Trip Reports
02-08-2006, 08:52 AM
Time of Year: Holiday Season
Travel Method: Plane, Shuttle Service
Resort: Polynesian Resort
Accommodations: Standard Room
Ages Represented in Group: Infant/Toddler, Adult
WDW Experience Represented in Group: Rookie
Comments: A.D., his wife, and daughter (age 4) spent several days at the Polynesian Beach Resort on this trip. This is a fun report because it explains how A.D. dealt with taking a younger child to the parks. A.D. also describes the Holiday events at WDW.
The following details our trip to Walt Disney World, from December 13, 1995 to December 18, 1995. It was written mostly there, and also on the plane on the return, and polished up a bit at home.
Participants:
A.D. Jensen, age 33 (adjensen@aatrix.com) [Where you see 'I', that's me!]
Deb Jensen, age 33
Kiersten Jensen, age 4
(None of us have every been to Disneyworld, Florida, or much of anyplace else. I haven't taken a real vacation since 1979 :-)
December 13, 1995
Left Grand Forks, 7:15 am
Arrived Minneapolis, 8:15 am
Left Minneapolis, 12:30 pm
Arrived Orlando Polynesian Resort, 6:30 pm
We left Grand Forks at 7:15am, in a blizzard. The blizzard also was affecting Minneapolis, and technical problems with the plane meant that we didn't get out of the Cities until about 1pm. There were no further delays, and we got to Orlando about three hours later.
Upon arrival, I went to Captain Cook's Snacks and Ice Cream, a fast food restaurant in the Polynesian which is open 24 hours and purchased a Polynesian beverage mug for $7.50, which can be refilled for unlimited times. As each refill would normally cost about $1.50, and I counted 17refills, I guess we came out ahead. After checking in, we relaxed for a few minutes in our hotel room before walking to the Ticket and Transportation Center for a monorail ride to Epcot center. We arrived during the tree lighting ceremony and paused to watch the lighted fountains, as well as the music/light show in Future World. We had dinner at the San Angel Inn at the Mexico Pavilion in World Showcase, where Deb had a grilled turkey dinner, I had the Chicken Mole, and Kiersten had a chicken taco and burrito (neither of which she ate). Our first dinner cost about $50
After dinner, we walked outside to enjoy the holiday edition of Illuminations, which was a beautiful show, narrated by Walter Cronkite. Following the show, to avoid the crowds we walked around the World Showcase, starting in Mexico. Norway was beautiful, and really brought back memories of my grandfather. The rest of the world was also quite nice. We returned to Future World just in time to take the last shuttle of the night back to the TTC, after which we walked on the beach as far as the Wedding Pavilion, the returned to the hotel and went to sleep in room 1220 of the Tahiti building at the Polynesian.
Thursday, December 14, 1995
Magic Kingdom
Early entry day at the Magic Kingdom, so I got Kiersten up at about 7am, got dressed very quickly and left Deb with instructions that we would be back at 9am to pick her up for our 9:40 character breakfast in Cinderella's Castle. Kiersten and I caught the monorail from the Polynesian and rode it to the MK. Once inside, we gawked for a short while at the Main Street and Cinderella's Castle, then walked through the castle to Fantasyland.
Kiersten's first ride was Dumbo, which we walked on with no wait. She enjoyed flying the elephant, although she just cranked it up to maximum elevation and wouldn't lower the boom for anything. Next up was Snow White's Scary Adventures, which we also walked on to. Let me say that this was indeed a scary adventure. I didn't much care for it, and it bothered Kiersten for the rest of the trip. Further "dark" rides were always preceeded with "are there any evil witches on this?" questions.
However, after Snow White, we waited about a minute to ride Peter Pan's Flight, which I must say was my favorite Fantasyland ride. It is a continuous loader (as was Snow White and Mr. Toad) in which you climb into a pirate ship and sail out of Wendy's bedroom, over Nana's doghouse and the rest of London, then into Neverland. You first see the camp of the Lost Boys, are fired upon by Captain Hook, then visit the mermaid cove, see Wendy walk the plank, the Peter Pan saves the day, and Hook is left standing in the crocodile's mouth.
Next, it was off to It's a Small World, which wasn't as bad as I had thought, although "that song" does tend to wear on you. Following this, we walked back towards Dumbo, but a line had developed and Kiersten and I rode the Golden Carousel instead. Very nice, but nothing unique. Then we walked towards Tommorowland, where I intended to go on the race cars, but we stopped off for Mr. Toad's Wild Adventures. It took a bit of convincing to get Kiersten to go, but she did and enjoyed it. I, on the other hand, thought it was a stupid waste of time, with corny cardboard cutouts and dumb effects (as if jerking the car around would pass for entertainment). Then we rode the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, which are teacups that you can spin around by twisting a large silver knob in the center of the car. Kiersten loved it and quickly proclaimed it her favorite ride.
At this time, it was getting close to 9, so we headed for the exit, and we learned our first lesson of Disney transportation-it takes twice as long as you think to get anywhere. I called Deb on my cellular phone as we were leaving the park, so she was getting ready, but we didn't get back to the hotel until about 9:20. I don't think that we ever relaxed again...we got back to Cinderella's Castle at around 9:45 and then waited to be seated. At the breakfast, which wasn't very good, we saw Cinderella, one of the mice that made her dress, Daisy and Donald, Dopey, Meeko and Pocahontas and Snow White. The breakfast consisted of fruit, rolls, sausage, bacon, eggs, potatoes and some weird cream cheese pastry. This meal cost about $50 for us, including a big tip to the host, who was far better than the meal. After the meal, we started to walk around the park but quickly decided to leave when it was clear that the crowds were getting to be much too large.
We returned to the Polynesian Resort and relaxed on the beach, a white sandy strip of land from the Poly all the way past the Grand Floridian. There are a number of chaise lounges, as well as several swings. Kiersten quickly found some friends and began building sand castles and mud pies with them. Otherwise, Deb and I just soaked up the sun. At about four-thirty, we hopped back on a monorail and rode to the Magic Kingdom. Once there, we walked up the Swiss Family Tree House and took the Pirates of the Caribbean cruise. The cruise was great, although the treehouse was kind of dumb. [Note: After we got back to ND, we made it a point to watch the "Swiss Family Robinson" and appreciated the tree a bit more.] As the park closed early (6 pm) and we needed to get Kiersten to the Neverland Club by six, we left after doing those two things.
We got Kiersten to the Neverland Club (which was kind of a disappointment to me, although she really loved it) and then returned to the room, where we got ready to go to Pleasure Island. We figured that we would just hop over and hang out for a couple of hours before picking up Kiersten at 9pm. However, we got to the Poly bus stop, where we were told that "buses come every 20 minutes or so...no, I don't know when the next one will be...no, I don't recall seeing the last one." We waited until nearly seven before getting on the bus, which then went to the Grand Floridian Resort, then to the Disney Village Marketplace, then to Pleasure Island.
