Starring:

Julie: That's me! I'm 19, a Disney Store Cast Member, lover of Mickey and the Seven Dwarves, an Off Kilter fanatic, and the writer of the trip report.
Mom: Also known as Debbie. She's 44, active in our church and at craft fairs, a thrill ride chicken for the most part, lover of Piglet and Mickey, and also an Off Kilter fanatic.
Dad: Also known as Ray. He's 47, a warehouse manager, the one that has to be dragged everywhere, a big car racing fan, and as of late, a bigger Off Kilter fanatic than we had realized.
When did we go: May 8th-15th, 1999

Where did we stay: Port Orleans, room 7130

How did we get there: Drove from Nashville

Saturday, May 8th, 1999

4:00 came too early on the morning of May 8th. We decided that we should probably get an early start on our travels so we could have a little bit of time to relax once we got to Disney World (plus the fact that the Magic Kingdom was going to be open until midnight was extra incentive to get there early).

We had breakfast at home, which consisted of a microwave burrito for me and sausage and biscuits for my parents. We already had almost everything packed up the night before, so by the time we got everything packed into the car and were on the road, it was 5:03am. While we were packing everything up, dad noticed that he had misplaced his tennis shoes, so he wanted to stop and get some new shoes before we got to Florida. We stopped in Murfreesboro, home of my wonderful college, MTSU, at the super Walmart for some shoes, and mom wanted some candy. After a while, we were back on the road, complete with new shoes and a bag of cinnamon candy.

We got back on the road and made our next stop at 7:35 at the Tennessee Welcome Center. We always stop at this rest stop and buy Mayfield chocolate milk, but alas, this morning, we couldn't find any. We looked in the vending machines, the coolers and the rotating vending machine things, but there was none to be had. I opted for a bag of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies instead, and dad got a Crunch bar.

A while later, at 11:00 Eastern, we stopped at a Steak and Shake for lunch. I wasn't very hungry, but I figured that I should eat something since it was going to be a while before we stopped again, and all we had in the car were Gardettos and Ritz Bitz sandwiches. I decided on the chicken strips and fries meal, with cheese on the fries, dad had the chicken strip meal as well, with fries and coleslaw, and mom had the Frisco melt with fries. Personally, I think Steak and Shake fries are nasty, so I was barely able to finish mine, but my parents love them. We all had water as well. Once we were done, we were back on our way.

At 1:15, we stopped at a McDonalds for a break and mom picked up the driving from there. At 3:15 we arrived at the Florida Welcome Center. We didn't linger very long since we wanted to get to Disney World fairly quickly, but we did manage to pick up some brochures for some friends. My mom and I also had a "discussion" (read: argument) about whether we liked WonderWorks or not. She claimed that I LOVED it, and I said that I thought it was a rip off. She still didn't believe that I didn't like it, and when we left I could still tell she thought I was lying about not liking it. *sigh*

At 5:35, we stopped at our favorite place along the route; the Disney rest stop. We didn't stay very long, but we did manage to make our Mothers Day priority seating for Garden Grill. We looked around the gift shop but didn't buy anything, and were back on the road in a matter of 15 minutes.

At 6:00, we stopped at an Arbys for dinner. Come to find out, this was the same Arbys mom and I had stopped in on our way to Disney World in February. (As an aside...things like that really freak me out. I mean, I would have assumed that, even if I had been looking for it, I would never have seen that Arbys again, and here we were on this trip, in the exact same situation as on a previous trip. It's weird when you end up in a place that you thought you'd never be again. Sorta like really strange deja vu.) I had a turkey sub, curly fries and water, mom had a chicken strips meal with regular fries and water, and dad had a roast beef sub combo.

A few minutes (well, more like an hour) later, we arrived at our destination; Port Orleans. We parked and headed directly for the front desk. After maybe a ten minute wait, we got checked in an assigned to our room. Since I hadn't made any room requests, they had put us in building 7, in room 7130. Since the whole resort is fairly small, even though building 7 is just about the farthest away from the food court and lobby, it wasn't *that* far away. Definitely within walking distance.

We wandered around the lobby a bit more and we thought that the whole place was very nice. We found our room fairly easily. We parked in the building 4 parking lot since it was a little bit closer than the building 7 lots and unpacked all of our stuff. When we went in the room...I guess you could say I was a bit underwhelmed. It was a nice room, but all in all, I was expecting it to be larger. The rooms were just about the same size as those of our favorite off site hotel, Magic Castle Inn and Suites. Only bad thing is that I can almost always get a Magic Castle room for less than $40. Hmm...three times as expensive, and the same size room... We did like that the bathroom area had two sinks, and they both came in handy more than once during the trip. There were plenty of outlets, so I could dry my hair while my mom curled hers or whatever. The bathroom was nice, but essentially the same as All Stars. The most noticeable difference between the Port Orleans and All Star rooms is that at Port Orleans the beds are higher off the floor (why? I have no idea...), there is a bench next to the armoire, and the armoire has doors that can hide the TV if you want. Other than those things and fancier light fixtures, fancier bed spreads and fancier artwork and room decor, there was hardly a difference in the rooms at all.

So after we finished unpacking and settling into the room, we headed out, first for a stop at the food court for refillable mugs, then on to the Magic Kingdom since it was open until midnight. When we found the food court, I started getting a bit uneasy. The food court was scary!! It has these giant masks hanging from the ceiling, and all of them had scary, demented looks on their faces! One has its lips puckered like its blowing out candles, and another one looks like it's about to take a bite out of everyone who walks by! Ohhh they gave me the creeps! Even the other smaller masks, like the suns they have hanging in the ordering area of the food court looked really scary. So we went through the line and bought our mugs. Unless all the prices have gone up, these mugs were thirty cents more than the All Stars ones were.

We were out pretty quickly (since I kept saying "Hurry up! I wanna get out of here!" to my parents) and then we were on our way to the Magic Kingdom. We got there at about 9:15, dead in the middle of the 9:00 Spectromagic parade. Our first stop was to be Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. As we were making our way down Main Street, we ended up following the Little Mermaid float all the way to the hub. Once there, we turned right into the Plaza Pavilion and went for our first spin on Buzz Lightyear, where I scored 390,000 points.

The next stop was Space Mountain, where dad and I rode again. I'm glad I've finally convinced at least one of them to ride it with me...mom still won't. At least I don't have to wait in line alone anymore. Mom decided to walk through the queue with us, which is always a bad decision for her. She seems to be in a borderline panic attack the whole time wondering where she will go when she says she's just walking through, wondering what to say when we get to the front of the line, and wondering if they've changed the policy and will make her ride the ride anyway. For the rest of the trip, I wouldn't let her walk through the lines with us.

The Tomorrowland Transit Authority was next (since mom was complaining about the half hour line for Space Mountain), then we headed over to Liberty Square. We rode the Haunted Mansion and as an added bonus (sort of) the ride stopped at the end of the ride. The only bad part is that where we stopped was right past the first three hitch hiking ghosts, and there was a strong blast of cold air hitting me for the entire length of the stop. I was about to freeze...it was so funny. But it afforded me a good look at the ride system as well as a the ability to say that, for a few minutes, I was really cold in the Magic Kingdom in May.

As we left, the speakers announced that Spectromagic was going to be starting in a few minutes. Mom said she wanted to see it, but I said that I would rather ride Splash Mountain than watch the parade, so dad and I went over to Frontierland. I thought I had finally convinced dad to ride this too (Splash Mountain is a total no-go for mom. She hates rides that dip, and Splash Mountain...well, it has a few dips:-), but he decided to sit it out. I rode with about a 15 minute wait, and even got to see a little bit of Spectromagic from the top of the mountain. By the time I got off the ride, I was totally soaked. Right as we approached Slippin' Falls, the water cannon that splashes the boats on the big drop fired, and my boat got totally soaked. Everyone was saying "Ugh! That's not fair!" And as we were nearing the end, we got stopped by the waterfall for an extended period of time, thus making us even more soaked.

I got off the ride and found dad right where I left him, then found mom standing at a shop near Country Bear Jamboree. She had noticed that they were selling Frontierland Mickey and Minnie beanies and had struck up a conversation with the girl working there. Since I collect the Mickey beanies, I decided that I had to have a set, and mom got a set too. The girl working there said that she was on the College Program and was going to leave in a few days. I told her that I was planning on doing College Program in the Spring of 2000 and was getting really excited.

After we bought our beanies, we headed back to the hotel. The bus driver was really funny, and we left in a pretty good mood. When we got back to the hotel the food court was already closed. Just as well, since I didn't want to walk through there anyway. We headed back to our room, which looked out onto Beau Regard Square. The frog fountain became the landmark by which we were always knew we were headed the right way back to the room, and our room was the only one on our side that had a dark green door. I did wonder for the entire trip why our door was green and everyone else's were other colors. We crawled into bed at about 1:00, dead tired from the traveling and night at the Magic Kingdom.

Sunday, May 9th, 1999: Jiminy Crickets! It's Off Kilter!

The phone rang at 6:51 and Mickey welcomed me to my day. I dragged myself out of bed and took a shower before we made our way to the food court for breakfast. Since this was Mothers Day, we had let mom pick where she wanted to have her Mothers Day lunch and she chose Garden Grill, just like last year. As always, we spent our first day in the World in Epcot, our favorite of the four parks.

We went to the creepy food court for breakfast, and I decided that I needed to try the heralded beignets that I had heard so much about. I proudly ordered an order of six of them, as did mom, and dad got the breakfast platter. When I saw how big each beignet was, I immediately wished that I had only gotten the order of three. These guys are big! So we sat down and I started eating. On first bite, I thought they were pretty good but not as good as normal donuts. They were really doughy and tough. At one point, I was actually having to tear them apart with my back teeth just to get a bite of them.

After the first one, I was beginning to wonder if I had made a mistake by ordering the beignets for breakfast. I normally can't eat sweet things for breakfast because they make me feel gross all day, but for some reason or another, I had gotten them for breakfast instead of as a snack some other time. By the time I finished the second one, I was starting to feel queasy. I ate half of another one before I called it quits. I gave one to dad and he concluded that he didn't like them very much either. My stomach was starting to cramp by this time, so I told my parents that I was going back to the room and they could stay if they wanted to. They said they were done anyway, so we all went back to the room.

By the time we got back, I was almost bent in half with stomach cramps. I couldn't believe that only two and a half beignets worth of sugar had made my stomach cramp! So I laid down on the bed and stretched out. After about fifteen minutes, I was ok again and we started to make our way over to Epcot. I had brought my other two and a half beignets back to the room, but they eventually got thrown away.

When we got to the bus stop, we ended up waiting over 20 minutes for a bus. By the time the bus got there, we were slightly miffed. During our entire week at All Stars (three days at Sports and four days at Music) we had never had to wait more than five minutes on a bus. That's including going to and coming back from the parks. But at Port Orleans, we consistently had 15-30 minute waits for busses. On numerous occasions, two or even three busses to another park would come before the bus we were waiting on. Then some of the time, the busses would show up half full so lots of people would have to stand. Needless to say, we thought the All Star bus service was much better. The bus we were on also made three stops in Dixie Landings, which further delayed us.

Once we got to Epcot, dad decided that the first thing we should do was ride Test Track. Since mom and I had ridden it in February, we had kept telling how much we thought he would like it. So we headed that direction. The line was about an hour and a half long, but luckily, we had a front of the line pass (obtained after an hour and a half wait in February which resulted in the ride breaking down after we were past the briefing room). So instead of having to wait for another hour and a half, we showed our pass and went in through the exit. We got in line right after the briefing rooms, and had a wait of about two or three minutes. Alright! This is the way to ride Test Track! So needless to say, dad loved it. He's really into cars and racing, so he was grinning from ear to ear all through the ride. When we got off, I think his initial response was "Again!!!" but the line was still at an hour and a half, so we decided to come back to it later.

Our next stop was the Land where we did our favorite attraction in Epcot, Food Rocks. After we were done, we hopped onto a boat and took in Living with the Land. Afterwards, I decided that I needed a Jiminy Cricket, one of my favorite snacks in Disney World, which I obtained from the ice cream shop in the Sunshine Season Food Fair. It's sort of like a tangy frozen Sprite. So I got one and we proceeded to what's left of the Imagination pavilion to take in Honey, I shrunk the Audience.

When we got there, I hadn't finished my Jiminy Cricket yet, so we had to stand out in the waiting area while I finished. Right as I was finishing my drink, they announced that the show they were loading had reached capacity and that everyone else would have to wait for the next show. That made dad kind of mad, but oh well. I couldn't help it. Jiminy Crickets have a bad tendency to give me brain freeze, so I couldn't drink it very quickly. We watched the show and afterwards decided to take a trip over to the Living Seas.

