Li-Bong Lee -- June 2000 -- Coronado Springs Resort

June 24th-July 2nd 2000

Cast of Characters:

Lib (that would be me), 26, grad student in chemical engineering
Jim (husband of me), 26, grad student in chemical engineering
Previous Visits:

Me -198? Offsite, 1992 offsite(1st trip) DD Hilton (2nd trip), 1997 CBR (honeymoon), 1999 offsite
Jim - 198? Offsite, 1997 CBR, 1999 offsite
Pre-trip Report

Okay, hopefully this trip report will be posted much faster than my previous trip report from 1999 with two friends. Considering that it is currently November, I'm only 1/2 a year behind. Also, I've been kinda hesitant to post it after Kevin Stringer's and Sue(WDW1972)'s reports. But then, you don't really get to post anything *after* Sue, because it's really being posted *before* her next report.

If anyone read my other report, you may recall that we went along with two friends from the department in July of 1999 for about 9 days. Well, we bought annual passes for that trip and as most of you know what happens when you have annual passes....you go again. So, around January or February we started thinking (okay, I started thinking), maybe we could go again...around June....around our anniversary (3yrs).... Well, to make a long story short - we didn't. There were too many things happening around then to have made that feasible. However, we did pinpoint dates - June 25th through July 1st. I called and got the All Star Movies at the rack rate ($94 a night) and sent in a deposit. The idea was to hold this room and wait for AP rates. If we could get one, then we would change rooms, but otherwise, these would do. Well on that fateful day of March ?? 27th? 25th? I really don't remember, I dutifully called at 7am. They weren't out yet. I called back 20 minutes later and got Coronado Springs for $108 a night (120 with tax), transferred my deposit there and made an additional reservation for the week of June 6th, just in case we did change our dates. The 2nd reservation was for the All Star Sports, the CM said it was showing up with an AP rate, but the actual rate wasn't. I went ahead and took it and figured we could clear that up later. As it would fall out, we would stick with the later week in June so I ended up canceling the Sports reservation. So that takes care of hotel.

As for transportation - we drove. We had thought about flying, but I never found rates or times that I liked. And we figured we had finally bought a car that both of us could drive, we could take our time getting there and stop at wherever we wanted along the way. And it worked out to be slightly cheaper than flying (especially with the increased airfares and despite increased gas prices).

Food - the idea was to eat the majority of our meals at fast food places. That did not happen - but we still stayed within budget. I made priority seating for O'hana (enight dinner), Rose and Crown (lunch), and Liberty Tree Tavern (lunch). The idea was to not go to places we had been - so sadly, no Cape May. Sigh.

Minor preps: We planned to do the enight on the 27th. And this time, I remembered to bring addresses of people I needed to send postcards to. (This is a major point for me) Finally, the ant saga. If any of you have ever read my previous trip reports (and remember them) I have had ant problems prior to departing to WDW. This year, it came about 2 weeks early - exactly on our anniversary (June 8th). They were the big black ones and we think they came in due to the first really hot weather we've had. Combat and some spray took care of them, and I'm happy to report we had no further ant incidents. Note that this occurred on the other possible trip dates...

So that's it for the pre-stuff. Our plans were to just do things we wanted to do and not do everything. And we don't, it was frustrating and relaxing at the same time. Thanks for reading!