Once inside, I grabbed a grilled Italian Sausage ($4) and Deb had a big Rice Krispie Square ($3) and we bought Kiersten some Beauty and the Beast Cookies ($3). We then went to the Adventurers Club, which is performance art masked in an old colonial explorers club. I enjoyed it, but Deb did not. We had two beers ($8) while in the club. We left the club around 8pm and watched a reggae band, "Exodus" for about twenty minutes before strolling down to the Jazz Club for a brief listen to Jeff Kashiwa, who was so good that we bought his cd. Unfortunately, at $8 per hour, we had only left Kiersten in the Neverland Club until nine, so we had to leave and wait for a bus, which took about fifteen minutes to arrive. Following a quick stop at the Wilderness Lodge, we returned back to the Neverland Club by 9:15 pm. Kiersten drew some nice pictures for us, and seemed to have had a very nice time. The bill for her care was $24, which included her dinner for the evening, a visit (and photo) from Goofy, and visits by some animals from Discovery Island.
After getting her out, we went to the monorail and got to ride up front with the driver, a beautiful view at night. At the Magic Kingdom station, we got a very friendly driver who gave Kiersten and Deb "Monorail Co-Pilot" certificates, suitable for framing. We rode the complete circuit and continued on to the Grand Floridian Beach Resort, northwest of the Poly. We walked around this a bit, and got a good look at the resort. Deb was more impressed than I was. I enjoyed the atmosphere of the Poly, while the Floridian seemed more stuffy.
We then took the monorail to the Contemporary Resort, an A-Frame building which the monorail goes through. Decked out in red and green lights for the holidays, the 15 story build was quite pretty, although we both agreed that it seemed to hurried and urban for our tastes. We went up to the California Grill on the 15th story, scored a table by the window and bought a barbecued chicken and green onion flatbread pizza with two Sprites for $15. Deb didn't care for the seasoning on the pizza, but I loved it. Kiersten went to sleep on a coach and we spent about an hour watching the boats on the lake and the lights at the Magic Kingdom, which was open until 1am for a session of Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party.
I schlepped Kiersten back to the monorail and the Poly and we went to sleep, exhausted, at about 12 midnight.
Friday, December 15, 1995
We neglected to set an alarm and all overslept until about 10am. As we hadn't planned anything for the day I wasn't concerned about it, but we did miss our character breakfast in the Contemporary Resort. After a leisurely morning of getting ready, we headed out to the Magic Kingdom. After arriving in Fantasyland, we went to the Pinocchio Village Haus, where Deb had a fruit plate, I had a hamburger "meal deal" and Kiersten had a hot dog with grapes ($17). After this, we walked onto Peter Pan's Flight and It's a Small World, then bypassed the rest of Fantasyland for the Mad Tea Party, which Kiersten asked to ride twice (Deb chose not to partake, as she doesn't enjoy getting dizzy/sick). We then walked to Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe, where we had three ice cream bars and a large soda for $8.
After the light snack, we then went into Mickey's Toyland (aka Mickey's Starland) where we saw "Minnie Moo" (a cow with a Mickey Mouse patch pattern), went through Mickey's house (he sure buys a lot of cheese) and then watched "Minnie's Country Christmas" and went back stage to meet the mouse himself. After Kiersten got a picture and an autograph, we left Mickey's Toyland which could use an update.
We then headed for the parade route, where we got into the second row from the curb just southwest of the Castle. The parade was the final running of the "Mickey Mania" until the Christmas stuff was over in January. I was less than impressed, Deb hated it and Kiersten said she enjoyed it. Following the parade, we walked on to the Haunted Castle, which we all enjoyed, then Kiersten dragged me onto the Big Thunder Railroad, a roller coaster through a mining town that she enjoyed much more than I did. Our wait for that was about ten minutes.
We had tickets to the Jolly Holidays Dinner Show at 5pm at the Contemporary, so we left the park at about 4 and headed back to our room. We arrived at the dinner shortly after they started serving it (that prompt Disney transportation again) and were seated at a table with two couples from Florida, and another family of three, from New Jersey. Dinner consisted of turkey, stuffing, potatoes and vegetables. Kiersten had a very nice man sitting next to her, but Deb had a grouch who never said anything and didn't even eat his dinner for some reason.
The show after the dinner was fabulous and we have most of it video taped. There was a narrator, a small (15-20) group of singers, and a number of characters, including Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Goofy and toy tin soldiers. The show lasted about 30 minutes and was scattered about the ballroom, which seated 1700 that night. Following the show, we hung around the Contemporary for a while and Deb bought all three of us "Jolly Holidays 1995" shirts ($45) and I bought an ornament ($8) and Kiersten a set of antlers/mouse ears ($11).
We then returned to the Polynesian and got ready (well, changed shoes mostly) for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party, in which the park is only opened for a few people (20,000). We got to the party in time to be blocked by the Christmas parade, which we watched from the entrance to Main Street over the heads of a couple hundred people. After the procession, we followed it up to the Tomorrowland walkway, where we paused for ice cream ($5) and watched the Fantasy in the Sky fireworks, which were quite long in celebration of the party. Right after the fireworks, we got our family picture taken, then went on the TimeKeeper, in which Robin Williams provides the voice of a "droid" animatron who sends a fellow droid (and Jules Verne) on a trip through the past and the future. This is an excellent production that we all loved (it's a 360 degree movie).
After TimeKeeper, we went on the Dreamflight ride, which was ok (Deb liked it more than I) and then the Carousel of Progress, which we all dubbed ok, but not worth any wait. After that, we went on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority, which was a pretty nice tour of the area (beautiful at night- it's lit up like a Buck Rogers movie), but it broke down, with our car under a speaker which droned "Welcome back to Planetary Central at the heart of Tomorrowland. Please rejoin us and believe...in the promise...of tomorrow" endlessly for five minutes.
After the TAT mishap, we went in search of a glowing rose for Kiersten ($3) and ran across the Beauty and the Beast characters, who took a picture with Kiersten. Around this time, it was back to the parade route, where we staked out a spot southeast of the castle and enjoyed the parade from curbside.
Following the parade, we walked to Fantasyland, where Deb rode on Snow White by herself, we took a spin on Peter Pan, and then we saw It's a Small World yet again. We attempted to go back to the Mad Tea Party, but it was already closed and we stopped off at Casey's on Main Street for ice creams and a soda ($8) while waiting for the crowds to clear (which did happen at about 1:30 am). We then caught the monorail back to the Poly and quickly went to sleep. Before going to sleep, I found out that after about 1 am, Captain Cook's snack bar puts out their baked goods as "day old giveaways", so I grabbed a couple of big (3 x 2 x 3") brownies and a cupcake.
Saturday, December 16, 1995
We rose late again, because of the lateness of the evening before, and ate the remains of the previous nights' raid of the "day old" giveaway before heading out to Epcot. Once there, we rode the Spaceship Earth (and all liked it) and checked out Innoventions (Kiersten is a big Sega fan) until the pangs of hunger called us to La Cellier in the Canadian Pavilion. I ordered the chicken and meatball stew, Deb had another fruit plate, and Kiersten had a macaroni and cheese kids meal ($32). Frankly, although the stew sounded good, it really wasn't all that great. Following the meal, we watched the Canadian movie (which I enjoyed but Deb and Kiersten did not).