Once inside the Living Seas, we looked through the tanks, but didn't spend all that much time there. And as in all of our previous trips, both of my parents took extended bathroom breaks. What the heck is it about the Living Seas bathroom?!?! Meanwhile, I had found another form of entertainment; the brine shrimp culture. In other words...Sea Monkeys! I had to have watched them for a good five to ten minutes before mom made me leave.

On our way out I stopped by the gift shop. In February, I had totally fallen in love with a stuffed otter holding a starfish that they sold there, but I hadn't gotten him because he was $30. Well, he was there on this trip as well. I was hoping he would be gone so I wouldn't be tempted to buy him...but he was still there. I picked him up and hugged him. He was soooooo precious! I really wanted this otter...but $30...good grief! That's a lot of money for a stuffed animal. I agonized. I could buy lots of other stuff with $30. I could get some beanies, a shirt, a nice hat, a picture frame...I could save that money for my next trip...once again, I just couldn't justify the $30. So instead of buying him, I stuck Tourist Mickey in his arms and took his picture. Some day I'm gonna get that otter...

Tearing myself away from my otter, we headed back to the Land for our lunch Priority Seating at Garden Grill. We'd eaten there last year and my mom totally fell in love with it, eventhough I was not overwhelmed. I don't eat steak, I'm pretty picky about what veggies I'll eat, and I really don't like Disney mashed potatoes, so the only things on the menu that I can eat are the chicken and catfish. And a meal of only meat is just not something that appeals to me that much. But it was Mothers Day and this was where my mother wanted to eat, so I had to deal with it.

We were seated on the upper level again, which I liked so people wouldn't be watching us while we ate. Our waiter was Art, which was the same guy we had last year. Last May, he was really slow with everything and I was kind of hoping that he wouldn't be our waiter again, but he was. At least this time he was much more efficient. He took a while to initially get our food to us, but after that, he was reasonably quick with the drink refills and replenishments of chicken and fish. Along with the normal selections, I ordered a salad for an additional fifty-five cents just so the entire meal wouldn't be meat. I would have just as soon ate three of the salads and nothing else, but oh well. I was paying for it.

The characters were pretty good during the meal as well. In particular, Chip and Pluto had lots of fun with Tourist Mickey. Chip stuck him down the bib of his overalls and had me take his picture, then made Mickey dance all over the table. I don't really recall what the sequence of events with Pluto was, but at one point, he was rolling around on the floor pretending like Tourist Mickey was killing him. I got a picture of him pulling himself back to his feet. It was really funny! Mickey always seemed to be in a hurry when he would stop by, so it was just a kiss on the hand and a pat on Tourist Mickey's head from Mickey.

Once we were done with lunch, we talked to Art for a while. Dad asked him if he had ridden Test Track, and he said that he hadn't. He said that once it had been working flawlessly for quite a while, he would ride it, but until then he wouldn't. We also brought up that he was our waiter last Mothers Day. He didn't remember us, but he said that he would be expecting us back next Mothers Day. *sigh* Now I guess mom's gonna want to go back again... Once we were done and left the Land, we went over to the Wonders of Life pavilion and took in Cranium Command. As always...an excellent show. Next came Body Wars, and once we were done, we decided to venture into World Showcase. We wanted to catch the 4:30 show of Off Kilter, and wanted to get there in time to get a good spot. We bypassed Ice Station Cool, but I promised myself that I would get back to it later in the week.

Once inside World Showcase, we passed some...hmm, the best way I can describe them is "butterfly people." It was a group of four or five men on stilts with large wing type things on. They were very odd, but very pretty at the same time. They was also another guy pushing a cart that played some kind of music. They were really interesting. Not sure what they were or why they were there, but it was cool anyway.

We arrived at the stage to watch Off Kilter about ten minutes early and there were only a few other people waiting to see them. Well, since February, I have been head over heels in love with Off Kilter. I had bought their CD and it had never left my player. I listened to it, literally, every day. So I was rather excited about getting to see them again. Mark, Randy, Tony and Scotty came out and began setting up to play, but no Jamie. Where was Jamie????

Pretty soon, they were introduced, and that familiar wail of the bagpipes began playing softly behind the stage. Jamie made his appearance a few moments later and the show began. I don't recall what songs they played (I think I was too jaded by the *kilts*!), but it was absolutely wonderful. Through the whole show, I was snapping pictures. Spin around...snap a picture. Strike a pose...snap a picture. Look at me...snap a picture. By the time the show was done, I had taken the rest of one roll (about five pictures) and another whole roll of twenty four exposures. That should be enough Off Kilter pictures for a while (but can you really have too many pictures of men in *kilts*?).

After the show, we went up to the stage to talk to them. I had a hunch what was going to happen...and it did. I figured that mom would go nuts and act like a lunatic in front of them, and that's exactly what happened. She seems to have problems acting normal when she's around famous, or even semi-famous, people. So we went up to them and said hi. She immediately went into one of her fits. "Oh! We love you!!!! You guys are soooooo great!!!! Oh! Jamie! We just love bagpipes!!! You play so well!!!! Oh! There's Tony! Tony! Oh! You just have *magic* fingers!!!! Oh! I'm soooo glad that we got to see you guys again!!!!!" While she was going off about how much she loves them, I could tell that they were getting visibly uncomfortable around her. She was making such a big deal about them...

Even dad was getting into the embarrassing act... I had taken my CD with me so I could get them to autograph my cover. So when I pulled it out to get them to sign it, dad almost immediately took it away from me. Then *he* went to each member and got them to sign *my* CD cover!!! It kinda made me mad. <*selfish voice*> I wanted to get my autographs!! So we talked to them for about ten minutes, with me hardly being able to get a word in edgewise. I did manage to tell each of them (except for Randy, who snuck away early) that I really liked their music and was glad to meet them, but I barely said anything else. I left more embarrassed than happy that I had gotten to see them. And the worst part was that I knew the whole scene would repeat itself in about an hour and a half.

We left the Canada pavilion and headed counterclockwise around World showcase for a bit. Our next stop came in France when we spotted a Living Statue. We'd had such a fun time in February with the Living Statues and Tourist Mickey that we wanted to see if we could get this one to hold him. So mom took Mickey up to her, and she struck a nice pose with him. Once we were done and were trying to get Mickey back, she wouldn't let go of him. She looked very calm and collected, yet she had a death grip on Mickey. Everyone was laughing...finally, she got Mickey away from the statue and we continued on.

Our next stop was the Japan pavilion for a Kaki-Gori (yummm....I have a friend from Japan, and she said that they make their own Kaki-Goris at her house...what I wouldn't give to know the secret...). I got a strawberry one and mom got a rainbow. Dad, keeping with his norm, chose not to get whatever we were getting. So right as we were leaving the line, it started to rain. We figured that we would wait on the patio near the department store and wait for the rain to stop. Well, once we sat down, it started to pour. So we sat there for about 20 minutes, eating our Kaki-Goris and waiting for the rain to stop. I also managed two drop two giant hunks of strawberry Kaki-Gori onto my white shirt, thus leaving two lovely pink stains. Yuck. Oh well, I was looking to buy a new shirt anyway.

Right as the rain ended, we headed back to Canada to catch the 6:00 hour Off Kilter show. The show was wonderful, as always, and the flailing kilts were very hypnotic ;-) hehe After the show, we went through the same routine again, eventhough we had already spoken to them. I basically just stood there and let them talk. I could barely get a word in edgewise.

Once we were done with Off Kilter again, we made our way back around towards the Mexico pavilion. We rode El Rio del Tiempo, and...yay! My running boy was fixed! The little kid on the left after you pass under the bridge with the skeletons on it is my favorite animatronic kid in the ride, and during my last two trips, something had been wrong with him. He was just standing there turning around, not running back and forth like he should have been. But one complaint to the Mighty Paragon got my boy fixed. I browsed the Mexican shops looking for tiny hats, but found none. Oh no...was the Mexico pavilion running out of the very tiny hats that Tourist Mickey wanted so badly?!?! If only Paragon could do something about getting more tiny hats...

Once we were done in Mexico, my parents decided to head back over to the American Gardens Amphitheater to see the Grass Roots concert, since that was the last night they were going to be playing. I said that they could go on ahead and watch them and I would meet them back at the hotel, since I didn't particularly want to watch the Grass Roots. So they went ahead, and I was left to fend for myself for the rest of the night (how would I ever manage?:-) While I was still in Mexico, I decided to stop in the shop next to the Cantina de San Angel in one last, desperate attempt to find Mickey another tiny hat. I looked...and looked...and...JACKPOT!!!! A tiny hat!!! Actually, a whole basket full of tiny hats to choose from! I was careful in making my final selection, but I ultimately decided on a black sombrero with silver thread and sequins on it, called a mini charro. I tried it on Tourist Mickey, and he seemed to be very pleased with it, so I bought it. Assured that Tourist Mickey had his tiny hat, I went to Norway.

In Norway, I took in Maelstrom but skipped the final movie. By the time I was done there, it was about 7:30, so I headed back into Future World. I'd told my friend Bill (Whimmel in #radp-friends) that I would try to stop by and see him at the monorail platform, so I decided that I had better get a move on. As I was leaving Norway, it began to rain. By the time I was halfway to the front, it was pouring. I had accidentally left my poncho in the room, so all I could do was get soaked. It crossed my mind to run, but that would have just meant that I was hitting the rain faster, and I would be tired as well as soaked by the time I got where I was going. So I took it easy until I got up under Spaceship Earth.

Once I was underneath Spaceship Earth, I stopped and sat on the railing next to the shop and waited. It was storming by now, and there was a lot of very close lightening. So as I sat there soaking wet, cold, inconvenienced and scared of the possibility of a bad storm, I couldn't help but think "life just doesn't get any better than this." For the first time since I had arrived at Disney World, I was totally happy. I watched all the people pour out of the park in their dripping yellow ponchos, with their children who were having more fun in the rain than they ever could in a fountain, consoling their young babies who seemed more than a little bit afraid of the Florida shower...

And I was happy.

I sat there for about twenty minutes just soaking in everything. I kept thinking about how much I was looking forward to doing Disney College Program next spring, and that with any luck, I'd be working in Epcot. I also sat in wonder at how Spaceship Earth really doesn't drip! The only drips I saw were from the tiles that were too angled to allow the water to drain, of which there were only a few. Finally, I decided that I'd soaked in enough, as well as decided that the storm had subsided enough to make me want to ride a monorail. I left Epcot at about 8:00 and took the monorail to the TTC.

I'd asked a couple of people where I could find Bill, but no one seemed to know. Someone at the TTC finally concluded that he was on the platform at the Polynesian. So I hopped on the resort beam (a first) and found him exactly where he was supposed to be. We chatted a bit and finalized plans for the Pleasure Island meet on the following Friday. After about 15 minutes, I said goodbye and took the monorail to the Magic Kingdom. Once there, I found a bus headed for Port Orleans and jumped on it.

A few minutes later, we pulled into the Port Orleans bus stop. I hadn't had dinner yet, so I stopped by the food court to see what they had. I opted for a personal cheese pizza since I would probably not have pizza later in the week. I got it boxed up and took it back to the room. We had drinks in the room, so once I was there, I got some ice and filled up my mug. The pizza was good, although a bit cold by the time I got around to eating it, but that was my own fault. I spent seventy-five cents and checked my e-mail (I don't like that the resorts charge for local calls...and I really hate that they charge for 800 and 888 numbers too, but oh well).

My parents showed back up at about 10:30 (I'd gotten back at about 9:30) and we exchanged stories of where we were and what we were doing during the big storm that night. All that was left for the day was a good night's rest.

Sunday, May 9th, 1999: Jiminy Crickets! It's Off Kilter!

The phone rang at 6:51 and Mickey welcomed me to my day. I dragged myself out of bed and took a shower before we made our way to the food court for breakfast. Since this was Mothers Day, we had let mom pick where she wanted to have her Mothers Day lunch and she chose Garden Grill, just like last year. As always, we spent our first day in the World in Epcot, our favorite of the four parks.

We went to the creepy food court for breakfast, and I decided that I needed to try the heralded beignets that I had heard so much about. I proudly ordered an order of six of them, as did mom, and dad got the breakfast platter. When I saw how big each beignet was, I immediately wished that I had only gotten the order of three. These guys are big! So we sat down and I started eating. On first bite, I thought they were pretty good but not as good as normal donuts. They were really doughy and tough. At one point, I was actually having to tear them apart with my back teeth just to get a bite of them.