June 24th, Day 1 - Travel day

As this is a travel day, I'll try and keep it short. There is _no_ WDW stuff here. It is a somewhat complete travelogue of our trip down. Go to Day 2 for disney stuff. I had wanted to leave by 4:00 am. We left Princeton at 5:11 am. After getting gas (5:19am) and dropping off some letters at the post office, we finally start on I-95 at 5:30am. Jim took the first shift driving since "once I'm awake I can't go back to sleep". As I later learned, that is a falsehood. He did the driving up until Virginia where we stopped for gas and breakfast at McDonalds (car gas that is, though I'm sure the sausage breakfast didn't help - okay that's it with the bodily humor from me). Apparently, alot of people going to Disney stop at this McD too (Woodbridge, VA), it was packed! I did the driving up through about 1/2 NC - yes, that doesn't seem like a lot - but the traffic for some reason was just slightly faster than stop and go. Switched again in SC where there were police _everywhere_! I also finally got to see what "South of the Border" is. Unless we have kids, I don't think we'll be stopping there. Though, when we got back a friend asked why didn't stop there and buy fireworks. Jim took over through Georgia and we switched again in Florida. So, once in Florida, I had originally thought we would stay in Jacksonville. However it was "only" 6:30-7pm when we reached Jacksonville, we could drive a little further to Daytona. This was Jim's idea since at this point he was the navigator. Well, we get close to the Daytona area around when the sunlight disappeared. And when we were driving through JAX - I had noticed a billboard advertising the Pepsi 400 challenge in Daytona occurring ohhh..the following weekend. I'm thinking that's not a good sign. But I did not say a thing. Jim thought a scenic drive would be interesting at 8:30pm in a totally unfamiliar city. And I did not say a thing. So we took Exit 89 and got on Route 1. Let me say, Route 1 through Daytona greatly resembled Route 1 in New Jersey - but a little less busy. This was not scenic. I was grouchy. There were no major hotels along this way. It was bordering on 9pm and we had not eaten since Virginia, other than junk food in the car. Finally, I said something. Probably not in a nice tone of voice either. We finally found the Speedway and I, at this point, was more than ready to get on 95/I4 and head for Orlando. Instead we found that the speedway is chockful of hotels. All of which were soldout except for this one travelodge right across from the Speedway. We took it. And ended up eating a blah meal at a Shoney's. Where service was at best, confusing. And as foreshadowing, you think we would have learned. So now, I'm going to tell you that I had pack an overnight bag specifically for our night on the road so we wouldn't have to bring in our real luggage. It worked well. However, as you'll find out in Day 2, it perhaps could have been beneficial to have opened our main luggage earlier. So, that's it for the long travel day. We made it there faster than we thought we would. Fairly enjoyable, and Jim snores when he "can't get back to sleep when he's already up". (I'm writing the report and not Jim, so anything bad is about Jim and not me, if Jim wants to report anything annoying I did, he'll have to write his own report) Expenditures: Gas Princeton $15.76 Gas Virginia $11.00 Gas N. Carolina $13.51 Gas Savannah $13.90 Tolls $ 3.00 Breakfast $ 2.17 (we had a free breakfast meal coupon from the Dinosaur game) Shoney's $16.23 Travelodge $44.90 Total $120.47 Gas mileage - we're getting a little over 30mpg - 1999 Chevy Malibu