Then we went to the English pavilion, where we wondered through the streets and took pictures by the hedge maze before moving on to France, where we watched the France movie. Finally, we went to the American pavilion, where we attended "the American Adventure", a retelling of American history with film and audio-animatronic robots. I thought it was very inspiring, but Kiersten misbehaved out of boredom before falling asleep and Deb thought it a waste of time.
This brought us to about 4 o'clock, when we decided to leave the park, although I wanted to ride World of Motion first, because it's being dismantled in January. We all thought that it was a nice ride, and a shame that it's coming down, but we did skip past the GM promotion stuff at the end (why anyone would pay to go to WDW and then look at cars, I'll never know, but there were a couple dozen doing so when we went by). Just before leaving the park, we attended a showing of the Universe of Energy, dinosaurs and all (the dino's were something of a disappointment).
Back at La Cellier, I discovered that I had left my wallet in the pants I wore before the night before, so Deb sprang for lunch. Unfortunately, upon arriving back to the hotel, I couldn't find it and remembered that I had it in Epcot when I bought some film, so I called down and sure enough, they had it. Although it meant missing our character dinner at the Grand Floridian, Kiersten and I walked to the TTC, rode to Epcot, got the wallet, returned to the TTC and walked back to the Poly. Total round trip time was 1 hour, 5 minutes.
We had intended to head over to the Magic Kingdom at about 7, because they were running the SpectroMagic parade, and there were fireworks, but when I was at the TTC coming back from Epcot I could see that the park was mobbed, and they were having trouble getting everyone over there. We made a quick decision to skip the parade for another time. [Good decision, too. We learned the next day, and also from r.a.d.p. and AOL visitors after we got back that that night (12/16/95) was an absolute nightmare.]
After getting back, I stopped by 'OHana, a fancy restaurant in the Poly and was given a pager and told that there would be an 1 to 1.5 hour wait for a table. I went back to the room, we thought about going to the Luau, but it was $80 for crummy food, and wouldn't start for 1.5 hours and we were pretty hungry right then, so we were just going to return the pager and head out for Captain Cooks for burgers and fries. However, as we walked into the Great Ceremonial House (home to 'OHana and Captain Cook) the pager went off, so we went up and were seated right away.
It was a great meal, very unusual, with skewers of meat cooked over a fire pit, island entertainment and activities for the kids. There were several salads when we sat down, including some delicious ginger dumplings, then the meat was pork sausage, turkey, steak, shrimp and barbecued ribs. Unfortunately, Kiersten named her shrimp, played with them and kept saying "poor guys" which pretty well killed the mood.
Following dinner, we watched the Fantasy in the Sky fireworks over the Magic Kingdom across the Seven Seas Lagoon and munched on pineapples dipped in caramel. After leaving 'OHana, we walked down to the beach where we laid on the deck chairs for several hours watching the boats. After another midnight raid at the "day old giveaway" we turned in for the night.
Sunday, December 17, 1995
We arose at about 8:30 and were on the bus for MGM Studios by 9:30 am. The first thing we did on hitting the park was to stop at Starring Rolls for donuts, iced tea and coffee (I had the coffee) ($10). After eating, we headed over to the Little Mermaid, but there was a tremendous line, so we walked onto the Backstage Tour, which led us through the costuming area, the prop storage, "Residential Street" (phony house facades used for establishing shots) and "Catastrophe Canyon", in which a pretty phony looking set was used to show how stunts are done (fire broke out, a truck "slid" off a cliff (moved about 3 feet) and a bunch of water poured over the tram we were in.
Following the tour, we looked in at the little museum full of movie paraphernalia they have there and walked over to the Honey I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set Adventure, which Kiersten promptly lost herself in. After a ten minute search, I found her climbing a spider web about thirty feet above the ground. We then walked over to the Muppet Vision 3D but skipped it because there was a 30 minute line. We traipsed around the New York City set (much nicer at night) and then were walking toward a restroom when we noted people sitting in the middle of the street.
A quick bit of deduction led to the realization that they were waiting for the "Toy Story" parade, due to run in about an hour. Given our three parade experiences, we decided to stake a claim on a front row spot right then and there. We ended up watching the parade from the front row, on the north side of the street, on the end where the parade concludes. We all thought that it was a bit on the short side-all of the major characters from the movie, but that doesn't make that many, and there were only three or four floats to carry them all.
Right after the parade, we hotfooted it over to the Voyage of the Little Mermaid, which we waited about ten minutes for. It was a very nice production, and I got video of it all. Deb and I agreed that the Legend of the Lion King in the MK was better, though, and also featured a shorter line. When the Little Mermaid was over, we walked across the courtyard to the Soundstage Restaurant, where I waited in line for about 45 minutes to get a cheese pizza, turkey sandwich, and macaroni and cheese dinner for Kiersten ($15).
After we ate the lunch in about half the time it took to buy it, we walked next door to the animation tour, where we saw a cute movie with Walter Cronkite and Robin Williams, followed by a walk through tour of the studios, where we saw them working on the "Hunchback of Notre Dame". After the tour, we walked over to the Great Movie Ride, the line of which was much longer than it looked. In addition, in the queueing area Disney was kind enough to provide trailers to watch for entertainment. Unfortunately, they only had five different trailers, so we had to watch the same ones over and over.
As for the ride itself, I was a little disappointed. The "Alien" bit was too built up-we kind of ignored the set because we were waiting for the alien to bounce out, which it never really did. The acting bit on the wild west and Indiana Jones scenes was pretty lame as well. The next time we take it, I'll pay more attention to the sets themselves, and will probably enjoy it.
Leaving the ride, we walked over to the Theater of the Stars, where we caught the late afternoon show of Beauty and the Beast. The show was spectacular, but my camcorder battery ran out about half way through, so we resolved to come back later and tape it again. Departing the theater, I had a flash of inspiration and went to the camera center to see if they could recharge the battery, and indeed they could, at no charge, saving us a trip back the next day.
Returning to the main park, we went to the Sci-Fi Dine-in Theatre, where we had reservations, but there was a huge line just to get your name on the list (Disney reservations aren't really reservations-you are just supposed to get priority seating, but you still wait in line) so we decided to skip supper. Instead we walked over to MuppetVision 3D, which we all enjoyed very much (Deb thought it was the best thing at MGM, Kiersten and I agreed that it was second only to Star Tours).
After the show, we walked on to Star Tours, with about a 15 minute wait in the interesting queueing area. Because of her neck problem, Deb skipped the ride itself, but Kiersten and I loved it. Deb waited with a woman from California who told her all about Disneyland, and how much better it was at Christmas. Following the star trip, we walked back to the camera center, picked up the recharged camcorder battery and attended the last Beauty and the Beast show of the evening.
"Residential Street" had been outfitted with a couple of million Christmas lights, courtesy of some guy in Arkansas whose display was too large for his neighbors. After the Beauty and the Beast show, we walked back to Residential Street and took in the lights, then walked to the exit and returned to the Polynesian. We stopped at the Coral Island Cafe, where Kiersten had spaghetti, Deb had chicken, and I had chicken and barbeque ribs ($50).