After the first one, I was beginning to wonder if I had made a mistake by ordering the beignets for breakfast. I normally can't eat sweet things for breakfast because they make me feel gross all day, but for some reason or another, I had gotten them for breakfast instead of as a snack some other time. By the time I finished the second one, I was starting to feel queasy. I ate half of another one before I called it quits. I gave one to dad and he concluded that he didn't like them very much either. My stomach was starting to cramp by this time, so I told my parents that I was going back to the room and they could stay if they wanted to. They said they were done anyway, so we all went back to the room.

By the time we got back, I was almost bent in half with stomach cramps. I couldn't believe that only two and a half beignets worth of sugar had made my stomach cramp! So I laid down on the bed and stretched out. After about fifteen minutes, I was ok again and we started to make our way over to Epcot. I had brought my other two and a half beignets back to the room, but they eventually got thrown away.

When we got to the bus stop, we ended up waiting over 20 minutes for a bus. By the time the bus got there, we were slightly miffed. During our entire week at All Stars (three days at Sports and four days at Music) we had never had to wait more than five minutes on a bus. That's including going to and coming back from the parks. But at Port Orleans, we consistently had 15-30 minute waits for busses. On numerous occasions, two or even three busses to another park would come before the bus we were waiting on. Then some of the time, the busses would show up half full so lots of people would have to stand. Needless to say, we thought the All Star bus service was much better. The bus we were on also made three stops in Dixie Landings, which further delayed us.

Once we got to Epcot, dad decided that the first thing we should do was ride Test Track. Since mom and I had ridden it in February, we had kept telling how much we thought he would like it. So we headed that direction. The line was about an hour and a half long, but luckily, we had a front of the line pass (obtained after an hour and a half wait in February which resulted in the ride breaking down after we were past the briefing room). So instead of having to wait for another hour and a half, we showed our pass and went in through the exit. We got in line right after the briefing rooms, and had a wait of about two or three minutes. Alright! This is the way to ride Test Track! So needless to say, dad loved it. He's really into cars and racing, so he was grinning from ear to ear all through the ride. When we got off, I think his initial response was "Again!!!" but the line was still at an hour and a half, so we decided to come back to it later.

Our next stop was the Land where we did our favorite attraction in Epcot, Food Rocks. After we were done, we hopped onto a boat and took in Living with the Land. Afterwards, I decided that I needed a Jiminy Cricket, one of my favorite snacks in Disney World, which I obtained from the ice cream shop in the Sunshine Season Food Fair. It's sort of like a tangy frozen Sprite. So I got one and we proceeded to what's left of the Imagination pavilion to take in Honey, I shrunk the Audience.

When we got there, I hadn't finished my Jiminy Cricket yet, so we had to stand out in the waiting area while I finished. Right as I was finishing my drink, they announced that the show they were loading had reached capacity and that everyone else would have to wait for the next show. That made dad kind of mad, but oh well. I couldn't help it. Jiminy Crickets have a bad tendency to give me brain freeze, so I couldn't drink it very quickly. We watched the show and afterwards decided to take a trip over to the Living Seas.

Once inside the Living Seas, we looked through the tanks, but didn't spend all that much time there. And as in all of our previous trips, both of my parents took extended bathroom breaks. What the heck is it about the Living Seas bathroom?!?! Meanwhile, I had found another form of entertainment; the brine shrimp culture. In other words...Sea Monkeys! I had to have watched them for a good five to ten minutes before mom made me leave.

On our way out I stopped by the gift shop. In February, I had totally fallen in love with a stuffed otter holding a starfish that they sold there, but I hadn't gotten him because he was $30. Well, he was there on this trip as well. I was hoping he would be gone so I wouldn't be tempted to buy him...but he was still there. I picked him up and hugged him. He was soooooo precious! I really wanted this otter...but $30...good grief! That's a lot of money for a stuffed animal. I agonized. I could buy lots of other stuff with $30. I could get some beanies, a shirt, a nice hat, a picture frame...I could save that money for my next trip...once again, I just couldn't justify the $30. So instead of buying him, I stuck Tourist Mickey in his arms and took his picture. Some day I'm gonna get that otter...

Tearing myself away from my otter, we headed back to the Land for our lunch Priority Seating at Garden Grill. We'd eaten there last year and my mom totally fell in love with it, even though I was not overwhelmed. I don't eat steak, I'm pretty picky about what veggies I'll eat, and I really don't like Disney mashed potatoes, so the only things on the menu that I can eat are the chicken and catfish. And a meal of only meat is just not something that appeals to me that much. But it was Mothers Day and this was where my mother wanted to eat, so I had to deal with it.

We were seated on the upper level again, which I liked so people wouldn't be watching us while we ate. Our waiter was Art, which was the same guy we had last year. Last May, he was really slow with everything and I was kind of hoping that he wouldn't be our waiter again, but he was. At least this time he was much more efficient. He took a while to initially get our food to us, but after that, he was reasonably quick with the drink refills and replenishments of chicken and fish. Along with the normal selections, I ordered a salad for an additional fifty-five cents just so the entire meal wouldn't be meat. I would have just as soon ate three of the salads and nothing else, but oh well. I was paying for it.

The characters were pretty good during the meal as well. In particular, Chip and Pluto had lots of fun with Tourist Mickey. Chip stuck him down the bib of his overalls and had me take his picture, then made Mickey dance all over the table. I don't really recall what the sequence of events with Pluto was, but at one point, he was rolling around on the floor pretending like Tourist Mickey was killing him. I got a picture of him pulling himself back to his feet. It was really funny! Mickey always seemed to be in a hurry when he would stop by, so it was just a kiss on the hand and a pat on Tourist Mickey's head from Mickey.

Once we were done with lunch, we talked to Art for a while. Dad asked him if he had ridden Test Track, and he said that he hadn't. He said that once it had been working flawlessly for quite a while, he would ride it, but until then he wouldn't. We also brought up that he was our waiter last Mothers Day. He didn't remember us, but he said that he would be expecting us back next Mothers Day. *sigh* Now I guess mom's gonna want to go back again... Once we were done and left the Land, we went over to the Wonders of Life pavilion and took in Cranium Command. As always...an excellent show. Next came Body Wars, and once we were done, we decided to venture into World Showcase. We wanted to catch the 4:30 show of Off Kilter, and wanted to get there in time to get a good spot. We bypassed Ice Station Cool, but I promised myself that I would get back to it later in the week.

Once inside World Showcase, we passed some...hmm, the best way I can describe them is "butterfly people." It was a group of four or five men on stilts with large wing type things on. They were very odd, but very pretty at the same time. They was also another guy pushing a cart that played some kind of music. They were really interesting. Not sure what they were or why they were there, but it was cool anyway.

We arrived at the stage to watch Off Kilter about ten minutes early and there were only a few other people waiting to see them. Well, since February, I have been head over heels in love with Off Kilter. I had bought their CD and it had never left my player. I listened to it, literally, every day. So I was rather excited about getting to see them again. Mark, Randy, Tony and Scotty came out and began setting up to play, but no Jamie. Where was Jamie????

Pretty soon, they were introduced, and that familiar wail of the bagpipes began playing softly behind the stage. Jamie made his appearance a few moments later and the show began. I don't recall what songs they played (I think I was too jaded by the *kilts*!), but it was absolutely wonderful. Through the whole show, I was snapping pictures. Spin around...snap a picture. Strike a pose...snap a picture. Look at me...snap a picture. By the time the show was done, I had taken the rest of one roll (about five pictures) and another whole roll of twenty four exposures. That should be enough Off Kilter pictures for a while (but can you really have too many pictures of men in *kilts*?).

After the show, we went up to the stage to talk to them. I had a hunch what was going to happen...and it did. I figured that mom would go nuts and act like a lunatic in front of them, and that's exactly what happened. She seems to have problems acting normal when she's around famous, or even semi-famous, people. So we went up to them and said hi. She immediately went into one of her fits. "Oh! We love you!!!! You guys are soooooo great!!!! Oh! Jamie! We just love bagpipes!!! You play so well!!!! Oh! There's Tony! Tony! Oh! You just have *magic* fingers!!!! Oh! I'm soooo glad that we got to see you guys again!!!!!" While she was going off about how much she loves them, I could tell that they were getting visibly uncomfortable around her. She was making such a big deal about them...

Even dad was getting into the embarrassing act... I had taken my CD with me so I could get them to autograph my cover. So when I pulled it out to get them to sign it, dad almost immediately took it away from me. Then *he* went to each member and got them to sign *my* CD cover!!! It kinda made me mad. <*selfish voice*> I wanted to get my autographs!! So we talked to them for about ten minutes, with me hardly being able to get a word in edgewise. I did manage to tell each of them (except for Randy, who snuck away early) that I really liked their music and was glad to meet them, but I barely said anything else. I left more embarrassed than happy that I had gotten to see them. And the worst part was that I knew the whole scene would repeat itself in about an hour and a half.

We left the Canada pavilion and headed counterclockwise around World showcase for a bit. Our next stop came in France when we spotted a Living Statue. We'd had such a fun time in February with the Living Statues and Tourist Mickey that we wanted to see if we could get this one to hold him. So mom took Mickey up to her, and she struck a nice pose with him. Once we were done and were trying to get Mickey back, she wouldn't let go of him. She looked very calm and collected, yet she had a death grip on Mickey. Everyone was laughing...finally, she got Mickey away from the statue and we continued on.

Our next stop was the Japan pavilion for a Kaki-Gori (yummm....I have a friend from Japan, and she said that they make their own Kaki-Goris at her house...what I wouldn't give to know the secret...). I got a strawberry one and mom got a rainbow. Dad, keeping with his norm, chose not to get whatever we were getting. So right as we were leaving the line, it started to rain. We figured that we would wait on the patio near the department store and wait for the rain to stop. Well, once we sat down, it started to pour. So we sat there for about 20 minutes, eating our Kaki-Goris and waiting for the rain to stop. I also managed two drop two giant hunks of strawberry Kaki-Gori onto my white shirt, thus leaving two lovely pink stains. Yuck. Oh well, I was looking to buy a new shirt anyway.

Right as the rain ended, we headed back to Canada to catch the 6:00 hour Off Kilter show. The show was wonderful, as always, and the flailing kilts were very hypnotic ;-) hehe After the show, we went through the same routine again, eventhough we had already spoken to them. I basically just stood there and let them talk. I could barely get a word in edgewise.

Once we were done with Off Kilter again, we made our way back around towards the Mexico pavilion. We rode El Rio del Tiempo, and...yay! My running boy was fixed! The little kid on the left after you pass under the bridge with the skeletons on it is my favorite animatronic kid in the ride, and during my last two trips, something had been wrong with him. He was just standing there turning around, not running back and forth like he should have been. But one complaint to the Mighty Paragon got my boy fixed. I browsed the Mexican shops looking for tiny hats, but found none. Oh no...was the Mexico pavilion running out of the very tiny hats that Tourist Mickey wanted so badly?!?! If only Paragon could do something about getting more tiny hats...

Once we were done in Mexico, my parents decided to head back over to the American Gardens Amphitheater to see the Grass Roots concert, since that was the last night they were going to be playing. I said that they could go on ahead and watch them and I would meet them back at the hotel, since I didn't particularly want to watch the Grass Roots. So they went ahead, and I was left to fend for myself for the rest of the night (how would I ever manage?:-) While I was still in Mexico, I decided to stop in the shop next to the Cantina de San Angel in one last, desperate attempt to find Mickey another tiny hat. I looked...and looked...and...JACKPOT!!!! A tiny hat!!! Actually, a whole basket full of tiny hats to choose from! I was careful in making my final selection, but I ultimately decided on a black sombrero with silver thread and sequins on it, called a mini charro. I tried it on Tourist Mickey, and he seemed to be very pleased with it, so I bought it. Assured that Tourist Mickey had his tiny hat, I went to Norway.

In Norway, I took in Maelstrom but skipped the final movie. By the time I was done there, it was about 7:30, so I headed back into Future World. I'd told my friend Bill (Whimmel in #radp-friends) that I would try to stop by and see him at the monorail platform, so I decided that I had better get a move on. As I was leaving Norway, it began to rain. By the time I was halfway to the front, it was pouring. I had accidentally left my poncho in the room, so all I could do was get soaked. It crossed my mind to run, but that would have just meant that I was hitting the rain faster, and I would be tired as well as soaked by the time I got where I was going. So I took it easy until I got up under Spaceship Earth.