June 25th, Day 2 - Travel day/Arrival

Okay, there's still more non-WDW stuff. One of the reasons Jim wanted to get to Daytona was to see the beach. I figured that WDW was only 1 to 1 1/2 hours away, we could do Daytona in the morning and reach WDW by the afternoon. We headed out to the beach at about 9:00am after taking some pictures of the Race track (it's huge!). It was pretty nice and now we can say we've seen the atlantic in both the north and south. We didn't spend that much time there before heading to WDW. We found our way to I-4 and reached Coronado at 10:30am (I believe I shrieked at the first purple sign and made Jim take a picture of Coronado's sign as we entered) Well, we must have made it at the same time as a Mears bus. There was a long line at checkin. Jim went to color with some other kids (they were about 10 or so, so they got along well) while I waited in line to check-in. After about 25 minutes, I made it. We got Ranchos 7A - I asked if there were any Cabanas left, she said that there were rooms only in 7A and 6B unless we wanted to wait. We decided not to wait and asked for 6B instead (no parking lot view). We got our enight tickets too. Backing up abit - the Lobby and El Centro are _gorgeous_! Absolutely beautiful. And there was a view of the lake and the buildings that was gorgeous. I'm hoping at some point to scan some pictures and post them. Okay, back to the car. My ID card at first would not open the gate. On the third attempt and after pressing some intercom button, we made it through. And we drove. And drove. Passed a bus stop. And drove. And finally hit Ranchos 6B. Boy it's a hike. And then we had to search for our room. The buildings here are not quite rectangular. Lots of turns. And I will admit, I did not follow the arrows correctly. Our room turned out to be a corner room with a view of the landscaping (very nice). The room was quite nice and was large enough for the two of us. (I know areawise its supposed to be smaller than CBR, but we can't tell.) The only downpart is that there is only one sink. We headed back to get the rest of the luggage and then jim laid on the bed while I unpacked. It was at this point that a)I wished we had looked in our luggage before and b)determined the rest of the day. So let me preface this by saying, it was time for lunch. We had been debating whether we should eat onsite or go off. Jim wanted to go offsite since it would be cheaper. I was curious about the food court. Well, we discussed where we were going to eat while I started to unpack - my clothes in this drawer, socks in here, jim's clothes here, my personal items here, underwe...huh? Where's Jim's underwear? Uh-oh. I turned to jim (who was on the bed) and said that mayhaps we should eat offsite and then stop at a walmart. Why? Says he. I forgot to pack something. What did you forget? Ohhhhh... your underwear. Huh???? So, I got a little flack for that (I am of course responsible for _his_ clothing!). We headed out to somewhere on 192. I knew there was a Wal-Mart on 192, but we had no idea where. We ended up eating lunch at Shoneys(yes, again, and _not_ the last time unfortunately). This ended up being our good experience at shoneys. The waitress told us that we had actually headed in the wrong direction and told us about 7 miles east 192. It ended up being 10 miles, but I'm glad she told it was a bit down or we would have given up. That whole strip on 192 and the SuperWalmart is a madhouse. Sheer madness in there. We picked up some eyeglass holders, checked for the transformer toys (beast machines), oranges, and two packages of underwear. Walmarts almost always stress me out. This was no different except it had two people dressed like clowns outside singing and dancing. We finally got out of there and I told Jim that we are not stepping off property once we get back. We got back to the room (so far no Disney, huh?) and I am finally thinking we're going to a park. Jim takes a nap. That's okay. We'll get to a park, we're supposed to be relaxing...he's relaxing...I went for a walk. I tried to find a short route to the bus stop. I think I found one, you had to walk back to the elevator, walk