Monday, December 18, 1995
Kiersten and I awoke at 7am to take advantage of early opening at the Magic Kingdom on our last day. We first headed to Tomorrowland, where we rode the Astro Orbiter and the race cars at the Grand Prix Racers. Then we walked to Kiersten's favourite Fantasyland ride, the Mad Tea Party, which we rode twice in a row before heading to Peter Pan, where we waited in a pretty long line to go in. After Peter Pan, we rode It's a Small World one last time.
Since we had reservations for Minnie's Minehune Breakfast that morning and the park was beginning to crowd up, we headed back for the Poly, where we met up with Deb and walked to 'Ohana for the breakfast. Minnie, Goofy and Chip and Dale were the characters, and the food was reasonable ($45). Following breakfast, we went back to the room, finished packing and had the Bellhop put our bags in storage for the rest of the day.
Deb hadn't done any shopping, so we walked around the Poly while Deb got a couple of shirts, stuffed animals and other small items. After about an hour, we took the monorail back over the Magic Kingdom, where we stopped off at the Enchanted Tiki Room, took the Jungle Cruise and Kiersten and I took one last spin on Big Thunder Mountain. By then it was about 3:15, the parade was in full swing, and we were on the wrong side of it for our return to the Poly by 4:15. Fortunately, I remembered about Mickey's train, so we took that around the kingdom, got off at Main Street and took the Ferryboat back to the TTC for a quick walk back to the hotel.
We caught the 4:15 shuttle to the airport, met a very nice family from New Jersey, and had no delays in the flight back to North Dakota. Sadly, the storm that we had left on Wednesday dumped about a foot of snow on our car, and the airport authority had plowed the car in, so it took a while to get out. We finally got back to our house at 11pm.
---
Some observations on the crowds:
Remember what you read about "the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas" being perfect-beautiful and no crowds? Wrong. It got more and more crowded as the week wore on (we were there from Dec 13-Dec 18) Maybe it's better the first week in December.
We didn't follow any sort of touring guide, just went around and did the things we wanted to do. Longest wait was 45 minutes for the Jungle Cruise, which we only waited for because it was the last day and we'd have missed it otherwise. Quite a few things we walked on with no wait.
A caveat to the above two comments, which seem contradictory-we skipped lots of things, didn't ride many of the "biggies" (like Space & Splash Mountains, Alien Encouter, Tower of Terror) because of no interest or Kiersten being too short, and avoided the parks when they really got busy (like during that Saturday night).
Some observations on the parks:
If you want to see characters, book a breakfast or two. There were lots of them at Cinderella's Castle, less so at the Minnie breakfast at the Polynesian. Trying to see the characters just wandering around the park isn't as easy.
Our favourites included:
Magic Kingdom: Big Thunder Mountain, Peter Pan, Tea Party, Haunted Mansion
Epcot: Spaceship Earth, Movie in France
MGM: Star Tours, Beauty and the Beast stage show, Animation tour
Least favourite:
MK: Tomorrowland Transit, Astro Orbiters, Mickey Mania Parade
Epcot: American Adventure
MGM: Great Movie Ride, Toy Story Parade
Sorry we missed:
MK: Country Bear Jambouree, Tom Sawyer Island, Splash Mountain
Epcot: Norway, Mexico, Germany, Japan, Wonders of Life, Journey into Imagination, the Land
MGM: Spirit of Pocahontas stage show, Stunt Spectacular
Although it probably wasn't, the MGM park FELT the most crowded- everywhere you turned, there was a mob of people. We didn't have to wait too long for anything, though.
Some observations on food:
The food IS as bad as they say. The only really good meal that we had was at 'Ohana in the Polynesian. Otherwise the food ranged to so-so to really awful, and it was all really overpriced. We both agreed that we can take good food at high prices, or crappy food at low prices, but to pay $50 for one of the worst meals we've ever had was the ultimate rip-off.
Next time, we'll bring food in -- bagels, cereal, peanut butter.
The "dining reservations" are nonsense-you still stand in line, although maybe not as long. I sure heard a lot of complaints about this while we were there.
Some observations on transportation:
Not as bad as the food, but it comes in a close second. It seems to take twice as long to get somewhere as you would think, even when the monorail is involved (except for just hopping on the rail at the Poly for a trip over to the Magic Kingdom). The buses from the Poly were the worst -- you have to sit outside waiting, with no indication of how long it will be, and the bus doesn't seem to do any sitting around waiting, so you better be there, now!
The monorail broke down on about three or four occasions while we were there, necessitating waits or alternate methods of transport (we took both the Ferry and the Launch back from the Magic Kingdom because of problems with the monorail.) I've been told that this is very unusual, but need to be convinced.
A car seems to be necessary here, especially if you want to do things that involve bus travel. Getting from one hotel to another is a real nightmare (I'm told-we never tried) but I don't want to have to go through the bus trip to Pleasure Island again. We probably could have stayed an extra 45 minutes if we had driven.
Some observations on Christmas:
To be honest, we were actually less in the Christmas mood when we got back. The decorations are nice, and some of the holiday things were pleasant, but I just can't get in the spirit when it's 80 degrees out, and you tend to ignore the Christmas stuff, except at night (and the parks close early, so...)
Although we had read that the resorts were "dressed up to celebrate the season", I didn't see much evidence of this, at least at the Poly, the Contemporary and the Grand Floridian.
The Jolly Holidays dinner was great, although I'm still not sure if it was worth the $56 per person.
Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party was a blessing-we'd have missed most of Tomorrowland without it. We didn't get any of the free cookies and hot chocolate, though :-)
Some observations on the Polynesian:
We looked at the Contemporary and Grand Floridian and agreed that the Poly was the place to be, especially if you wanted to feel like you're on a relaxing vacation.
The lighting in our room was awful-two stand up lamps and two small lamps over the beds-no overhead light. In addition, there weren't enough outlets. At night, I wanted to plug in my phone, my camcorder and my PowerBook. However, there was only one easy to get at outlet in the main room. You'd think that someplace that charges what the Poly does would have a better electrical setup.
The Coral Island Cafe served us an awful dinner, but 'Ohana was excellent. We'll go back to 'Ohana for sure, but wouldn't go back to the Coral Island Cafe on a bet.
Being on a monorail made all the difference to us. Since Deb isn't an early riser (I get by on 5-6 hours of sleep a night, and Kiersten can do so on an infrequent basis, but Deb needs that eight) we were able to separate and get back together much easier. Being able to walk to the TTC in a few minutes was also a big time saver.
The lobby sure smells funny :-)
Bottom line-we're going back in May and have booked ten days at the Polynesian.
Some observations on money:
Airfare $290 per person, Northwest Airlines, Grand Forks to Orlando
Jolly Holidays Package was $1501 for a "Lagoon View" room at the Polynesian, Length of Stay Passes and the Jolly Holidays Dinner
We spent $70 ahead of time buying tickets for the Very Merry Christmas Party
Deb took $220 of spending money and returned with $40
I took $500, spent it all, charged the $50 Coral Island Cafe dinner on my VISA, and used my VISA transaction card (from my checking account) to spend another $125.