Once I was underneath Spaceship Earth, I stopped and sat on the railing next to the shop and waited. It was storming by now, and there was a lot of very close lightening. So as I sat there soaking wet, cold, inconvenienced and scared of the possibility of a bad storm, I couldn't help but think "life just doesn't get any better than this." For the first time since I had arrived at Disney World, I was totally happy. I watched all the people pour out of the park in their dripping yellow ponchos, with their children who were having more fun in the rain than they ever could in a fountain, consoling their young babies who seemed more than a little bit afraid of the Florida shower...

And I was happy.

I sat there for about twenty minutes just soaking in everything. I kept thinking about how much I was looking forward to doing Disney College Program next spring, and that with any luck, I'd be working in Epcot. I also sat in wonder at how Spaceship Earth really doesn't drip! The only drips I saw were from the tiles that were too angled to allow the water to drain, of which there were only a few. Finally, I decided that I'd soaked in enough, as well as decided that the storm had subsided enough to make me want to ride a monorail. I left Epcot at about 8:00 and took the monorail to the TTC.

I'd asked a couple of people where I could find Bill, but no one seemed to know. Someone at the TTC finally concluded that he was on the platform at the Polynesian. So I hopped on the resort beam (a first) and found him exactly where he was supposed to be. We chatted a bit and finalized plans for the Pleasure Island meet on the following Friday. After about 15 minutes, I said goodbye and took the monorail to the Magic Kingdom. Once there, I found a bus headed for Port Orleans and jumped on it.

A few minutes later, we pulled into the Port Orleans bus stop. I hadn't had dinner yet, so I stopped by the food court to see what they had. I opted for a personal cheese pizza since I would probably not have pizza later in the week. I got it boxed up and took it back to the room. We had drinks in the room, so once I was there, I got some ice and filled up my mug. The pizza was good, although a bit cold by the time I got around to eating it, but that was my own fault. I spent seventy-five cents and checked my e-mail (I don't like that the resorts charge for local calls...and I really hate that they charge for 800 and 888 numbers too, but oh well).

Monday, May 10th, 1999: The Chicken Nugget Fiasco

The phone rang at 8:02, and Mickey welcomed me to my day. Even at 8:02, I didn't want to get up. It had only been one day and lack of sleep was already taking a toll. I got up and dressed, and we all made our way to the food court for breakfast. We'd planned on spending the whole day at Disney MGM Studios, and that prospect was looking good. Nothing to distract us today. Notwanting to repeat the incident with the beignets the day before, I opted for a plain bagel with cream cheese for breakfast this day, which was much more my speed. Mom and dad both got the breakfast platter, and I filled my mug with fruit punch. I really wanted Hi-C Pink Lemonade. That's the biggest complaint I had about the food court aside from the scary decorations. Hi-C Pink Lemonade is one of my favorite drinks ever, and All Star Sports and Music both had it in the drink machines. Not Port Orleans :-( But the fruit punch was good, so I was a bit consoled.

After breakfast, we took the mugs back to the room and went to the bus stop. Again...a twenty minute wait. And this time, my parents felt it necessary to tell the total strangers all around us about how we'd had to wait so long the day before, and were having to wait again. And the wait for the Studios bus became the yardstick by which all other waits were measured. While we sat there waiting for a Studios bus, two busses for each other park, including one almost empty Animal Kingdom bus, and a Downtown Disney bus went by. With each bus, Dad would say "Oh...here comes a bus...this has to be it...nope. Epcot. When we were waiting for an Epcot bus there weren't any, and now when we're waiting on a bus to MGM, there are *plenty* of Epcot busses!" Every bus. No joke. Finally a bus showed up and we were on our way.

When we arrived at the Studios, the Genie was greeting guests outside the gates, so I hopped in line for a picture of him with Tourist Mickey. My parents went on inside and I said I would meet them at 50's Prime Time Cafe in a few minutes. They wanted to go on over there and make a priority seating, as well as see if our favorite waiter, Brother Lerroy, was working. So I got my picture and headed inside the park. When I caught up with my parents, they said that Brother Lerroy wasn't working that day, but they had made a Priority Seating anyway. We could come back later in the week if we wanted to see Brother Lerroy.

My parents said that the first thing they wanted to do was see the Indiana Jones show. Yuck. I saw that show once and really disliked it. So I said that they could watch it and I would go do something else. That was fine with them, so they went into the theater while I walked around and found something else to do. It didn't take long for me to decide that I was going to try to find my bud Amy in the Animation Courtyard. So I went over there and looked around. I asked someone if they knew where she was, and they said that they could page her, but I didn't want to bother her at work, so I declined.

Walking back toward the Indiana Jones show, I decided to take in a Soundsations sound booth outside the new Sounds Dangerous show with Drew Carrey. I really like these booths...I just wish that they had three or four different stories. I've heard the current one a bunch of times, and eventhough I still like it, I wish they would put in some new ones. After I was done, there was still about fifteen minutes until the end of the Indiana Jones show, so I went ahead and got in line for Sounds Dangerous. I really liked this show. I've heard some bad reviews of it, but I thought it was funny and clever. Yes, I agree that it's not that high tech or even that original, but for what it is, I thought it was well done. The part with the broken jar of bees sent violent chills up and down my spine. *shudder* It was cool, but I could deal with fewer bees.

When the show was done, the Indiana Jones show was just finishing up, so I waited for them by the "picture spot" sign in front of Dinosaur Gertie's. A few minutes later, they came out and we headed over to the Hunchback of Notre Dame show. On the way, dad suggested that we ride Star Tours, but the wait was at a half hour. On our last three or four trips, we haven't had to wait more than a couple of minutes for it, much less a half hour. We decided to pass on it, pretty sure that the line would be much lower later.

We got to the Backlot theater about 15 minutes early, so that insured that we would get good seats. When we were let in, we got seats on the inside aisle at the end of the runway. Good seats once again. And as always...a wonderful show. This Quasimodo was my favorite since the guy that performed in late '97 and early '98. This show is mom's favorite thing in Disney World, and she says she could sit through every show of it. I don't know if I'd go quite *that* far, but I do think it's an extremely well done show, and one that I will be sure to watch on every trip.

On our way back towards 50's Prime Time, we passed Star Tours and saw that the wait was down to five minutes. Cool. So we got in line, and the line actually turned out to be zero minutes, since we walked straight into the lines in front of the doors. We rode, and once we were done, we started off for 50s Prime Time again.

We checked in at the desk, and were seated fairly quickly. Our cousin was Greta, and she was really nice (though I am extremely partial to my brother Lerroy). We all ordered the same thing; buffalo chicken strips and chili cheese fries. I also got pink lemonade in one of their yard tall glasses that say "50s Prime Time Cafe." Lunch was very nice, and I had to show Greta our pictures of Tourist Mickey (we've taken to carrying around a small photo album of our pictures since so many people had told us we should). They don't offer Cast discounts :-( but they do take Magic Kingdom Club, so that saved a bit of money.

Once we were done, we went across the lake and took in Sounds Dangerous. I think my parents liked it. My only complaint with the show is that during the dark parts when it gets kind of quiet, you can hear all the screaming kids in the audience. I like this show, but I don't really see it sticking around all that long, eventhough it's brand new. Afterwards, mom and I went into a sound booth again. Dad refuses to go in them, eventhough he's not claustrophobic. After the sound booth, we decided that since it was right next door, we should watch the new Doug Live! show.

None of us had ever watched Doug, and we hadn't heard much about the show, so we really had no idea what to expect. I half expected it to be like Superstar Television, where they would put audience members into a Doug cartoon, but I was totally wrong. It's actually a stage show with real people in costumes. Well, I was totally blown away by it. I thought the story and the acting were absolutely wonderful! It's the story of how Doug wins two tickets to the Beets final concert, and he tries for the whole show to ask Patti to go with him, but ends up loosing all his self esteem when she decides to go with Roger instead. Talk about one *cute* show! This is now a definite repeat for all of our trips!

When we left the Doug show, it was just about time for the Mulan parade, and we had never stopped to watch it before, so we stopped. It was a nice parade, though I thought it was a bit short. It could have used a few more big floats. But the horses pulling the final float with Mulan and Li Shang was a great touch. After the parade was over, we made our way to Muppet*Vision 4D. As always, a favorite. Star Tours came after Muppet*Vision, with just as little wait as the first time. We curved back around to the front of the park and took in the Great Movie Ride after that, and had the gangster scene.

Since it was nearing the end of the day, we decided that the last thing we should do was watch Voyage of the Little Mermaid before having dinner and waiting for Fantasmic!. So we got in line, which ended up being about a fifteen minute wait. I took trip notes, and before long we were let in. One thing I've noticed about this show is that it takes quite a while to fill the theater. I don't mind at all since it's relaxing to sit in a dark, well air conditioned theater, but it does take quite a while to seat everyone and begin the show. After the show was over, I peeked in the shops but, once again, didn't find Amy.

It was nearing dinner time, so we decided to eat in the Commissary. Thus commenced quite possibly the weirdest conversation I've ever had. We'd decided to get kids meals since none of us were that hungry because of our big lunch. So I got in line and bought a chicken nuggets kids meal (which came in a cute Studio Catering Company lunchbox which now serves as Tourist Mickey's suitcase:-) with fries and a Surge. Mom had given dad the money to get hers, and both of them wanted the chicken nugget kids meals too. So mom and I sit down, and when dad shows up with their food, it's a nugget meal and a grilled cheese meal. What he had done was say that he wanted "a chicken nugget meal with diet coke and a kids meal with sprite." We kept telling him that he should have said that he wanted two chicken nugget meals, and he said that he would have looked stupid ordering a kids meal with a diet coke. Ok, whatever.

Then he kept saying that "they should have known" what he meant when he ordered and should have given him two nugget meals. "I don't know why they cain't just put up there 'chicken nuggets only available in a kids meal'" I've only begun to scratch the surface of how utterly stupid the conversation was (This is coming from the same man that once swore that the grocery store had put a little piece of steak in the center of a large chicken breast. "You cain't tell me that they couldn't have cut out a little piece of chicken and put a piece of steak back in it's place...")

Once the dinner fiasco was over, we went back and ordered some milkshakes and enjoyed them. Another big complaint I have about my parents is that when we're on vacation, they never want to rest after a meal. With every meal we had eaten to this point, they were done, had thrown away their trash and were standing next to the table waiting on me before I was even done. Same thing at this meal. I was leisurely taking trip notes and eating my milkshake, while they had gulped theirs down and were standing there waiting on me before I was even done. I told them that I thought that was really rude and I made them sit down, but they still kept making "hurry up" motions at me. Finally, I got mad and gulped down the last few bites of my milkshake as they walked out of the restaurant without me. Sheesh. How rude.

We made our way over to Fantasmic! about an hour before showtime. The majority of the theater was already full, so we sat in the next to last section I think, between Jafar and Hades. There wasn't any preshow entertainment this time, which was a vast improvement over the lady who yelled at us for 20 minutes in February. We had a nice conversation with the family behind us, who's daughter was singing. Mom told her that she was a great singer, so we started making requests. The ones she knew the best were from Little Mermaid, so there was lots of "Under the Sea" and "Part of Your World" to be heard in our section. Someone also had a long balloon that the audience was throwing around, which seemed to do a better job at keeping everyone entertained than a preshow would have. Maybe Disney should consider just throwing a dozen balloons and a few beach balls into the crowd each night. We also did the wave for a long time, which was sorta fun. I think what was the most fun was watching the people that were obviously from other countries who didn't know what was going on during the wave.

The show went off without a hitch and was wonderful again. I noticed this time that Tigger was on the final boat...I had never seen any Pooh characters on it before. I had my theory that since the whole show was about Mickey Mouse that they didn't want to put any Pooh characters in the show, but I guess I was wrong. As we left, mom got hit really hard in the ankle by a woman in a wheelchair, and neither the woman in the chair or the woman pushing her said "I'm sorry" or "Excuse me" or anything. Totally rude. We were routed through some backstage areas on the way out, and past the place where they store the strollers and wheelchairs. It didn't take all that long to get out and we were back in the room fairly quickly.

Once back at the hotel, we were too tired to hike to the food court (we were in building seven, which eventhough it's not *that* far of a walk, it's a bit further than we would like to walk after a long, tiring day) so we got more ice from the machine and had our own drinks. I hopped in the shower and soon after, hopped into bed.