to the quiet pool, cut through 7A and then straight to the bus stop. Going around the parking lots would be twice as long. I also checked out the dig site and took pictures of the resort. I headed back to the room at 4:00pm. (anyone recall when we got here???) I repack the booksack and fannypack to hold the ponchos, camera, squeeze breeze, book etc. Jim wakes up and slowly gets ready (he realizes I'm getting a little annoyed I think) ...replay honeymoon scene...action! NONONONONO - not _that_ kind of action! RAIN. Rain and ants. That is my disney vacation. No matter, we brought those ponchos for a reason. We get on the first bus (no wait I recall) to the Magic Kingdom. Finally. 4:45pm. We enter the gates. WHOOOAAA Nellie! No we didn't. We had to first use the payphones outside of the gates to call his parents so we didn't pay the $0.75 fee to call from the room. (Did I mention that Jim hates paying for little items like this?) My family was not at home. So FINALLY we entered using our annual passes that still worked. Big cheer - yea! So, now I'm relaxed. and all of a sudden I become "Let's take it slow" person. (I'm sure Jim wondered where this person came from) We went into the camera shop and wandered into the back area where they have some displays and a running cartoon playing. Very uncrowded and A/C'ed. They had some computer games but they weren't working. We got some stickers made of us and Ariel. We headed to the wait-time board and chatted a bit with CM Matt who was really enthusiastic about the winnie the pooh ride. Unfortunately it had a rather long wait. So we headed to adventureland instead. We went to the Tiki Room and saw the whole preshow (we missed it last year). I really do like this new tiki room version better. The tiki room emptied us out into frontierland where I wanted to catch the diamond horseshoe revue, but we had just missed a show. So instead we went to the lion king show. The puppets are pretty impressive, especially since I could see them this time (my contact fell out last year during the show). They really milk this movie. After the show we headed back to the diamond horseshoe where I ordered a lemonade ($2) and a pickle. They didn't have any whole pickles so they gave me 8 spears. Okay. The act was okay. Parts of it were funny, parts of it you couldn't hear at all - we were sitting in the back of the room. No way would I sit in the front though, I would get embarrassed too easily. There was one point where he wanted a little kid. At the table next to us, this little girl was making the biggest racket and arm gestures I have ever seen a hopeful volunteer make. Well, of course she got picked. Her stage performance mirrored her effort and she was quite hyper. After the show, we kinda just wandered around a bit looking for short lines. That did not exist by the haunted mansion, it was well out into the main area. So instead we went to where we knew there would be a line. Splash Mountain. The idea was to pick up a Fastpass. Well, the return time was at 9:10pm (it was about 7pm). Sigh, I really wanted to do this during the daytime (so you could see the drop and everything else). We went to go get FPs when this guy approaches us and says that he got two extra tickets (his wife and daughter didn't want to go) and he gave them to us with a 7:10pm return time! Coolness. We ended up with a 10 minute wait in the line - way better than usual! When we went to look at our photo, the CM was covering one of the others up. There was this little kid there and he looks up and asks the CM "Why are you covering up the picture?" CM "Because someone did something naughty." The BTMRR line was still too long so we went to Tomorrowland instead. We picked up FP for Buzz Lightyear (time was 8pm, return was for 9:25pm). The Space Mountain line was too long so we headed into Fantasyland and did the Teacups (10 minute wait). There's something I don't try each time. And after the ride, I remembered why. Queasy. Of course, Jim wasn't affected. We headed to the Pinnochio Haus for dinner (thankfully after the teacups). Jim got a hamburger and I got a hotdog (love how they have that nice hot sauerkraut available!). I