Therefore:
Transporation - $870
Lodging, tickets - $1501
Spending money - $855
Total $3226
A.D. Jensen
adjensen@aatrix.com
Travel Method: Plane, Shuttle Service
Resort: Polynesian Resort
Accommodations: Standard Room
Ages Represented in Group: Infant/Toddler, Adult
WDW Experience Represented in Group: Rookie
Comments: A.D., his wife, and daughter (age 4) spent several days at the Polynesian Beach Resort on this trip. This is a fun report because it explains how A.D. dealt with taking a younger child to the parks. A.D. also describes the Holiday events at WDW.
The following details our trip to Walt Disney World, from December 13, 1995 to December 18, 1995. It was written mostly there, and also on the plane on the return, and polished up a bit at home.
Participants:
A.D. Jensen, age 33 (adjensen@aatrix.com) [Where you see 'I', that's me!]
Deb Jensen, age 33
Kiersten Jensen, age 4
(None of us have every been to Disneyworld, Florida, or much of anyplace else. I haven't taken a real vacation since 1979 :-)
December 13, 1995
Left Grand Forks, 7:15 am
Arrived Minneapolis, 8:15 am
Left Minneapolis, 12:30 pm
Arrived Orlando Polynesian Resort, 6:30 pm
We left Grand Forks at 7:15am, in a blizzard. The blizzard also was affecting Minneapolis, and technical problems with the plane meant that we didn't get out of the Cities until about 1pm. There were no further delays, and we got to Orlando about three hours later.
Upon arrival, I went to Captain Cook's Snacks and Ice Cream, a fast food restaurant in the Polynesian which is open 24 hours and purchased a Polynesian beverage mug for $7.50, which can be refilled for unlimited times. As each refill would normally cost about $1.50, and I counted 17refills, I guess we came out ahead. After checking in, we relaxed for a few minutes in our hotel room before walking to the Ticket and Transportation Center for a monorail ride to Epcot center. We arrived during the tree lighting ceremony and paused to watch the lighted fountains, as well as the music/light show in Future World. We had dinner at the San Angel Inn at the Mexico Pavilion in World Showcase, where Deb had a grilled turkey dinner, I had the Chicken Mole, and Kiersten had a chicken taco and burrito (neither of which she ate). Our first dinner cost about $50
After dinner, we walked outside to enjoy the holiday edition of Illuminations, which was a beautiful show, narrated by Walter Cronkite. Following the show, to avoid the crowds we walked around the World Showcase, starting in Mexico. Norway was beautiful, and really brought back memories of my grandfather. The rest of the world was also quite nice. We returned to Future World just in time to take the last shuttle of the night back to the TTC, after which we walked on the beach as far as the Wedding Pavilion, the returned to the hotel and went to sleep in room 1220 of the Tahiti building at the Polynesian.
Thursday, December 14, 1995
Magic Kingdom
Early entry day at the Magic Kingdom, so I got Kiersten up at about 7am, got dressed very quickly and left Deb with instructions that we would be back at 9am to pick her up for our 9:40 character breakfast in Cinderella's Castle. Kiersten and I caught the monorail from the Polynesian and rode it to the MK. Once inside, we gawked for a short while at the Main Street and Cinderella's Castle, then walked through the castle to Fantasyland.
Kiersten's first ride was Dumbo, which we walked on with no wait. She enjoyed flying the elephant, although she just cranked it up to maximum elevation and wouldn't lower the boom for anything. Next up was Snow White's Scary Adventures, which we also walked on to. Let me say that this was indeed a scary adventure. I didn't much care for it, and it bothered Kiersten for the rest of the trip. Further "dark" rides were always preceeded with "are there any evil witches on this?" questions.
However, after Snow White, we waited about a minute to ride Peter Pan's Flight, which I must say was my favorite Fantasyland ride. It is a continuous loader (as was Snow White and Mr. Toad) in which you climb into a pirate ship and sail out of Wendy's bedroom, over Nana's doghouse and the rest of London, then into Neverland. You first see the camp of the Lost Boys, are fired upon by Captain Hook, then visit the mermaid cove, see Wendy walk the plank, the Peter Pan saves the day, and Hook is left standing in the crocodile's mouth.
Next, it was off to It's a Small World, which wasn't as bad as I had thought, although "that song" does tend to wear on you. Following this, we walked back towards Dumbo, but a line had developed and Kiersten and I rode the Golden Carousel instead. Very nice, but nothing unique. Then we walked towards Tommorowland, where I intended to go on the race cars, but we stopped off for Mr. Toad's Wild Adventures. It took a bit of convincing to get Kiersten to go, but she did and enjoyed it. I, on the other hand, thought it was a stupid waste of time, with corny cardboard cutouts and dumb effects (as if jerking the car around would pass for entertainment). Then we rode the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, which are teacups that you can spin around by twisting a large silver knob in the center of the car. Kiersten loved it and quickly proclaimed it her favorite ride.
At this time, it was getting close to 9, so we headed for the exit, and we learned our first lesson of Disney transportation-it takes twice as long as you think to get anywhere. I called Deb on my cellular phone as we were leaving the park, so she was getting ready, but we didn't get back to the hotel until about 9:20. I don't think that we ever relaxed again...we got back to Cinderella's Castle at around 9:45 and then waited to be seated. At the breakfast, which wasn't very good, we saw Cinderella, one of the mice that made her dress, Daisy and Donald, Dopey, Meeko and Pocahontas and Snow White. The breakfast consisted of fruit, rolls, sausage, bacon, eggs, potatoes and some weird cream cheese pastry. This meal cost about $50 for us, including a big tip to the host, who was far better than the meal. After the meal, we started to walk around the park but quickly decided to leave when it was clear that the crowds were getting to be much too large.
We returned to the Polynesian Resort and relaxed on the beach, a white sandy strip of land from the Poly all the way past the Grand Floridian. There are a number of chaise lounges, as well as several swings. Kiersten quickly found some friends and began building sand castles and mud pies with them. Otherwise, Deb and I just soaked up the sun. At about four-thirty, we hopped back on a monorail and rode to the Magic Kingdom. Once there, we walked up the Swiss Family Tree House and took the Pirates of the Caribbean cruise. The cruise was great, although the treehouse was kind of dumb. [Note: After we got back to ND, we made it a point to watch the "Swiss Family Robinson" and appreciated the tree a bit more.] As the park closed early (6 pm) and we needed to get Kiersten to the Neverland Club by six, we left after doing those two things.
We got Kiersten to the Neverland Club (which was kind of a disappointment to me, although she really loved it) and then returned to the room, where we got ready to go to Pleasure Island. We figured that we would just hop over and hang out for a couple of hours before picking up Kiersten at 9pm. However, we got to the Poly bus stop, where we were told that "buses come every 20 minutes or so...no, I don't know when the next one will be...no, I don't recall seeing the last one." We waited until nearly seven before getting on the bus, which then went to the Grand Floridian Resort, then to the Disney Village Marketplace, then to Pleasure Island.
