool, but even the adults were lurching, grow up people! If kids see their parents screaming, what are they going to do other than start crying, which many of them were after the show, they may have to look into toning that down a bit, as it's supposed to be a kiddie attraction.
It was a bit too cold to go on Kali River Rapids, so we instead went to Countdown to Extinction (DINOSAUR) to get our ears blown out by the sound of roaring dinosaurs, gotta love that. What I especially loved was the post ride puke we had to walk by, I really should have taken a picture of that for the archives. The saw dust product they used to cover it up smelled remarkably good, however.
The in laws seemed pretty tired, as I had worked them to the bone the day before, and they decided to go to the Lion King show about 45 minutes early, which you have to do to get a good seat. Having seen it the previous year, and despite thoroughly enjoying it, we felt it wasn't worth the time to sit around and wait, so we hit Primeval Whirl and attempted to get lunch at the Flame Tree BBQ.
I had been wanting to go there ever since I found out they had their own brew, Safari Amber, and figured the ribs had to be at least decent, I was wrong! Just getting a look at the ribs people were carrying on their trays, I decided if I wanted something dry, I'd turn to ..., so I got the beer, which turned out to be quite tasty, and we went to Chakranadi Chicken Shop in Asia to get chicken stir fry and pot stickers. For some reason, they gave me two pot sticker bowls, thus fortune had smiled upon me. The food was as good as can be expected from counter service, and then we headed back to the hotel for some rest before going to Boma, my favorite place of all to eat!
Boma was outstanding as usual! I had taken my advice from our honeymoon and did NOT order the Casablanca beer, as it took me over an hour to nurse it the first time, harsh stuff. I consumed mass quantities of prime rib, dousing it with every sauce I could find, gumbo, hummus, peanut rice, anything that looked like it didn't have coconut in it, everybody should eat there at least once in their lives, it's that good.
Although I was full beyond belief, my appetite for cheesy rides had not yet been satisfied, thus we hitched a ride over to the Magic Kingdom, and got there after struggling a bit with the road system. Driving to the Magic Kingdom is a royal pain if you want to just drop somebody off. You have two choices, the first is you can be dropped off at the Transportation and Ticket Center, where you have to take a boat across the lagoon with a zillion people on it, or you can pull into the Contemporary parking lot and walk across the street, only a bus can actually get reasonably close to the MK. The Contemporary is difficult to get to by car if you don't know the area because after you go through the MK welcome wagon area, you have to immediately get all the way over to the right, and if you miss that road, you're screwed.
We got into the park about 2 hours before Wishes was to begin, this was the real reason I had wanted to go in the first place. Jenn wanted to do some shopping, thus giving me a chance to do the rides I love, Jungle Cruise and the Enchanted Tiki Room. Our host for Jungle Cruise was by far the funniest one yet, he did all the same jokes but his presentation was fantastic. The Tiki Room was better than I had remembered. It was a shock to me going in there in 2004, after having not gone to WDW in 9 years, to see that they had fiddled around with my beloved Tiki Room. They at least had the sense to leave a little bit of the original act in and while the new additions of Gilbert Godfried and company aren't the greatest, it's still a very enteraining attraction.
The stupid Spectromagic parade was about to begin so I was forced to run to Fantasyland before half the park got roped off and I would be stuck. I hopped on Snow White's Scary Adventure after seeing the line for Peter Pan was beyond outrageous for 8 PM, and then was saddened that Pooh also had a long line. I wanted to do just one more ride before meeting Jenn at the end of Main Street, Indy Speedway, which I still have never been on, Astro Orbiter, and Space Mountain all had 40 minute waits, but all was not lost.
Instead of giving up on my quest, I did Carousel of Progress, probably for the last time ever. With the closing of the Timekeeper, it's only a matter of time before the wonderful CoP goes down. For the first time I can remember, the ride didn't crap out at all, and I was able to run through the crowds just in time to get some root beer flavored sugar and meet Jenn.
She decided it would be a good time if we watched Wishes from just outside the park so we wouldn't have to wait an hour to get on a bus once the show was over, I agreed. On the way out, a woman asked me to take a survey about my experience that day, how could I pass that up? I told her just how excellent all 4 of those rides were and that the only thing I couldn't do was Peter Pan because the lines are the worst in all of the parks, which they are, it's so slow moving and painful, it not only has a huge TIA effect, but it also has crying kids, not a good combination.
The view of Wishes was a bit obstructed by the train station, at least the music and narration could still be heard, and we got right onto a bus headed for the Epcot resort area hotels, that alone was worth not having a great view of the show.