was able to snag a table next to IASW and we waved to the people in the boat. People would wave back, but I'm sure they were waving at the cute 5 year girl next to us instead of us. Well, we kept watching the non-line at IASW and Jim decided that we had to go ride it while it was non-existent. We ran on with no line, and still managed to get a full boat. It's amazing how many non-lines we've encountered/will encounter but still end up on a full boat (IASW, Pirates, Mexico, etc). Jim announces that he likes this one and I am secretly pleased (I like it too). We get off the ride and walk quickly to Buzz Lightyear for our FP (the idea was to make it out in time for the 10:00pm fireworks). The line for Buzz moved quickly without FP (even with a 30 minute wait) so I don't know if I like it with FP or not. Regardless, we still used it. Jim scored 99,000 and I got 92,000. He somehow scored 25K in the first room (but he didn't notice it). I figure I would beat him on enight. Well, instead of trying to stake a spot, we got on the TTA, for two cycles. After the first ride, we talked to the CM who asked us if the lights were still on in Space Mtn...huh?? They were dark when we went through, and he didn't know why they were on either. Oh well. Maybe that would explain the extra long line. (Which was really snaky inside too.) After we got off the TTA, we ended up on the bridge to Tomorrowland to watch the fireworks. We ended up with a clear headsup view of tinkerbell. After the fireworks, stupidity set in. I wanted to go shopping. Now, anyone who wants to can now yell at me - are you stupid or something? I wanted to buy postcards and a t-shirt. Well, as everyone is aware, this is stupid time to buy anything. Stupid stupid. Stupider is that I couldn't _find_ postcards!!! Can you believe? We went through one side of the shops like salmon. I was getting totally frustrated and jim was not too interested in the crowds. At the far end of the Emporium, I found a chinese dragon t-shirt that I liked, but the lines at the register were very long (stupid, huh?). So in the end we decided I was stupid to try and shop and why don't we just stop and go find somewhere to watch the Main Street Electrical Parade? So we kinda did that. We parked in front of the camera shop, but then I thought maybe they would have postcards in there. So we went in. It wasn't as crowded, but they didn't have postcards (why not? WHY AREN'T THERE MORE POSTCARDS???). During this time, Jim was waiting in the Tony's area and was looking at a menu. When I found him, he asked me why don't we eat here? HUH? Hold the train. My Jim is making a suggestion on where he wants to dine in disneyworld?? No way. Turns out, he was looking at the menu. The children's menu. So the price was a little low. We went to ask the guy if he had a dinner or lunch menu and he gave us one. We went back outside to wait for the parade. Well, he waited, I decided I had to find postcards. I went back up the set of stores - the candy side. Well, didn't find any. Finally crossed back over and found...postcards! Where? Well, exactly where we had started looking. There was only one rack to choose from. So I went ahead and bought them there so I could mail them off tomorrow. After purchasing the cards, I went back and found Jim. He was watching the cotton candy machine (actually the CM making the cotton candy). They put about 4 spools per bag! That's a lot of sugar. The MSEP was really good and this time we just watched instead of taking pictures. Jim again thinks the princesses waved at him. And this time Pete's Dragon did his "disappearing" act. The person playing Pete reminded me of the girl on Saturday Night Live that always plays young boys. When the parade was over Jim wanted to follow behind it through the parade route. I convinced him not to, and we went to go catch our bus. (10 min wait, we had just missed one) Daily Expenses Beach Fee $ 5.00 Daytona Lunch $ 19.00 Shoney's Gas Exxon $ 18.40 Gas Diamond Horseshoe $ 2.97 pickles and lemonade Pinnochio Haus $ 10.39 dinner Emporium $ 3.40 postcards Walmart $ 17.82 various forgotten items Eride $ 21.20 Tickets Hotel $726.00 total for 6 nights