Once inside, I grabbed a grilled Italian Sausage ($4) and Deb had a big Rice Krispie Square ($3) and we bought Kiersten some Beauty and the Beast Cookies ($3). We then went to the Adventurers Club, which is performance art masked in an old colonial explorers club. I enjoyed it, but Deb did not. We had two beers ($8) while in the club. We left the club around 8pm and watched a reggae band, "Exodus" for about twenty minutes before strolling down to the Jazz Club for a brief listen to Jeff Kashiwa, who was so good that we bought his cd. Unfortunately, at $8 per hour, we had only left Kiersten in the Neverland Club until nine, so we had to leave and wait for a bus, which took about fifteen minutes to arrive. Following a quick stop at the Wilderness Lodge, we returned back to the Neverland Club by 9:15 pm. Kiersten drew some nice pictures for us, and seemed to have had a very nice time. The bill for her care was $24, which included her dinner for the evening, a visit (and photo) from Goofy, and visits by some animals from Discovery Island.
After getting her out, we went to the monorail and got to ride up front with the driver, a beautiful view at night. At the Magic Kingdom station, we got a very friendly driver who gave Kiersten and Deb "Monorail Co-Pilot" certificates, suitable for framing. We rode the complete circuit and continued on to the Grand Floridian Beach Resort, northwest of the Poly. We walked around this a bit, and got a good look at the resort. Deb was more impressed than I was. I enjoyed the atmosphere of the Poly, while the Floridian seemed more stuffy.
We then took the monorail to the Contemporary Resort, an A-Frame building which the monorail goes through. Decked out in red and green lights for the holidays, the 15 story build was quite pretty, although we both agreed that it seemed to hurried and urban for our tastes. We went up to the California Grill on the 15th story, scored a table by the window and bought a barbecued chicken and green onion flatbread pizza with two Sprites for $15. Deb didn't care for the seasoning on the pizza, but I loved it. Kiersten went to sleep on a coach and we spent about an hour watching the boats on the lake and the lights at the Magic Kingdom, which was open until 1am for a session of Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party.
I schlepped Kiersten back to the monorail and the Poly and we went to sleep, exhausted, at about 12 midnight.
Friday, December 15, 1995
We neglected to set an alarm and all overslept until about 10am. As we hadn't planned anything for the day I wasn't concerned about it, but we did miss our character breakfast in the Contemporary Resort. After a leisurely morning of getting ready, we headed out to the Magic Kingdom. After arriving in Fantasyland, we went to the Pinocchio Village Haus, where Deb had a fruit plate, I had a hamburger "meal deal" and Kiersten had a hot dog with grapes ($17). After this, we walked onto Peter Pan's Flight and It's a Small World, then bypassed the rest of Fantasyland for the Mad Tea Party, which Kiersten asked to ride twice (Deb chose not to partake, as she doesn't enjoy getting dizzy/sick). We then walked to Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe, where we had three ice cream bars and a large soda for $8.
After the light snack, we then went into Mickey's Toyland (aka Mickey's Starland) where we saw "Minnie Moo" (a cow with a Mickey Mouse patch pattern), went through Mickey's house (he sure buys a lot of cheese) and then watched "Minnie's Country Christmas" and went back stage to meet the mouse himself. After Kiersten got a picture and an autograph, we left Mickey's Toyland which could use an update.
We then headed for the parade route, where we got into the second row from the curb just southwest of the Castle. The parade was the final running of the "Mickey Mania" until the Christmas stuff was over in January. I was less than impressed, Deb hated it and Kiersten said she enjoyed it. Following the parade, we walked on to the Haunted Castle, which we all enjoyed, then Kiersten dragged me onto the Big Thunder Railroad, a roller coaster through a mining town that she enjoyed much more than I did. Our wait for that was about ten minutes.
We had tickets to the Jolly Holidays Dinner Show at 5pm at the Contemporary, so we left the park at about 4 and headed back to our room. We arrived at the dinner shortly after they started serving it (that prompt Disney transportation again) and were seated at a table with two couples from Florida, and another family of three, from New Jersey. Dinner consisted of turkey, stuffing, potatoes and vegetables. Kiersten had a very nice man sitting next to her, but Deb had a grouch who never said anything and didn't even eat his dinner for some reason.
The show after the dinner was fabulous and we have most of it video taped. There was a narrator, a small (15-20) group of singers, and a number of characters, including Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Goofy and toy tin soldiers. The show lasted about 30 minutes and was scattered about the ballroom, which seated 1700 that night. Following the show, we hung around the Contemporary for a while and Deb bought all three of us "Jolly Holidays 1995" shirts ($45) and I bought an ornament ($8) and Kiersten a set of antlers/mouse ears ($11).
We then returned to the Polynesian and got ready (well, changed shoes mostly) for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party, in which the park is only opened for a few people (20,000). We got to the party in time to be blocked by the Christmas parade, which we watched from the entrance to Main Street over the heads of a couple hundred people. After the procession, we followed it up to the Tomorrowland walkway, where we paused for ice cream ($5) and watched the Fantasy in the Sky fireworks, which were quite long in celebration of the party. Right after the fireworks, we got our family picture taken, then went on the TimeKeeper, in which Robin Williams provides the voice of a "droid" animatron who sends a fellow droid (and Jules Verne) on a trip through the past and the future. This is an excellent production that we all loved (it's a 360 degree movie).
After TimeKeeper, we went on the Dreamflight ride, which was ok (Deb liked it more than I) and then the Carousel of Progress, which we all dubbed ok, but not worth any wait. After that, we went on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority, which was a pretty nice tour of the area (beautiful at night- it's lit up like a Buck Rogers movie), but it broke down, with our car under a speaker which droned "Welcome back to Planetary Central at the heart of Tomorrowland. Please rejoin us and believe...in the promise...of tomorrow" endlessly for five minutes.
After the TAT mishap, we went in search of a glowing rose for Kiersten ($3) and ran across the Beauty and the Beast characters, who took a picture with Kiersten. Around this time, it was back to the parade route, where we staked out a spot southeast of the castle and enjoyed the parade from curbside.
Following the parade, we walked to Fantasyland, where Deb rode on Snow White by herself, we took a spin on Peter Pan, and then we saw It's a Small World yet again. We attempted to go back to the Mad Tea Party, but it was already closed and we stopped off at Casey's on Main Street for ice creams and a soda ($8) while waiting for the crowds to clear (which did happen at about 1:30 am). We then caught the monorail back to the Poly and quickly went to sleep. Before going to sleep, I found out that after about 1 am, Captain Cook's snack bar puts out their baked goods as "day old giveaways", so I grabbed a couple of big (3 x 2 x 3") brownies and a cupcake.
Saturday, December 16, 1995
We rose late again, because of the lateness of the evening before, and ate the remains of the previous nights' raid of the "day old" giveaway before heading out to Epcot. Once there, we rode the Spaceship Earth (and all liked it) and checked out Innoventions (Kiersten is a big Sega fan) until the pangs of hunger called us to La Cellier in the Canadian Pavilion. I ordered the chicken and meatball stew, Deb had another fruit plate, and Kiersten had a macaroni and cheese kids meal ($32). Frankly, although the stew sounded good, it really wasn't all that great. Following the meal, we watched the Canadian movie (which I enjoyed but Deb and Kiersten did not).