Tuesday, May 11th, 1999: Richard Petty Driving Experience

The phone rang at 6:02, and Mickey welcomed me to my day. Today was dad's day. For the last year, he had been talking about wanting to do the Richard Petty Driving Experience, and today was the day. He'd been saving money all year, and his choice of how to spend it was on the eight lap Rookie Experience. He wanted to get to the Disney World Speedway fairly early to make sure that he was able to get into one of the classes, so rising at 6:02 was inevitable.

We went to the food court for breakfast again, and this time I decided to try an egg and cheese English muffin. Hmm...what can I say...I was very disappointed. I mean, the egg and cheese croissants at All Stars were *huge*...this was one was about half that size. The egg and cheese were mixed together and baked into a very McDonald-esque patty that was the same size as the English muffin. At All Stars, the eggs were fluffy and the cheese was a full slice that was melted and gooey. This one was just dry and flat. Mom got the same thing plus bacon, and in hers the bacon was crumbled up and mixed in with the egg and cheese. Good grief...at All Stars, they put a few big slices of bacon on the top of the eggs and cheese. We were both totally unsatisfied with this meal since not only did we think they could have done better, we'd had better. And we were at a nicer hotel too...*grumble* Dad had the breakfast platter and once again had no complaints.

We got to the speed way at about 7:30, anticipating that there may be problems getting him enrolled in the class, but there were none at all. I'd called a few weeks in advance to book a reservation for him but had run into a snag. Since I'm a Cast Member, I was going to get my discount on it for him ($380 regular versus $211 for Cast Members), but I was going to need to fax them a copy of my ID. So I get my dad to copy it and fax it to them on a Friday afternoon. I didn't have time to call until the following Monday afternoon, when I talked to an extremely rude man about making the reservations. He seemed mad that I didn't call right after I had faxed it. "Ma'am...you can't just fax us your ID then not call for two days! You fax it, then you call. Next time, fax it, then call right away so we don't throw it away again!" I was so taken aback by how rudely the man talked to me that I told him that I wasn't going to make a reservation.

Once we showed up, there was no problem with getting him registered for the 8:00 class. He got into his red, white and blue racing suit, and pretty soon it was time for the class to begin. They showed a couple of videos about racing, then told us that all the spectators had to leave. So mom and I as well as the 20 or so other people with the drivers went out to a set of tents they had set up next to the track. I knew it was going to be a while (a little less than an hour) so I went to the van and laid down in the front seat. After a while, we saw everyone coming back down into the tents, so I went back down to the track. I don't honestly recall much about the whole event because frankly I thought it was a bit boring, but I'll tell you what I remember. Dad was chosen to drive about halfway through the class of 13 people. Mom taped the whole thing as well as volunteered to tape all of two other mens 30 lap sessions. We took quite a few pictures, and pretty soon, he was done and had his diploma and all. He bought the pictures they took, which are one of him standing next to the Richard Petty Car (the same type they have in front of the Tomorrowland Speedway), one of him inside the car, and another one of Richard Petty standing next to the car.

Well, once we were done there, it was about 10:45, so instead of using the extra day on my pass and going to a park, we went to Downtown Disney for some shopping and lunch. We had decided quite a while ago that we were going to get dad one of the racing Mickey plushes for Father's Day, so we needed to pick one up. We'd pretty well decided on Rainforest Cafe before we even got there, so we parked next to the World of Disney and walked over to it. By the time we got there, it was 11:15 and they said that they could seat us immediately. Since we had been up since 6:00, lunch at 11:15 was no problem. Once again, we didn't even have to look at the menus to know what we wanted. I got the Pastalaya Shrimp, which is spicy pasta with chicken, shrimp, green onions, green peppers and tomatoes with lots of spices on it. Ahhh...heaven...I could eat Pastalaya Shrimp every day. Mom and dad both got the Mojo Bones, mom the half rack and dad the whole, with waffle fries and fried onions. This is, I do believe, my favorite meal in the world. I could eat this every time I go to a restaurant. It's just sooooooooo good!!!!!

We were seated next to the door to the kitchen, which wasn't a very good location, but did serve for quite a few laughs. A few minutes after we were seated, I started thinking about how totally hilarious it would be if Steve Irwin (the Crocodile Hunter, and the man I have proclaimed to be my hero:-) were to do a show inside a Rainforest Cafe. I could see him hanging from the ceiling and trying to attack the animatronics, then start talking about a renewal in the life cycle when it starts to storm and rain. So for the entire rest of the meal we were talking in Australian accents, saying "Oh look...there's a gorilla! You feelin' grumpy today sweetheart? My, she's *glorious*!" and other assorted Irwinisms. Occasionally, we would be sitting there dying laughing and our server would come by and look puzzled at why we were laughing so hard. It was so funny!

After lunch, we decided to stop at Gourmet Pantry and see if they sold bagels for fairly cheap. Well, they sold them, but it would have been about the same price as buying them day by day in the food court, so I decided not to get them. It would have been too much trouble trying to keep the cream cheese cold, and even at that, they bagels would be day-old by the time I got around to eating them.

The next stop was the Christmas shop. I had bought the boxed set of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves ornaments last May, and I decided that I should get another set on this trip. So I looked at them, but had a hard time deciding between the Mickey set, the Beauty and the Beast set and the Little Mermaid set. I eliminated the Beauty and the Beast set first because a couple of the ornaments were really big, and all I have is one of those little three foot Christmas trees. I really liked the Little Mermaid set...but I decided on the Mickey set instead. It was $28, but I kept thinking about how much I loved my Snow White set, so I justified it. Now if I can just work on justifying that $30 stuffed otter from the Living Seas...

While we were there, I noticed that they had quite a few Scrooge McDuck Christmas items for sale. I immediately thought of my friend Melissa from the Disney Store. She's totally obsessed with Scrooge McDuck, so I was wondering if she would want me to pick up anything for her (I had already promised her that I'd get her a Scrooge McDuck PVC from the Germany pavilion). So I went outside and called the Disney Store and got her phone number. Well, she wasn't home when I called, so I didn't get anything big. I did however pick her up a Scrooge McDuck magnet of his face saying "Bah! Humbug!"

Heading back around towards the car, we decided to make a stop in the World of Disney to see if there was anything there we wanted to pick up. The only things I found were a bunch of post cards (I decided that I was going to wallpaper a wall of my room in post cards, so I was buying almost all of them I could find) and two more dwarf porcelain figurines. I'd been hoping to get Happy and Sneezy, but the only ones any of the stores I'd been in had that I didn't were Sneezy and Sleepy, so those were the ones I went with.

Once we were done there, I slipped over to Team Mickey, bought the racing Mickey plush for dad and had it sent back to the room, so he never suspected a thing. We headed back to the hotel after I was done, and planned on going swimming and spending a relaxing night at the hotel. But the best laid plans of mice and men...

When we got back to the hotel, we hadn't been there more than fifteen minutes when mom started complaining that her stomach was hurting. So mom lays down and takes a nap. Actually, I did too, and when I work up at around 4:00, she and dad were both asleep. So I decided that it would be a good time to check my e-mail. After a while, dad woke up and we decided to go to the food court for dinner. I got a chicken fajita wrap, which turned out to be very, very good. It was served cold, and only had chicken, lettuce, cheese, tomatoes and I think ranch dressing in it. It was big too. Dad had a ham and cheese sub, and we both filled out mugs.

After dinner, we went back to the room, but mom was still feeling bad. I was thinking that I would go back over to Downtown Disney and take in a movie at the big movie theater, but mom didn't like that idea (*grumble* I swear that woman can guilt me into anything!). So then I suggested that I was going to go swimming, to which her response was, "Well, I wanted to go swimming..." So there I was sitting in the room with nothing to do. And so it went until the end of the evening. Dad ended up going to sleep at about 7:00. I refused to go to bed that early, so I watched TV, arranged all my stuff into my bags and eventually ended up going to bed at about 10:00.

Boy, what a sucky night. This was actually the worst time I've had in Disney World to date. I was in a huge resort with tons of things to do, and I couldn't do any of them for various reasons. Mom's making me feel guilty when I suggested that I wanted to go swimming really made me mad. She kept thinking that she was going to feel good enough to go swimming later, but she never did, so I never got to swim either. And I didn't get to watch a movie because mom kept telling me that she wanted to go swimming later. So I went to bed frustrated and a bit upset. Surely, the next day would have to be better.

Wednesday, May 12th, 1999: Beverly From Strangers

The phone rang at 7:02, and Mickey welcomed me to my day. Today was Animal Kingdom day, with probably a trip to Epcot at the end of the day. I didn't know whether to dread going to Animal Kingdom in May again or not. Last May, we had a horrible time in Animal Kingdom. It was so hot and had so little to do that we really didn't like the park at all. I was hoping that we would have a better time this year since there were quite a few new things to do, and since we had had a nice time there in February.

Once again, we had breakfast in the food court, which consisted of a bagel with cream cheese for me, bacon and two biscuits for mom and the breakfast platter for dad. Finally, by the fourth morning of our trip, my dad had caught on to the fact that I didn't like sitting on the side of the food court with the giant masks. Every morning he would sit right underneath one of them and I would tell him that I wanted to move. So finally this morning, he sat on the other side of the drink bar where the masks were out of view. Breakfast was back to its normal good self, and afterwards we took our mugs back to the room and headed for the bus stop.

While at the bus stop...my dad started it again. "Oh, that's gotta be an Animal Kingdom bus...nope! MGM Studios! How come when you want an MGM bus you can't get one, and when you don't want one, they have them?" This continued for 25 minutes until the Animal Kingdom bus finally showed up. These long waits really made dad mad, which in turn made him less easy to deal with. *grumble*

Once we made it to Animal Kingdom, the first stop was for a ride on Countdown to Extinction. This helped get dad into a bit better mood. We've never had to wait much for this ride, so we went directly into the preshow movie room. Before this trip, I had gotten smart and bought a hair tie to wear during this ride. I'd never seen the lunging Carnotaurus head at the end of the ride because the air always blew my hair in my face. So about a week before hand I bought a hair tie (and I really hate wearing them, but oh well, this was out of necessity) that had a little frog on the front that croaks. It was cute and only a dollar. The hair tie worked great and I was able to see everything. And I specifically looked at the compys and they are definitely not holograms!

After we were done there, we decided that while the day was still young, we should go over to Asia and check it out. We hadn't gotten over there in February, so everything was still brand new to us. First walking in, it really struck me that the whole place was very nice. I really got the impression that I was supposed to be in India, which I assume is what they were going for. In other words, it didn't feel like China, Japan, Korea or any other east Asian country.

Kali River Rapids was closed, so we walked through Maharaja Jungle Trek, which I thought was tres cool! The maps they had made it look bigger than it is, but it's still a fairly good sized attraction. Lots of the animals were out, including the tigers, though most of them were asleep. The bats were interesting though not particularly creepy, and the architecture of the whole place was really interesting. The ruined murals really put the finishing touches on the buildings. By the end of the walk, we were still fairly comfortable since a lot of it is in the shade, so we headed off in the direction of Harambe.

On the way to Africa, I was very vigilant in my search for the "secret path." Every time I came to an overgrown place, I made sure to look and see if it went anywhere, but none of them did. Finally I found what I thought was the secret path. This *had* to be it! So I headed for it, only to find that there was a sign pointing to it saying that additional seating for a snack stand. So I ruled out that option (only later did I find out that I shouldn't have ruled it out so quickly, but oh well...).

Once we made it to Harambe, we saw that the line for the safari was at 30 minutes. Ehh...a bit long, but mom insisted on waiting, so we did. Well, it ended up being almost exactly a half hour, so it wasn't that bad. Lots of animals were out, so it turned out to be a pretty good safari. Our driver must have known exactly how to hit the bumps because I left my seat on quite a few occasions. Once we were done with the safari, we were getting pretty hungry, so we stopped in Tusker House for lunch. We'd been looking over the menu online for a while and had decided that most of their offerings sounded pretty good. I ordered the chicken salad in a bread bowl, mom got chicken with mashed potatoes and green beans, and dad got a chicken, ham and swiss sandwich.

I thought that my salad didn't have any dressing on it, so I asked an attendant at the condiment stand if they had salad dressing. Well, it was obviously not the first time she had been asked that. She gave me what was almost a script about how the salad already had the house dressing on it, which was sort of like Italian dressing. I found it so amusing that they had put her there simply to answer that question that I chatted with her for a minute or two. She said that she gets that question dozens of times a day, and she also gets asked where the straws are (Tusker House doesn't have straws because they say they want to preserve the wildlife in the area, and disposable straws could harm animals if they found them and ate them. I had seen that on a sign somewhere else, so at least I didn't have to ask her that too).