Day 6 - Magic Kingdom Part 3, Monorail, and EPCOT Center Part 2
This was the day I had been waiting for the most because I knew that it was totally unplanned and that everybody would either be too tired to go to a park that morning, or that they wanted to shop. I also felt I needed to go back to a place I feared, the Polynesian Village. My parents' marriage had ended there almost 20 years earlier, and I felt I had to go back and look around for myself to remember what it was like to be there.
But first, I had some unfinished business to attend to. I finally got my chance to ride Peter Pan, which I had been denied in 2005, and the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and yes, I finally saw the picture of Mr. Toad handing to deed to the ride to Owl! I can see why those rides have huge lines because there aren't that many rides geared towards young kids that parents can also ride along and the rides themselves are very well done. Snow White I like just as much, but it honestly is kind of scary!
Before attempting to ride in front of the Monorail for the first time ever, I rode around on the People Mover one more time before getting a FastPass to Space Mountain. My return time wasn't for over 2 hours, so I headed out of the park and over to the Monorail.
People were pouring into the park from all directions, but I did manage to get up the walkway and headed to where the front car stops. At first I was afraid that it would be hard to get to ride in the front, but when I asked the woman what I had to do to ride in the front, she said, you just have to be the first to ask, which I was. Unfortunately, these 3 loud women snaked my chance to talk to the driver and jumped in, at least I got a couple pictures of the inside of the front car after they got out at the TTC. The controls were even simpler than I had thought, the guy basically moved a little stick and it went, I'm not sure what I was expecting from it, but I had great time.
Instead of doing a full lap around and getting the hairy eyeball, I got off at the Grand Floridian and walked around the gift shops and looked around the hotel itself. The place gives me the creeps, it's full of really stiff people walking around with their noses up. You'd think that wouldn't happen anywhere at Disney, but I felt as though I wasn't white enough to be there.
My original plan was to stop at all of the Monorail hotels, including a side trip to Shades of Green, but my hopes for this were dashed, as I soon found out, the second lap around isn't a charm! There were huge delays in travel this time around and it was getting a little too close for comfort for my FastPass time and our lunch meeting at 1. I scrapped the Contemporary and SoG plan and headed directly to the Polynesian.
When I got there, I lost all sense of feeling, all I could think to myself was "my parents got divorced here." That wasn't entirely accurate, as it happened a bit later than that, but this was the place where the final straw was. I went into a couple gift shops but couldn't pay attention, so I walked out to the pool that had seemed so large to me. I had distinctly remembered there being more than one pool with a bunch of waterfalls, there was just one and a small slide. The pool was nowhere near as big as I had remembered and the beach was tiny! I took a few pictures of the view I would have had from there and decided that I had had enough of this place. After leaving on the next Monorail, I felt a little peace in that I got out of Dodge and with myself, it was a good feeling to have gone there.
The Magic Kingdom was Charlie Foxtrot upon returning and my FP time wasn't quite there yet, thus I went to Aloha Isle to try the famous Dole Whip I hear everybody talking about. It's basically Dole-made soft serve ice cream, and of course, I had to get the pineapple flavor, good stuff! By the time I reached Space Mountain, I had eaten it all and did my last ride for a while at MK. People often talk about how that ride needs to be updated, I disagree. It still looks great and at 31 years old, it's stood the test of time and always has huge lines, why mess with that?
My second attempt at riding shotgun on the Monorail to Epcot didn't quite work out, I would have had to wait for 2-3 more trains to come because a lot of people were lined up in the front. Time was running low before I had to get to Old Key West and I didn't want to chance being late. I was told that you get a Monorail Pilot pin when you ride in the front and I felt shafted when I didn't get one. I looked over at the people waiting in line for the front car as we left the station and saw that all they got were these cheesy Monorail Pilot stickers, no loss!
I waited forever for the bus to OKW at Epcot and it was absolutely freezing out. It was around 70 and not bad in the sun, in the shade, it suddenly felt much colder and huge wind gusts made it unbearable for shorts and tshirt wear. Finally the bus came and I was on my way to meet the family at Olivia's.
We split the tasty shrimp and artichoke dip and I had a shrimp po' boy sandwich, which was essentially a bunch of little grilled shrimp with some sauce on it inside a roll, not very satisfying. Our waiter seemed cool so I gave him a good tip. It was our turn to pay and to give you an idea of what lunch for 5 at a table service restaurant costs...$118! Kind of expensive for lunch, but the food and atmosphere there is great.
Instead of going directly to another park, we sat around at the hotel for about an hour before I became much too anxious, I had to finish everything at Epcot! First of all, we had to walk through the rest of the World Showcase including Germany, Italy, China, and Norway. Germany is full of beer steins and tasty gummy candy, Italy is basically just perfume and glass stuff, and China has the final attraction I've never done at Epcot besides the Circle of Life, the Reflections of China movie!