Then we went to the English pavilion, where we wondered through the streets and took pictures by the hedge maze before moving on to France, where we watched the France movie. Finally, we went to the American pavilion, where we attended "the American Adventure", a retelling of American history with film and audio-animatronic robots. I thought it was very inspiring, but Kiersten misbehaved out of boredom before falling asleep and Deb thought it a waste of time.
This brought us to about 4 o'clock, when we decided to leave the park, although I wanted to ride World of Motion first, because it's being dismantled in January. We all thought that it was a nice ride, and a shame that it's coming down, but we did skip past the GM promotion stuff at the end (why anyone would pay to go to WDW and then look at cars, I'll never know, but there were a couple dozen doing so when we went by). Just before leaving the park, we attended a showing of the Universe of Energy, dinosaurs and all (the dino's were something of a disappointment).
Back at La Cellier, I discovered that I had left my wallet in the pants I wore before the night before, so Deb sprang for lunch. Unfortunately, upon arriving back to the hotel, I couldn't find it and remembered that I had it in Epcot when I bought some film, so I called down and sure enough, they had it. Although it meant missing our character dinner at the Grand Floridian, Kiersten and I walked to the TTC, rode to Epcot, got the wallet, returned to the TTC and walked back to the Poly. Total round trip time was 1 hour, 5 minutes.
We had intended to head over to the Magic Kingdom at about 7, because they were running the SpectroMagic parade, and there were fireworks, but when I was at the TTC coming back from Epcot I could see that the park was mobbed, and they were having trouble getting everyone over there. We made a quick decision to skip the parade for another time. [Good decision, too. We learned the next day, and also from r.a.d.p. and AOL visitors after we got back that that night (12/16/95) was an absolute nightmare.]
After getting back, I stopped by 'OHana, a fancy restaurant in the Poly and was given a pager and told that there would be an 1 to 1.5 hour wait for a table. I went back to the room, we thought about going to the Luau, but it was $80 for crummy food, and wouldn't start for 1.5 hours and we were pretty hungry right then, so we were just going to return the pager and head out for Captain Cooks for burgers and fries. However, as we walked into the Great Ceremonial House (home to 'OHana and Captain Cook) the pager went off, so we went up and were seated right away.
It was a great meal, very unusual, with skewers of meat cooked over a fire pit, island entertainment and activities for the kids. There were several salads when we sat down, including some delicious ginger dumplings, then the meat was pork sausage, turkey, steak, shrimp and barbecued ribs. Unfortunately, Kiersten named her shrimp, played with them and kept saying "poor guys" which pretty well killed the mood.
Following dinner, we watched the Fantasy in the Sky fireworks over the Magic Kingdom across the Seven Seas Lagoon and munched on pineapples dipped in caramel. After leaving 'OHana, we walked down to the beach where we laid on the deck chairs for several hours watching the boats. After another midnight raid at the "day old giveaway" we turned in for the night.
Sunday, December 17, 1995
We arose at about 8:30 and were on the bus for MGM Studios by 9:30 am. The first thing we did on hitting the park was to stop at Starring Rolls for donuts, iced tea and coffee (I had the coffee) ($10). After eating, we headed over to the Little Mermaid, but there was a tremendous line, so we walked onto the Backstage Tour, which led us through the costuming area, the prop storage, "Residential Street" (phony house facades used for establishing shots) and "Catastrophe Canyon", in which a pretty phony looking set was used to show how stunts are done (fire broke out, a truck "slid" off a cliff (moved about 3 feet) and a bunch of water poured over the tram we were in.
Following the tour, we looked in at the little museum full of movie paraphernalia they have there and walked over to the Honey I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set Adventure, which Kiersten promptly lost herself in. After a ten minute search, I found her climbing a spider web about thirty feet above the ground. We then walked over to the Muppet Vision 3D but skipped it because there was a 30 minute line. We traipsed around the New York City set (much nicer at night) and then were walking toward a restroom when we noted people sitting in the middle of the street.
A quick bit of deduction led to the realization that they were waiting for the "Toy Story" parade, due to run in about an hour. Given our three parade experiences, we decided to stake a claim on a front row spot right then and there. We ended up watching the parade from the front row, on the north side of the street, on the end where the parade concludes. We all thought that it was a bit on the short side-all of the major characters from the movie, but that doesn't make that many, and there were only three or four floats to carry them all.
Right after the parade, we hotfooted it over to the Voyage of the Little Mermaid, which we waited about ten minutes for. It was a very nice production, and I got video of it all. Deb and I agreed that the Legend of the Lion King in the MK was better, though, and also featured a shorter line. When the Little Mermaid was over, we walked across the courtyard to the Soundstage Restaurant, where I waited in line for about 45 minutes to get a cheese pizza, turkey sandwich, and macaroni and cheese dinner for Kiersten ($15).
After we ate the lunch in about half the time it took to buy it, we walked next door to the animation tour, where we saw a cute movie with Walter Cronkite and Robin Williams, followed by a walk through tour of the studios, where we saw them working on the "Hunchback of Notre Dame". After the tour, we walked over to the Great Movie Ride, the line of which was much longer than it looked. In addition, in the queueing area Disney was kind enough to provide trailers to watch for entertainment. Unfortunately, they only had five different trailers, so we had to watch the same ones over and over.
As for the ride itself, I was a little disappointed. The "Alien" bit was too built up-we kind of ignored the set because we were waiting for the alien to bounce out, which it never really did. The acting bit on the wild west and Indiana Jones scenes was pretty lame as well. The next time we take it, I'll pay more attention to the sets themselves, and will probably enjoy it.
Leaving the ride, we walked over to the Theater of the Stars, where we caught the late afternoon show of Beauty and the Beast. The show was spectacular, but my camcorder battery ran out about half way through, so we resolved to come back later and tape it again. Departing the theater, I had a flash of inspiration and went to the camera center to see if they could recharge the battery, and indeed they could, at no charge, saving us a trip back the next day.
Returning to the main park, we went to the Sci-Fi Dine-in Theatre, where we had reservations, but there was a huge line just to get your name on the list (Disney reservations aren't really reservations-you are just supposed to get priority seating, but you still wait in line) so we decided to skip supper. Instead we walked over to MuppetVision 3D, which we all enjoyed very much (Deb thought it was the best thing at MGM, Kiersten and I agreed that it was second only to Star Tours).
After the show, we walked on to Star Tours, with about a 15 minute wait in the interesting queueing area. Because of her neck problem, Deb skipped the ride itself, but Kiersten and I loved it. Deb waited with a woman from California who told her all about Disneyland, and how much better it was at Christmas. Following the star trip, we walked back to the camera center, picked up the recharged camcorder battery and attended the last Beauty and the Beast show of the evening.
"Residential Street" had been outfitted with a couple of million Christmas lights, courtesy of some guy in Arkansas whose display was too large for his neighbors. After the Beauty and the Beast show, we walked back to Residential Street and took in the lights, then walked to the exit and returned to the Polynesian. We stopped at the Coral Island Cafe, where Kiersten had spaghetti, Deb had chicken, and I had chicken and barbeque ribs ($50).