Well, this lunch turned out to be one of my favorites! My salad was so great. It had lots of chicken in it, as well as lettuce, tomatoes, some type of peppers and, of all things, white beans. The dressing was really really good, and the bread it was served in was huge! I tried to eat it all but couldn't. Also, seeing as how I'm a very picky eater, I really liked that the salad didn't have much extraneous stuff in it, like carrots, red lettuce, cucumbers and stuff like that. It had a little, but they were big and I was able to easily avoid them. Mom and dad both really enjoyed their meals too. As far as I'm concerned, Tusker House will be a definite repeat for future trips!

Since it was only just after lunch, we didn't want to leave yet (a first! believe me!) so I suggested that we hop on the train and go to Conservation Station. They both approved the idea, so we hopped on board. The train ride was nice, and I liked seeing the backstage areas of the safari. It's deceivingly complex. Once we got to Conservation Station (could the walk to the building *be* any longer?) we wandered around and looked at all they had to offer. Once I saw that they had incubators and baby animal nurseries, I started hoping that they would have egg incubators where guests could watch eggs hatch. I'd visited the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago three years ago and had been captivated by their hatching eggs for two hours. I was hoping that Conservation Station would have the same sort of thing, but they didn't :-( All I can say is that they should. I think a big incubator would fit in perfectly in Conservation Station.

We had a nice time there, but there was not as much to do as we had hoped so we left after about 20 minutes. We did manage to sit through one of the sounds of the rainforest booths and it was really neat. I love those things. We even got dad to sit through this one. I also got Pocahontas' autograph and a picture of her with Tourist Mickey. It seemed like everywhere we went, Pocahontas followed us. It was kinda scary because we ran into her on five or six separate occasions (and Conservation Stations isn't *that* big!). We made the trek back out to the train, which didn't seem nearly as long as on the way in, and went back to Harambe.

When we got back, I told my parents that I wanted to make one last pass at trying to get on Kali River Rapids before we left, but they both said that they didn't want to get wet, so they opted not to ride. On our way back to where we would split up, we saw an ice cream stand, and we all agreed that ice cream was in order. All I can say is that my ice cream cone thoroughly hit the spot. It was cool, refreshing and just what I needed since it was getting pretty warm. I made the mental note that I was going to have to eat more soft serve ice cream from now on.

We decided that we would meet back up at Countdown to Extinction, since they wanted to ride it a few more times. I said that was fine with me, so they headed off toward DinoLand USA and I went towards Asia. When I got there, the ride was open again, so I got in line. As I waited, I unabashedly slurped down my ice cream and enjoyed every drop of it. I also think this queue has taken over for my favorite waiting line in Disney World. I don't know what the old one was, but this is my new favorite. There is so much to look at that I almost wished that the line had gone a bit slower. I loved the giant cat god (or whatever it was) and thought that the shops you went through were very nicely done. No expense was spared in making that queue, I think I can safely say. I fell in love with a few of the birdcages, as well as thought the broken English on the signs in the shops was very ingenious (not something I would have thought of). The detail in the queue made the 45 minute wait go by very quickly.

As for the ride itself...one word. LAME! The beginning was cool, what with the huge lift and all, but as for the rest of the ride, it just totally didn't impress me. The loggers and stuff was nice, but the story was not developed nearly enough for it to be effective. Plus, I was going backwards for almost the whole ride. I climbed the hill backwards, I passed the logging stuff backwards, I went down the hill backwards, and I went through most of the rapids backwards. Definitely not enough spinning. Plus I didn't get wet. Not at all. There was a man and little boy on the opposite side of the boat who got one hefty splash, but as for my side, we were left high and dry. I got a bit of a shower as we passed the elephants at the end, but still didn't get *that* wet. I won't wait 45 minutes for it again. They'll be lucky if I'm even willing to wait 15.

Now let me talk to the people who had ever been to Opryland for a second. If you remember the Grizzly River Rampage, please don't go into Kali River Rapids thinking it's gonna be the same thing like I did because it's not. Grizzly River Rampage threw you all around the river, spinning you and getting you totally soaked. Kali River Rapids is a far cry from that. Maybe if I had never ridden a rapids ride before it would have been ok, but compared to Grizzly River Rampage, it was totally unimpressive.

Leaving Kali River Rapids, I started back over to Countdown to Extinction. Once I got there, I started looking around for my parents but couldn't find them. I wandered around outside for a few minutes then decided to go in the exit and wait for them in the room where you look at the picture the ride took. So I waited and waited and waited, but they didn't come out. About 15 minutes had passed, so I knew that they couldn't still be on the ride. I went back outside to look for them, and eventually wandered around inside the waiting area, but they still weren't there.

I decided that as long as I wasn't able to find them, I might as well go ahead and ride it again. So I did, utilizing the hair tie again, and when I came out they still weren't around. On top of that, it had started to rain. Heh. I thought about the fact that wherever they were right now, they were getting wet since I had mom's poncho and umbrella. So I started singing to myself..."I've got your poncho...now you're getting wet...that should teach you to make me carry all your stuff around..." At least I had my poncho too, so I put it on. I also got to, for the first time this trip, make use of one of the greatest miracles of our time...the umbrella hat! I'd bought it a few months back for the express purpose of wearing on top of my poncho so my face wouldn't get wet. As I pulled it out and put it on, I could hear people around me saying "Now that's smart" and "I want one of those."

Donning my bright yellow poncho and rainbow umbrella hat, I headed over to Chester and Hesters to see if by an off chance they were there. Well, I looked around, getting more than a few curious stares at my hat, but didn't find them. I finally decided to check Restaurantasaurus for them. I had no idea why they would be there, but knowing them, they could find a reason. On the way over there, I passed two couples and one of the men pointed at the other man and yelled at me "He'll give you two hundred bucks for that hat!" I thought it was kind of funny, and it was also the highest bid yet (a kid in Chester and Hesters had offered me five dollars for it. Not for sale son, not for sale).

As I approached Restaurantasaurus, who should I see standing in the netted patio but mom. I wanted to be mad at her for being there instead of at Countdown to Extinction, but people just can't take a person in an umbrella hat seriously, so my anger soon turned to laughter. The people at the table we were standing next to were laughing too. Mom pointed to dad, who was outside stranded with a young Indian CM under an umbrella at an ice cream stand, handed me five dollars and told me to go ask him if he wanted a poncho. He did, so I went back to Countdown to Extinction (whose exit had suddenly sprouted a push cart full of Animal Kingdom ponchos) and got him one.

When I went back to give it to him, he was still talking the guy's ear off. Dad has a great way of doing that in Disney World. He is totally oblivious to everything at home, but put him in Disney World and he can have a 30 minute long conversation about his first ride on Space Mountain with anyone. Once he has his poncho, we bid the guy farewell and decide to leave for the day and head to Epcot. By the time we got to the bus stop the rain had ended and I took off my poncho (but I kept the hat on just so I could watch people watch me. Next time I need to wear sunglasses too...) We hopped on the next bus for Epcot and arrived there uneventfully.

Once we got to Epcot, dad said that he wanted to ride Test Track again, so we headed that way. The wait was at 45 minutes, and since we didn't have the advantage of a front of the line pass, we had to wait the entire time. From the time we got in line to the time we got off the ride was almost exactly 45 minutes, so it wasn't all that bad.

When we were done, we wandered over into World Showcase, still undecided as to what we were going to do next. As we passed the United Kingdom pavilion, we decided that they would go watch Paul Revere and the Raiders while I took in the rest of World Showcase. That was fine with me since I didn't particularly want to sit through a concert, so they headed off for the Friendships boats while I stayed where I was. Once they had left, I perused the shops in the United Kingdom. Inadvertently, the first shop I stumbled into was the Pooh shop, so I made a quick getaway. I looked over the tartan scarves and material, but I didn't find any of my family name. I also pondered having a family crest made, but concluded that I didn't want to spend my money on it. The yard tall glasses were tempting too, but once again, I couldn't justify $30-$60 just for a glass. I caught a little bit of a British Invasion show, but didn't hang around too long.

As I approached the France pavilion, I caught sight of Esmeralda in a courtyard off to the side of the pavilion and ran over to get an autograph and picture of her with Tourist Mickey. Once I was done visiting with her, I decided to treat myself to a pastry from the bakery and sit down and relax for a while. As I approached the bakery, there was a mime performing in front of it and he was taunting everyone that walked through his performance space. I paused and watched him for a while and enjoyed the show very much. He was really funny and even hammed it up with Tourist Mickey for a bit. When his show was over, wouldn't you know that everyone headed into the bakery, so I decided to pass on waiting for a pastry.

Continuing around World Showcase, I sped past the American Adventure since I didn't want my parents to see me (don't know why...maybe I thought they would convince me to watch the show with them or something) and stopped in the Italy pavilion for a while. Italy really is a lovely pavilion, but there just isn't much there to make me want to spend much time there. I got a picture of Tourist Mickey in front of the big fountain with the man and fish (I'm sure it has a name but it escapes me) and walked through a few shops then went on my way.

I arrived at the Germany Pavilion with a goal in mind...I needed PVCs. I'd found out that some of the PVCs they sell there are considered valuble by some people, so I wanted to grab a few of them. First I had to peruse the shops, in which I could spend thousands of dollars at the drop of a hat (nutcrackers, clocks, glass ornaments...). I'm gonna get one of those cool glass pickle ornaments one of these days, but since I'd already spent too much money on my Mickey ornament set, it wasn't to be on this trip. When I finally found the PVC fixtures, I picked out, I think, a total of seven, including a Jiminy Cricket, a Tinkerbell, a Goofy with a broken leg, an Elliot from Pete's Dragon and a Scrooge McDuck for Melissa back home. I'd promised her I'd bring her back a Scrooge McDuck PVC. I pondered getting the Donald playing bagpipes, but decided to pass on him.

After my shopping spree in Germany was done, my next stop was in the Mexico pavilion for a ride on El Rio del Tiempo. My running boy was still running during this trip, so I was happy. I kept my eye out for Paragon and more tiny hats, but didn't find either, so I decided to move on.

Since my parents were still nowhere to be found, I stopped in Ice Station Cool for a few drinks. There's never been much snow in the entranceway when I've gone in, so I've never gotten the opportunity to throw snowballs at anyone. Oh well. Once I got inside, I drank a little bit of all of them, including the Beverly (though it was just a tiny sip. I make myself do it every time to keep myself humble:-) I also decided that my new favorite of the drinks is Lift Pineapple from the UK. It burns my mouth a bit, but it tastes really good. VegitaBeta is still second though.

I even tricked a kid into drinking Beverly. I was standing at one of the taps and he saw me put a little bit of Beverly in my cup and start to drink it. As I did, he said something like "Man, that stuff's nasty!" So once I drank it, I tried my hardest to keep from making a face and said back to him "Which tap did you drink it out of?" and he pointed to the single one near the wall. Then I said "Oh, I think something's wrong with that one. That one tasted really bad, but this one tastes pretty good." So being his dumb twelve year old self, he quickly grabs another glass, puts a fair amount of Beverly in it and gulps it down. Of course, his gulp was followed by his gagging and my laughing and walking away. Moral of the story: Never drink Beverly from strangers.

I decided that since it was nearing 9:00, I would go ahead and go back to the hotel. As I was walking out toward Spaceship Earth, I heard someone yell, "Hey you! In the red shirt!" So I walk in the general direction of the voice, which just happened to be straight into a large group of young people. So again, a guy yells at me, "Hey you! Would you take our picture?" Of course, I happily obliged and took his camera. Pretty soon more and more people started handing cameras to me, so I lined them all up on the ground so I wouldn't miss one of them. I ended up with eight cameras lined up in front of me. I took all the pictures and asked the group where they were from, and it turned out that they were on their senior class trip (which made me feel totally slighted since we went to Universal Studios, Wet N Wild, and a crappy day cruise to the Bahamas on my senior trip). I wished them a happy rest of their trip and went on my way.

It was almost exactly 9:00 now, and I saw that Spaceship Earth was still open, so I ran to get in line. Turns out I was the third to last person they let on that night (one couple had gotten in line after me.) I enjoyed my trip on Spaceship Earth, although admittedly it was a bit creepy knowing that I was one of the only people on the ride. When I left, there was no one in the Global Neighborhood, so I quickly left and made my way out to my bus.