Supposedly this movie was updated in 2003, it seems as though new footage was spliced in with old footage to make a somewhat new looking film. Unlike O, Canada!, this film actually was worth watching and wasn't overly long, maybe 12 minutes. That's a long time to stand in one of those theaters, which has nothing but uncomfortable rails to lean against.
Jenn found an amusing little goat puppet, and for the second time on our trip, my room key didn't work! The first was at Beaches and Cream, it made me want to kill! What was the most odd was that we had just bought a stuffed animal over in England maybe 45 minutes earlier, weak!
We met up with Jenn's mom, who had just arrived in the park and I got in line for Maelstrom, while the two of them did some more browsing. The line wasn't too long, except it was full of TIA type who couldn't stop ogling at the map of the different voyages the Vikings made. I also noticed that this ride really isn't worth waiting for, it basically tells you how you're about to make a voyage, you see some trolls, you drop down backwards, then do a forward drop, and you're forced to wait for the theater to open up to see a movie. I wanted to see the movie, but knew they were waiting outside, so I left. We stopped by the Stave church to see Erik the Red and then went to The Land to attempt to ride Soarin' (yeah right).
The wait was about 100 minutes when we arrived and knowing that I'd probably have to go it alone, I grabbed an FP for Living with the Land and we ate at the food court after not wanting to pay a ton of money at the Garden Grill. I got yet another caesar salad since I knew it would be hard to mess that up, while Jenn was very unimpressed with their beef plate, it just didn't look tasty and the people working there seemed to be pretty rude and aloof, we definitely won't be eating there again.
Jenn's brother was exhausted at this point, surprisingly not from working on his muffler all night, but much to my glee, everybody decided they'd go on Spaceship Earth and then head back for the night. On the way out, we talked to a Cast Member who said to expect some significant updates to the attraction and there would once again be a post show for the ride. When you come out, there's a big wall up promising something new and from the side, I could see some fake trees, I can't wait to see what they add to it!
With me by my lonesome, I headed straight for another round of Living with the Land. The host was in a pissy mood before he began the trip, I could hear him complaining to another CM that he was stuck there until midnight because that night there were evening Extra Magic Hours. However, his mood changed entirely once he began talking about all the plants in the greenhouse, he didn't seem to give as many facts as the previous guy, but I liked the over the top fake voice he was using for his narration.
Upon leaving the Land pavilion, it became readily apparent to me that it was Teen night at Epcot! All these groups of local and not so local high schools were going on attractions together and impeding my progress over towards the Imagination! pavilion to see Honey I Shrunk the Audience. I find the preshow to be obnoxiously long, they shove everybody to the front of the room and forced us to watch a bunch of cheesy clips of fictitious Kodak moments, puke. Then you get ushered into the theater where all the people who were shoved up ahead of the final entrance door converge at this single door, it's a mess. The show itself wasn't that bad and the crowd was very animated just like at It's Tough to be a Bug. This was more of a check in the box than actually wanting to go on it.
I thought better of going to the Living Seas, since I knew it's still undergoing heavy renovation and Jenn's dad deemed it the "Dead Seas" after he went in earlier that evening, and headed to Journey into Your Imagination, I love Figment! The ride is pretty cheesy and nowhere near as good as its first incarnation, still enjoyable though. Its postshow is full of places for kids to run around and learn things, I think they've done a great job with that, but for me, I needed to get on more rides!
A final voyage, or so I thought, on El Rio del Tiempo was next on my short list. There was of course no line, thus some people felt they didn't need to get off their boat and surprisingly, they were allowed to stay on, but I didn't let that ruin a great trip through Mexico!
Against my better judgement, I headed back to Maelstrom, and turned right around after seeing the line. I then thought, what could be better than going on El Rio del Tiempo again! This time, I had the whole boat to myself and sat in the front row, it was very relaxing and I felt now I could really go back to the hotel without regrets.
Looking at my watch, I saw there was actually enough time to go Living with the Land once again, and so I did, bad idea! The woman hosting it was blah and she had a "guest host", it was a young girl who would point at stuff for her and at the end she said "living with the land". I think the ride would have been more entertaining had the girl narrated the entire thing!
It was much too close to 9 PM, my supposed arrival time back at the hotel, and I got caught up in the mob of people watching Illuminations. I saw most of the show as I struggled to get over to the International Gateway entrance and arrived back at the hotel by 9:20.
Day 7 - MGM Part 2 and Departure
That morning, we had an early reservation at Fresh Mediterranean Market in the Dolphin at 8:15. It was quite tasty, and I'm not a breakfast person at all. They make omelettes, pancakes, whatever you want, right there in front of you and then they have the typical assortment of cereal and muffins. One great thing they add to it are these weird juices, like ginger with carrot, beet juice, things you won't find at the typical buffet, great stuff!