Monday, December 18, 1995
Kiersten and I awoke at 7am to take advantage of early opening at the Magic Kingdom on our last day. We first headed to Tomorrowland, where we rode the Astro Orbiter and the race cars at the Grand Prix Racers. Then we walked to Kiersten's favourite Fantasyland ride, the Mad Tea Party, which we rode twice in a row before heading to Peter Pan, where we waited in a pretty long line to go in. After Peter Pan, we rode It's a Small World one last time.
Since we had reservations for Minnie's Minehune Breakfast that morning and the park was beginning to crowd up, we headed back for the Poly, where we met up with Deb and walked to 'Ohana for the breakfast. Minnie, Goofy and Chip and Dale were the characters, and the food was reasonable ($45). Following breakfast, we went back to the room, finished packing and had the Bellhop put our bags in storage for the rest of the day.
Deb hadn't done any shopping, so we walked around the Poly while Deb got a couple of shirts, stuffed animals and other small items. After about an hour, we took the monorail back over the Magic Kingdom, where we stopped off at the Enchanted Tiki Room, took the Jungle Cruise and Kiersten and I took one last spin on Big Thunder Mountain. By then it was about 3:15, the parade was in full swing, and we were on the wrong side of it for our return to the Poly by 4:15. Fortunately, I remembered about Mickey's train, so we took that around the kingdom, got off at Main Street and took the Ferryboat back to the TTC for a quick walk back to the hotel.
We caught the 4:15 shuttle to the airport, met a very nice family from New Jersey, and had no delays in the flight back to North Dakota. Sadly, the storm that we had left on Wednesday dumped about a foot of snow on our car, and the airport authority had plowed the car in, so it took a while to get out. We finally got back to our house at 11pm.
---
Some observations on the crowds:
Remember what you read about "the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas" being perfect-beautiful and no crowds? Wrong. It got more and more crowded as the week wore on (we were there from Dec 13-Dec 18) Maybe it's better the first week in December.
We didn't follow any sort of touring guide, just went around and did the things we wanted to do. Longest wait was 45 minutes for the Jungle Cruise, which we only waited for because it was the last day and we'd have missed it otherwise. Quite a few things we walked on with no wait.
A caveat to the above two comments, which seem contradictory-we skipped lots of things, didn't ride many of the "biggies" (like Space & Splash Mountains, Alien Encouter, Tower of Terror) because of no interest or Kiersten being too short, and avoided the parks when they really got busy (like during that Saturday night).
Some observations on the parks:
If you want to see characters, book a breakfast or two. There were lots of them at Cinderella's Castle, less so at the Minnie breakfast at the Polynesian. Trying to see the characters just wandering around the park isn't as easy.
Our favourites included:
Magic Kingdom: Big Thunder Mountain, Peter Pan, Tea Party, Haunted Mansion
Epcot: Spaceship Earth, Movie in France
MGM: Star Tours, Beauty and the Beast stage show, Animation tour
Least favourite:
MK: Tomorrowland Transit, Astro Orbiters, Mickey Mania Parade
Epcot: American Adventure
MGM: Great Movie Ride, Toy Story Parade
Sorry we missed:
MK: Country Bear Jambouree, Tom Sawyer Island, Splash Mountain
Epcot: Norway, Mexico, Germany, Japan, Wonders of Life, Journey into Imagination, the Land
MGM: Spirit of Pocahontas stage show, Stunt Spectacular
Although it probably wasn't, the MGM park FELT the most crowded- everywhere you turned, there was a mob of people. We didn't have to wait too long for anything, though.
Some observations on food:
The food IS as bad as they say. The only really good meal that we had was at 'Ohana in the Polynesian. Otherwise the food ranged to so-so to really awful, and it was all really overpriced. We both agreed that we can take good food at high prices, or crappy food at low prices, but to pay $50 for one of the worst meals we've ever had was the ultimate rip-off.
Next time, we'll bring food in -- bagels, cereal, peanut butter.
The "dining reservations" are nonsense-you still stand in line, although maybe not as long. I sure heard a lot of complaints about this while we were there.
Some observations on transportation:
Not as bad as the food, but it comes in a close second. It seems to take twice as long to get somewhere as you would think, even when the monorail is involved (except for just hopping on the rail at the Poly for a trip over to the Magic Kingdom). The buses from the Poly were the worst -- you have to sit outside waiting, with no indication of how long it will be, and the bus doesn't seem to do any sitting around waiting, so you better be there, now!
The monorail broke down on about three or four occasions while we were there, necessitating waits or alternate methods of transport (we took both the Ferry and the Launch back from the Magic Kingdom because of problems with the monorail.) I've been told that this is very unusual, but need to be convinced.
A car seems to be necessary here, especially if you want to do things that involve bus travel. Getting from one hotel to another is a real nightmare (I'm told-we never tried) but I don't want to have to go through the bus trip to Pleasure Island again. We probably could have stayed an extra 45 minutes if we had driven.
Some observations on Christmas:
To be honest, we were actually less in the Christmas mood when we got back. The decorations are nice, and some of the holiday things were pleasant, but I just can't get in the spirit when it's 80 degrees out, and you tend to ignore the Christmas stuff, except at night (and the parks close early, so...)
Although we had read that the resorts were "dressed up to celebrate the season", I didn't see much evidence of this, at least at the Poly, the Contemporary and the Grand Floridian.
The Jolly Holidays dinner was great, although I'm still not sure if it was worth the $56 per person.
Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party was a blessing-we'd have missed most of Tomorrowland without it. We didn't get any of the free cookies and hot chocolate, though :-)
Some observations on the Polynesian:
We looked at the Contemporary and Grand Floridian and agreed that the Poly was the place to be, especially if you wanted to feel like you're on a relaxing vacation.
The lighting in our room was awful-two stand up lamps and two small lamps over the beds-no overhead light. In addition, there weren't enough outlets. At night, I wanted to plug in my phone, my camcorder and my PowerBook. However, there was only one easy to get at outlet in the main room. You'd think that someplace that charges what the Poly does would have a better electrical setup.
The Coral Island Cafe served us an awful dinner, but 'Ohana was excellent. We'll go back to 'Ohana for sure, but wouldn't go back to the Coral Island Cafe on a bet.
Being on a monorail made all the difference to us. Since Deb isn't an early riser (I get by on 5-6 hours of sleep a night, and Kiersten can do so on an infrequent basis, but Deb needs that eight) we were able to separate and get back together much easier. Being able to walk to the TTC in a few minutes was also a big time saver.
The lobby sure smells funny :-)
Bottom line-we're going back in May and have booked ten days at the Polynesian.
Some observations on money:
Airfare $290 per person, Northwest Airlines, Grand Forks to Orlando
Jolly Holidays Package was $1501 for a "Lagoon View" room at the Polynesian, Length of Stay Passes and the Jolly Holidays Dinner
We spent $70 ahead of time buying tickets for the Very Merry Christmas Party
Deb took $220 of spending money and returned with $40
I took $500, spent it all, charged the $50 Coral Island Cafe dinner on my VISA, and used my VISA transaction card (from my checking account) to spend another $125.
Therefore:
Transporation - $870
Lodging, tickets - $1501
Spending money - $855
Total $3226
A.D. Jensen
adjensen@aatrix.com