The trip back to the hotel was uneventful, and once there, I decided to get my mug and fill it in the food court. Once I got down there I saw the hot chocolate spout. Mmmm....I love hot chocolate! I filled my mug with steaming hot chocolate and took the long way back around to the room. When I got back to the room, I sat on the bed and debaucharized in my hot chocolate while I checked my e-mail. My friend Ashley was online and we chatted about her wedding, which was going to be in three days. When I was done with e-mail, I watched the Spanish DVC channel (one of the channels my dad would not tolerate my watching while he was in the room) and found it quite interesting and funny.

By the time my parents got back, I had already showered and was watching more Spanish DVC channel. They told me about getting to meet Paul Revere and all but one of the Raiders and about how funny the show was. I was in bed pretty quickly, but I forgot to set the Mickey wake up call.

Thursday, May 13, 1999: "But I wanted a churro!"

The phone was supposed to ring at 7:02, but seeing as how I forgot to set the wake up call, I was awoken by the nervous beeping of the normal alarm. My failure to do this made mom really mad since she'd had so much trouble waking me up all week. She'd been making us get up really early then making us go, go, go all day without rest. This morning, when she went to wake me up, I was extremely tired and told her I didn't want to get up (you've gotta keep in mind that during the summer, I can very easily sleep until noon or later every day). The longer I laid there, the madder she got. Finally, when she resorted to saying "Julie, we're going to Magic Kingdom today" I actually said, "I'd rather sleep!" That's how tired I was. I would have rather slept than go to a park. That was pretty bad.

Once I finally got up, mom was still mad at me. I kept asking why we had to get up so early if we were doing E-ride Night that night, and her response always was "If we're not going to get to a park until 11:00, what's the point in even coming to Disney World?" She doesn't understand that eventhough it *is* Disney World, it's not nearly as much fun if I'm miserably tired the whole time. So I dragged myself together, got dressed, and we headed to the Magic Kingdom.

We'd decided to have breakfast in the Main Street Bakery. Mom and I ate there one morning when we went in December of '97 and really liked it, so we'd been wanting to eat there again. I'd also been wanting one of those giant cinnamon buns they have since we were there that December. We got to the Magic Kingdom about quarter til nine and headed straight for the bakery. When we got there, there weren't too many people in line, so we were through fairly quickly. I got one of the mega cinnamon buns and mom and dad both got the caramel buns with nuts on top.

Once we were seated, the crowd seemed to pour in. The line was out the door within a few minutes of our getting through the line. We were very glad that we had come in when we did, since we had a table and lots of the people just coming in didn't. The quartet didn't make an appearance this time like they had in December, but everything else was very nice. And my cinnamon bun was very, very good. Once we were done, we headed back to Town Square to buy our passes for E-Ride Night.

When we got to City Hall, I assumed that purchasing our passes would be no problem. Well, I was a bit wrong. Mom was going to pay for hers and dad's, so she went first. She showed her resort ID, paid for them with cash and had no problem. Then it was my turn, so I put my resort ID on the counter and got out my check card. In passing, I asked if she knew if a Cast discount was available, and I put my Cast Member ID on the counter. She pressed a few buttons and said that there wasn't, so I handed her my check card. Since I have "Check ID" written on my check card, I put my drivers license on the counter too.

She ran my card through the machine and handed me the receipt to sign. When I signed it, she took a long look at my signature. Then she looked at my license, then my check card, then my Cast Member ID, and said "Ma'am...these signatures don't match up." I'm sure I gave her a really weird look, at which point, she picked up my license and held it next to my receipt and gave it a long, hard look. After a few seconds she looks back and me and says "I'm sorry ma'am, but these signatures don't match up." I didn't know how to respond. She had my check card, my drivers license, my Cast Member ID and my resort ID, all of which have my name and signature on them, and she still couldn't figure out that the check card was mine?!?!

I didn't know what to do. I couldn't tell if she was going to give me my cards back or not. All I could say was "Well, that's *my* card. All the names match." I even asked (I believe with a bit of an attitude, since she was being weird about it) if she wanted me to sign it again, and she didn't like that idea. She was still giving me nasty looks, so I turned to mom and said under my breath but definitely loud enough for her to hear, "Yeah, I'm gonna throw my career away over a ten dollar E-Ride ticket!" At that, she acted kind of upset and handed me all of my cards back plus my ticket. Sheesh. Not that I expect to be treated differently since I am a Cast Member, but in a situation like that where you have three forms of ID including a license and Cast ID, I expect, like most people, to be given the benefit of the doubt.

After we left there, we headed back down Main Street. Mom made me take some more pictures of the castle, then we went into Fantasyland. The first ride of the morning was Snow White's Adventures. I took a look in the shop near the exit and noticed that they were selling Grad Night beanies. This year, they had Goofy and Tigger, and I figured I should pick one up since the previous Grad Night Mickeys and Poohs had become so valuable. I picked up a Goofy (since Tigger is one of my least favorite Disney characters) then we decided to take in Legend of the Lion King. We were in the first show of the morning so we didn't have to wait all that long.

Afterwards, we rode Peter Pan's Flight, followed by It's a Small World. Next came the carousel, where we had an encounter with an extremely compulsive family. I guess it was the baby's first ride on a carousel, and the family was sitting on a horse in front of me and to the right. For the entire length of the trip, the man and woman didn't stop taking pictures of the baby, and what was so bad was that they were always aiming the camera right at me!!! There was no shooting straight on or shooting with the outside of the carousel in the frame...they aimed at me every single time! About halfway through the ride, the mom traded places with the dad and took more pictures of the baby. I swear, the family had to have taken fifteen or sixteen pictures, all of which had me in the background. After the first ten or so, I started hamming it up by making faces and gestures at them (nothing bad, just a thumbs up or a wide eyed smile like I was having the time of my life on the carousel...man, I wish I could see those pictures...).

Once I was done with my photo session, we walked over to Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and had a moment of silence. I peeked under the wall again, but still didn't see anything other than the big green dumpster. When I was done, we went over to the Tomorrowland Speedway with the intention of making mom ride it (it's one of the only things mom hadn't done, aside from thrill rides), but the line was really long, so we decided to pass. Instead we went over to Mickey's ToonTown Fair for a while. Since it had been almost two years since I had ridden Goofy's Barnstormer, I concluded that I needed to ride it. Within a few minutes, I was on board, and was again shocked at how much wilder the ride is than it looks. I mean, it's still not *that* bad, but it is a bit zippier than it looks. Mom still won't ride it though.

Afterwards, I stopped in the County Fair to see what characters were in each line. They were a bunch of characters that can be found everywhere else (Minnie, Chip, Dale, Pooh, Tigger...) and I already had all of their autographs, so I didn't get in any of the lines. Instead, I looked around the County Bounty for something Pluto. I'd decided a few trips ago that I was going to try to buy something Pluto from County Bounty on every trip, but I may have to rethink that since I had to search so hard for something. I didn't want to spend the money on a big plush or even a larger bean bag plush of him, and there was basically nothing else. Finally, I found a cute wind up Pluto that scuttles around the table when you sit him down, so I bought it. I also found some packages of rock candy and decided that I needed them for my continued existence as well.

When we left, we decided to take a ride on the train over to Frontierland. As we rode, I opened my package of rock candy and began to munch on one of them. Once we arrived at the Main Street station, the lady behind me tapped me on the shoulder and asked me what I was eating. She had never seen rock candy before! And this lady was, like, fifty! I guess by virtue of growing up near Opryland, I always had rock candy when I was a kid. I had it in dozens of different flavors! I had it on sticks, on strings, in nuggets, on foot long skewers and in every color of the rainbow...I couldn't believe that someone didn't know what rock candy was! So, blue tongued and smiling, I explained to her what it was (pure sugar with dye and flavoring in it) and where I had gotten it. She said she was going to try to get some, and I wonder if she ever did. I kept my eye out for Zazu, but alas, didn't spot him. We got off the train at the Frontierland station and looked for something for lunch. Dad said that he wanted a turkey leg, so we found the cart for them, and he got one. Meanwhile, mom and I had gone into Pecos Bills and gotten lunch. We had eaten there in February and I had temporarily forgotten how much I disliked it. We both ordered a chicken wrap, which turned out to be themistake of the day. These things are so messy and have so many onions and crap in them that they are just not enjoyable to eat. I tried to open it, pick all the onions out then close it back up and eat it, but I couldn't. I ended up eating it with a fork and spilling half of it on the table. Plus they don't taste that good to begin with, so I totally didn't enjoy it. I told mom that I didn't want to eat there anymore. Fortunately, I told her that right as her wrap fell apart at the seams, so she seemed to agree with me.

Before we left the restaurant, I told mom that I thought I wanted a churro since I didn't eat but about half of my lunch, and she said that she wanted one too. Well, once I got outside, I decided that I didn't want one as much as I thought, so I told mom to go ahead and get hers. At this point, she starts getting mad at me because I had said that I wanted one then had changed my mind. I told her that just because I didn't want one right then didn't mean that she couldn't get one. By now, she's getting pouty about it, insisting that I shouldn't say that I wanted one then change my mind since she didn't want to eat in front of me. I said that I didn't care, but she said that if she ate one now, she would want to eat one later when I decided to get one as well. So not only did she not get a churro, somehow, it had become my fault that she didn't get one.

Mom went to the bathroom then, and Dad and I waited outside for her. I started complaining to him about how I hated when she did stuff like that. It seems like any time one of us wants a snack, we all have to agree to get a snack. They won't let just one of us get a snack. If I want something, they feel obligated to get something too. Then if one of them wants a snack, they won't get it unless I agree to get something as well. Sheesh...it annoys the crap out of me. He said it annoyed him too, so I didn't feel quite so bad. Once she was done, we cruised over to Adventureland and rode the Jungle Cruise, and had Skipper Halburton. He was really laid back about telling the jokes, so most of them came across as really funny, though the humor in a few of them was totally lost.

We rode Pirates of the Caribbean while we were in the area, as well as took in the Enchanted Tiki Room. We skipped the Swiss Family Treehouse since mom and I had seen it in February and didn't care to repeat it. When we were done, we crossed back over into Frontierland then over to Liberty Square to ride the Haunted Mansion. Once we were done, we saw the loading dock for the Mike Fink Keelboats. Since we had never ridden them, we decided to go ahead and get in line. Dad insisted on sitting on the top of the boat, which I thought was a big mistake. The seats were so hot that they were burning our legs (well, mom and dad's legs...I was wearing pants, and was very glad for it) and the sun shined on us the whole time. It was very hot but enjoyable nonetheless. The captain did an ok job, but the sound system seemed kinda old, so she wasn't very loud and sounded sorta mumbly. There were also a bunch of cranes walking around the dock when we returned, and it was fun watching the little kids interact with them.

As we left the keelboats, we collectively (*grumble*) decided that we wanted some ice cream. The nearest cart was near the Fantasyland Skyway, so we hoofed it over there. Once there, mom and I decided that we wanted Itzakadoozies, which are long, twisty water popsicles, and dad wanted a Mickey Premium bar. The guy told us that he was out of Itzakadoozies, so mom said that she wanted an ice cream sandwich. When I said that I would just wait and get my Itzakadoozie at another cart, dad gave me a furious look, handed his ice cream bar back to the guy at the cart and walked away. Now he was doing it too!!! He had, not an hour earlier, said that it annoyed him when mom did that, and now he was doing it. His excuse as well was that he didn't want them to eat in front of me. *grumble* They don't understand that I don't care if they eat in front of me!

We headed over to Tomorrowland via the hub, and we encountered another ice cream cart there. Luckily they had everything we wanted, so mom and I got Itzakadoozies and dad got a Mickey Premium bar. We ate them on the way to Tomorrowland, and my popsicle was really great. I hadn't finished mine by the time we reached Space Mountain, so mom went to ride the TTA while dad and I waited outside the exit. I got a good listen to the recorded warnings they play outside the entrance, which I think would be neat sound files to have on my computer. When I was done, we rode the right side of Space Mountain, then caught up with mom in the arcade.

We rode Buzz Lightyear a few more times, and mom and dad both claimed that their lazers weren't working (actually, dad claimed that all three times he had ridden it that he had the same vehicle...anyone know what the probability of that is?). We hopped over to Carousel of Progress and enjoyed it, since it wouldn't be open for E-Ride Night. Once we were done, dad and I decided that we were really tired and wanted to go back to the hotel, since if we didn't, we would have been spending fifteen hours in the Magic Kingdom in one day.