Afterwards, we finished packing up the room and I attempted to check us in for our flight so we wouldn't have to worry about our luggage for the rest of the day, and unfortunately was informed that we had to check in at the airport, which could only mean one thing, we were fingered to have our bags searched, what a pain. Instead, we checked our luggage at bell services and said goodbye to the in laws.
At this point, I was basically burned out on all the parks and had wished we had just got an earlier flight instead of one at 5:30, our Magical Express reservation wasn't until 2:40. We had both had our fill of MK, AK and Epcot, so we went one last time to MGM. Since we got there around 10, the lines for Aerosmith and Tower of Terror were horrendous, so we grabbed an FP for Aerosmith and decided to take it easy for the next couple hours.
It turned out to be one of the best days of the trip, strolling around with my wife, not worrying about which ride to get onto next or anything like that, just enjoying each other's company and checking out all the gift shops and menus. The shop near the exit of Muppets is fantastic, all kinds of Muppet and Fraggle paraphenalia, along with all the typical Disney mumbojumbo. Eventually, we did Millionaire and attempted to go on the Great Movie Ride and Little Mermaid, neither of us were in the mood to wait in the long lines though.
After thinking better of doing the Backlot Tour, we watched part of Lights, Motors, Action from one of the attraction exits. There, we could see the motorcycle and car drivers practicing, one of the motorcycle guys even waved to us. It was cool seeing what we were unable to see during the actual show, especially the way they moved the props on and off the set.
We took another half lap around the park and decided to eat at the ABC Commissary where we both had veggie stir fries that had to be heavily loaded up with soy sauce in order to give it even a hint of flavor, followed by doing our last ride of the trip on the Rock 'n Roller Coaster.
The FP line was CF because the ride had gone down for a short time and the standby line had around an 80 minute wait, I almost felt bad for the people waiting...almost. It was their own fault for not taking advantage of FastPass! It took about 15 minutes to get on the ride, I had a pretty funny look on my face when the limo took off, I probably should have bought the picture, oh well.
Before leaving for the Beach Club, I picked up a desk bell from the Tower of Terror, it's great! We took the boat back once again since my back wouldn't allow us to hoof it, and ate a lemon gellato and marshmallow on a stick with just enough time to spare before el bus arrived.
The Magical Express is a great deal for Disney, they get to control a decent amount of the influx of people themselves, however, it screws local transportation companies, especially since Disney is offering it free as of now. We hopped on the bus and I was surprised how quiet and serene it all was...until we stopped to pick up the people at Carribean Beach.
Jenn would always spout off this rhetoric about how the people at the Value resorts and Port Orleans, in particular, were a little less classy, if you will, and I refused to believe that. I realize I'm very lucky with the resorts I've stayed at, we'd be staying at the military resort Shades of Green if not for Jenn's family, but I also know that some of my family has stayed at the less expensive resorts and had a great time. I just didn't buy what she was saying until people started coming onto the bus at Carribean Beach. The kids and parents alike were loud and obnoxious, it was chaos when they got onto the bus, people were pushing each other to get on, just a mess.
At the Beach Club, there were less people getting on the bus, but at least they were all courteous and were able to maintain dignity, their kids were all quiet and everything was great. I'm not going to outright say that everybody at these resorts are scummy, I'll never believe that, and I still am open to staying at Coronado Springs, however, I do believe that these overly large resorts contribute to the frustrations of the guests and make them appear to behave badly at times. Buses to the MK and AK get pretty packed at the Beach Club, I can't imagine what it's like when you have probably four to five times as many people competing for the same buses and having to wait on the buses for a ton of stops because the resorts are so spread out. It's difficult to relax in an atmosphere like that. While I still am able to get government rates, I'll make sure we at least stay at the Swan, Dolphin, or Shades of Green. After that experience, I think I'd be willing to spend an extra $60-80 a night to stay at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, rather than risk being stampeded at a Moderate resort.
It's always sad going back to MCO, you know your trip has come to an end, and all you really have to look forward to is being at work in the cold weather and eating crappy fast food in the terminal, that spicy chicken sandwich at McDonalds is disgusting, oh by the way. I never eat there, but I happened to have gift certificates, the way that food makes you feel after eating it is horrible, nobody should eat there ever!
Enough about that, I have to say this was the best of my last 3 trips to Disney, neither of us were sick, we got to spend a lot of time with family that we don't see nearly enough, and we had enough time to do everything we (at least I) were hoping to do. Jenn's parents and brother are probably more tired than ever, but I felt very relaxed and ready to go back to the grind upon our return. Oh yeah, and it was great to see our two kittens once we got home!
Aren't you glad you just spent 2 hours reading this?
That is all.
posted by Erik @ 11:00 AM
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