We caught the bus back to the hotel, at which point mom and dad decided to go to a Publix in Kissimmee for some stuff. I didn't need anything, so I stayed in the hotel and checked my e-mail. I also started to pack up some of my stuff since I knew I was going to be out late the next night at Pleasure Island. When my parents got back, we hung around the hotel for a little bit, got everything ready again and headed back out to the Magic Kingdom.

Once there, the first order of business was to have dinner. Since we had yet to eat at Pinocchio's Village, that was where we went. I hold that Pinocchio's has the best burgers on property, and on this trip, this was no exception. We all got hamburgers and fries, and dad got a sprite. Once again, since I am TDC Rapunzel, Food Rock's Head Chef and Keeper of the Monstro Table, I had to make sure that my beloved Monstro table had not fallen into disrepair since February. I rounded the corner and found my table exactly as I had left it. It was empty, so I promptly seated myself there, facing the windows into It's a Small World.

Once mom and dad were done, they knew where to find me. We devoured our burgers and fries, making loud yummy noises the entire time. I don't know what makes Pinocchio's burgers so much better than any others. They're just great. I also promised myself that I would eat more Disney World burgers from now on. After dinner was done, I decided that I really oughta head back over to Sir Mickeys and see if they had any more Grad Nite beanies still hanging around since I was sure I could find people to give them to. Mom and dad didn't want to go with me, so they decided to ride Peter Pan's Flight while I went over there.

When I got there, there were only two more Tigger beanies, so I promptly grabbed them. I also got two more Goofy beanies. I asked the lady at the desk if they had any more of the Tiggers (not that I wanted more...I was just wondering if I got the last ones) and she said that she didn't think so. Coolness. I got the last two Grad Nite Tiggers in Disney World.

I went back over to Peter Pan's Flight and sat down on a bench outside and waited on my parents. In the meantime, I watched all the people parking their strollers and trying to talk their crying kids into going on the ride. In the course of the ten minutes I sat there...parenthood started looking not quite so appealing to me! Lots of screaming, crying kids, lots of upset older kids messing with younger ones...I now have lots more respect for parents who take their young kids to Disney World!

Once we all met back up, it was about 8:30 and we figured we should start making our way towards Tomorrowland to exchange our tickets for E-Ride armbands. We went back through the hub and into the Tomorrowland Arcade. We exchanged our tickets for armbands and made our way back over to the Tomorrowland Speedway. Since this was the last day we were going to be in the Magic Kingdom, we decided that if we were going to ride the Speedway, we should go ahead and do it. This was one of the only things in Disney World that mom hadn't done. I'd ridden it twice before and dad once, so we had to make mom ride it this time. As we got in line, dad was distracted by the person standing at the Richard Petty race car and had to talk her ear off for about 20 minutes. Once we were in line, it took about thirty minutes to get through the line. The whole time mom was asking "Are you *sure* you want to ride this?" "Yes mom, I'm sure." So we got into our cars and zipped around Tomorrowland and Mickey's ToonTown Fair. What was mom's response when she got off? "That was really stupid."

That out of the way, we headed back into Tomorrowland. It was a little past nine now, so only the E-Riders were still able to be in the park. Since mom was almost upset that we had made her wait for so long to ride the speedway, she said that she wanted to ride the TTA, so we did. When we were done, we rode Buzz Lightyear two more times. For the whole trip, I had been trying to talk myself into doing Alien Encounter. Except for Country Bear Jamboree, it was the only thing in Disney World (aside from a few live shows) that I hadn't done. I tried to talk dad into going on it with me and finally, after I explained what happens in it, he decided to do it. I didn't even try to get mom to do it since she has anxiety problems in the dark.

Even on E-Ride night, we still had to wait about 20 minutes before we got to the preshow with SIR just because of the way the theaters load. I was totally terrified going into this attraction since I didn't exactly know what to expect. Well, I found my fear a bit unjustified. I was scared through the whole thing just because of the suspense of now knowing what was going to happen next. The effects and sensory aspects weren't all that scary to me. I guess it was because I could tell that it was happening to everyone and not just me. I thought the show was very well done eventhough I wasn't scared. I guess I could see how people would be though. It was very intense, but not anywhere near as bad as I was led to believe.

Once we got off, I had tons of questions. I kept pelting dad with them, but he didn't know any more than me. My main question was "Why did the alien get back inside the tube?" One moment he was flying around the room and the next minute he was squirming around back inside the shattered tube. I didn't get it. I assume he didn't either. We both concluded that it was a pretty good attraction. I'd definitely like to do it again, but I wouldn't want to make anyone wait for very long on me. Maybe I'll do it again during another E-Ride night.

We went across the walkway to the Timekeeper, but since there was still more than ten minutes left before the next show, we decided to take one more spin on Buzz Lightyear while we waited. Well, we rode, and when we were done, there were only about five left, so we waited. Once again, it was a nice show, albeit a bit not-my-thing. I like it well enough, but I really don't care to watch it anymore. We just watched it because it was there.

Afterwards, dad and I rode the right side of Space Mountain again, and then decided to spend a bit of time in Frontierland, eventhough I was the only one that was going to ride either Splash or Big Thunder Mountains. Mom used to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, but she's now decided that she doesn't like it. I had also almost got dad talked into riding Splash Mountain, but when he came off of Space Mountain, he said that it had "shaken up his insides" and he didn't want to ride Splash Mountain anymore. Oh well. Maybe next time.

The trek from the hub to Splash Mountain always seems a bit creepy during E-Ride nights since there are so few people in the park. I feel like an intruder or something. Well, once we got there Splash Mountain was a walk on. I really, really enjoy this ride. It's definitely one of my favorites in Disney World. The only thing I wish they would do (and I know it will never happen) is to put a track above where the boats go for people who don't want to go down the drop to ride in. Mom hates drops of any kind, and normally she doesn't feel like she's missing too much by not riding rides with drops, but I can tell that she really wants to ride Splash Mountain, but can't because of the drops. She knows that she's missing out on a great ride.

Afterwards, we went to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and I rode it (which was the only time of the trip, boohoo). Afterwards, it was about 11:30, so we decided to call it a night (like it was a conversation..."What should we call it? A day? An afternoon?" "Hey, how about we call it a night?" "I like that!" hehehe). We walked back out and hopped on our bus, which made it back to the hotel fairly quickly. Once we were there, we got drinks out of the cooler and went to bed.

Friday, May 14th, 1999: Kungaloosh!

The phone rang at 8:02 and Mickey welcomed me to my day. Since I had made such a big deal about being so tired the day before, mom let me sleep in until 8:00 (yeah, like that's *really* sleeping in...I was still next to dead when I woke up). We had breakfast in the food court again, with me having a bagel with cream cheese, mom having pancakes and dad having the breakfast platter. Good as ever. Disney MGM Studios was on the agenda this day, as well as my very first trip to Pleasure Island, which by this point, I was getting pretty excited about it. A bunch of RADPers were supposed to be getting together in the Mask Room as well, so I was looking forward to my first larger meet as well.

Our bus to the Studios actually came fairly quickly this morning, so we were there pretty quickly. My first order of business was to watch Doug Live again and tape it since I had liked it so much the first time I saw it. Well, neither of my parents wanted to see it again, so dad went to the Indiana Jones Stunt show and mom went to watch the Hunchback show. I sat in the next to last row so the light from the camera wouldn't bother anyone, and I actually got a really good video of the whole thing! I was very pleased, especially since I'm not normally the one that does the video taping.

When I came out of the theater, it was raining. It looked like it had been raining for quite a while, so it must have started right after I went in the theater. This day mom and dad both had their respective ponchos, so I wasn't worried about them getting wet. I put on my poncho and found a nice spot to sit down on a bench. I sat there for a few minutes before I thought that one or both of them might be waiting on me next to the "Picture spot" sign in front of Dinosaur Gertie's, so I got up and went over there. Of course they weren't there, so I lost my seat. So I found a nice, dry spot underneath an umbrella on a cart and waited on them.

Dad showed up first and said that they had had to cancel a large part of the Indiana Jones show because of the weather. It took mom quite a bit longer to show back up from the Hunchback show, and when she arrived, she told us that during the Festival of Fools scene, everyone lost audio and they had to bring Juggler Matt back out to entertain while the audio was fixed. When we were all back together, we made a bee line for 50's Prime Time Cafe and our lunch date with Brother Lerroy.

When we arrived, we were seated fairly quickly (considering that we had requested a particular server). As soon as Brother Lerroy rounded the corner, he immediately recognized us and began yelling "Where's Travelling Mickey?!?! Where's Travelling Mickey?!?!" It was so cool that he remembered us. We had sat in his sections twice before and once when he wasn't our server, but we said hi to him. In February, he remembered us, but he looked like he didn't know why he recognized us. But this time, he knew us instantly! Cool! So I pulled Tourist Mickey out of my backpack and sat him on the table.

As soon as I got him out, Brother Lerroy took him and began showing him to everyone in our section. In particular, he showed him to a little boy and told him that Mickey had been to Disneyland, Japan and the moon among other places. Then he came back to my table and said "That kid said he'd give you five hundred bucks for him." Eventually he got around to taking our order, at which time, I ordered the loaded nachos, mom ordered a pot pie and dad a ham sandwich. My nachos were very good, and I made certain to clean my plate (with the ulterior motive of getting a clean plate sticker :-).

At the end of the meal, he distributed clean plate stickers to everyone and asked us when he was going to get to see Tourist Mickey again. I asked him if he worked on Sundays, and he said yes, so I got out my notepad and wrote him a note. It said "Tourist Mickey comes for a visit, July 11th, 1999 (Julie's birthday!)" When I handed it to him, I told him that I was going to be back for my birthday and that I hoped he would be working. Once I handed him the note, he said that he was going to carry it around in his folder that he writes orders down in and make sure to work on my birthday for me. That was so sweet!!! One more reason to add to the list of reasons why I *have* to go back for my birthday.

We bid a fond farewell to Brother Lerroy until July and proceeded to the Voyage of the Little Mermaid. We watched the show, and as we left, I looked for Amy again. This time someone told me that they knew where she was, so I asked them to retrieve her for me. Once they found her, she and four other CMs came out of backstage and we had a nice chat. One of the girls with her was a big fan of the Doug Live show, so I showed her the video I had taken and talked about it. Turns out that she had shadowed the cast for a day and had seen the inside workings of the show! Cool! We ended up chatting until it was almost storming again, at which time we decided to leave and go back over to Epcot.

I said goodbye to everyone and we started to head back out of the park. On the way out, mom decided that she wanted a shirt from the Studios, so we stopped in a couple of shops. After *much* deliberation (and consequent *much* walking to and from shops in the rain) she finally decided on a solid gray shirt with "Disney Studios" embroidered on the front.

Once she was done, we left and made the final trip over to Epcot at about 3:45. Once at Epcot, my mom dropped off her camcorder battery at the camera center for a free battery charge (a little known service) and then they decided to head for Test Track. I went with them for a while, until I realized that the line was more than an hour and a half long, and that there was a lot of stuff I could do in that time instead. I left them there, and told mom that I would meet her in the Japan Pavilion later in the evening. She and dad stayed to ride, while I left and headed to the Mexico pavilion for the search for the Mighty Paragon.

Upon arrival in the Mexico pavilion, my search began. I asked a couple of people if they knew where she was, and finally one lady said she would find her for me. After about twenty minutes (geesh...she must be popular!), Paragon made her grand appearance. I bowed in reverence to my Chief Loin Inspector (I did...you can ask her!) and we chatted for a while. We talked mainly about Off Kilter, since I was on my way to their 4:30 show, and a bit about my running boy and the El Rio del Tiempo rehab. We chatted so long that I almost missed the Off Kilter show, but since I was on an official LIB mission to inspect Off Kilter's loins, she let me go, and I promptly scurried to the Canada pavilion.

Once there, I grabbed a seat (in full sun) to watch Off Kilter. I had planned on video taping the whole thing, but once I started to tape, the battery ran out within a few seconds. Oh well. One less show on tape, but it was ok. After the show, I talked to Jamie about bagpiping for a while. I've become pretty interested in learning to play the bagpipes recently, so I was asking him about how he learned to play and when he started. He said that he was 28 years old and had been playing for 19 years. Wow! That means that he started playing when he was nine!

At the end of the conversation, he told me that the next time I was in Disney World, to stop by and say hello. Then I said "Well, actually, I'm coming back in July for my birthday, so I'll say hi then." After I said that, he said that when I was there in July, to bring myself to his attention and he would play Happy Birthday for me!!!!!!!! I was freaking out!!! Off Kilter was going to play Happy Birthday for me!!!!! When he said it, I promptly responded, "I'll take you up on that!" and he said ok.