June 26th, Day 3 - Epcot (Monday)

Today, I woke up at 8:45am (Mickey called!). I went back to sleep. I woke up again at 9:30am. I went to the Food Court - decided to go to the essentially quickie mart next to it and bought a danish, banana and refillable mug. However, you can not fill the mug there. You have to go to the food court. So I went to the food court. Where I had to wait in line to get a "refill only" sign. And then I got my lemonade. And then waited in line to turn in the sign. A CM did pull me out of line saying I didn't need to wait. Thank goodness. I walk back with the mug and breakfast, and passed by a family - the father was wearing an LSU baseball cap and I was wearing my LSU baseball national championship tshirt (from 1996). We exchanged compliments. Now, last year I wore the same shirt and we met several people from LSU. During our honeymoon I had the same shirt (okay, yes, I love this shirt) and met other LSU people there. So I'm not exactly going to leave this shirt at home. And because LSU won the College World Series again, I had my sister go out and buy a shirt the day after and send it to me priority (the series was a week or two before we left) so I could wear a new LSU baseball shirt. Too bad Jim was not present for this year's encounter. I get back to the room. And I eat and wait. Jim finally wakes up after 10am. And all this time I'm trying to be calm and remind myself that we are supposed to sleep in and take it easy. We get on the bus for epcot (10 min wait) and get to the park at 10:45am. I guess that's better than yesterday. Spaceship Earth had this unbelievable line. It never ceases to amaze me how many people enter and immediately head for the first line they see. We head instead for Test Track to get fastpasses. It's 10:45am, the FP return is for 3:30pm. Sigh. Works for some. Rant - its harder to gauge how fast the line is moving to get tickets for FP. Some people do one or two. Others do fifteen. And some do not understand how to insert the ticket. And they're the ones that usually have 15 to do. Very frustrating to stand behind. Kinda want to just grab their tickets and do it for them. So after this, we headed to the Imagination Institute. It was 11:00am and we ended up with a 10 min. wait. Now, I know the consensus is that this is a terrible ride, but...me and Jim? Well, we thought it was okay. And well, better than the other one. Let me clarify, we (I) loved Figment! But the old ride was a little too fluorescent and psychedelic. And needed to be changed - there was NEVER anyone riding it. This one, the plot is thin, and it's not all that well held together, but some of the stuff is interesting. It is definitely loud. That said, I will concede to the Imagineers that a ride about Imagination is really hard to work with. We did figure out the butterfly trick though. We had PS at Rose and Crown (I made this one expressly to order prime rib with yorkshire pudding), so we skipped ImageWorks (for now) and had to worm our way to the exit (which was well hidden and in a congested area!). We headed straight for the UK and made it there at exactly 11:30. It was rather warm to eat outside so she sat us inside with a view of the lake. I got the prime rib with yorkshire pudding. Sigh, no I did not. I instead got the lunch special of three salads - a salmon, chicken and something else. They were all very good and extremely refreshing for a hot day. Jim got the cottage pie which was a rather large serving. But he really liked it. So, I didn't get the prime rib. Oh well. There's next time... Thanks to WDWIG for having the menus up. Because of them, I knew _exactly_ what Jim would order (he can be predictable foodwise). Rose and Crown was empty when we were seated, but by the time we left they were fully packed. Jim had questioned why we needed PS to begin with, afterwards, he was glad we had them. We backtracked a bit after lunch to go to the Millenium Village. It's got a kinda tacky outside. We did the golfing in Scotland - talked a little bit with the CMs there. The facts they put with the golfing are kinda interesting. There was this one particular hole that you had to hit the ball rather hard to get it to go up the incline. Well, I was hitting and hitting, and I couldn't get it to go in the hole. I gave up since there was this mom with her son waiting to do the hole. The son (definitely under the age of 10) goes and, of course, gets it on the first try. I laughed, embarrassed, and so did the mom. It was rather funny. Of course, I went back and did eventually get it. When we exited, we went and did the brazillian jungle thing. That was amusing for a bit. And then we did the next game of soccer. I thought this was really fun. Jim and I were on opposite teams. My team initially was beating his. But eventually we tied. Jim thought perhaps it was rigged. But I had watched the previous game and one of the teams did beat the other. We looked around in Saudi Arabia. We were waiting with some other people by the carpet. I touched the handle of whatever that thing is and some voice says from nowhere "Do not touch the handles" I could not locate the face with the voice so it freaked me out enough that we left. Instead we did the Spirit of the Oasis. It was okay. We headed on to Sweden. It was weird. Jim thought it was weird too. But he liked the Swedes (hmph). We sat on the IKEA type benches for a bit and then moved into the theatre area for the Tivoli show. I really really enjoyed the puppet show. For some reason, it's just one of the kinds of things I really really like. My sisters and I are big fans of the muppets and Jim Henson, but one of the things we really loved about him were the Storyteller episodes and all of the episode/shows where he would retell a folk tale using his creatures. There was also this series on Public television that also did the folk tales in a somewhat more modern setting - low budget productions - that were also very good (and faithful to the original). But I'm digressing. By this time, I was ready to move on even though we hadn't finished with the village yet. We skipped Israel and the conservation recycling thing. And then I needed to use the potty. Why do I mention this? Because we went to those famous big bathrooms. My goodness, they were expecting some lines here! We walked on to France where I wanted to see the World Showcase Players, but we had missed their last show there. So we kept walking past Morocco where we saw Jasmine. And then to Japan. I finally got to go to the back museum room. They had some interesting things there - some about ceramics. They also had some wood games set up. Jim and I played the game where you try and knock the blocks off using a hammer. Jim could do it. I couldn't. I was shocked. We then went into the store. This place, it just sucks us both in and doesn't spit us out until we've spent some money. This time I didn't buy any pearls, but I did watch them. They now have the oysters under water instead of exposed where people would constantly touch them. I bought some more chopstick rests (I don't actually use them, but I think they're cute) and a gift for our friend taking care of the birds (a set of plates - and a little trivia - all the sets are sold in 5 and not 4 because the word for 4 resembles the word for death). We had the package delivered to the hotel. Minor gripe - at Coronado, they do not deliver to your room. They deliver to the gift shop. Fine if you use bus stop one. Not so great when you're in the Ranchos. Jim did _not_ buy any toys this time. We watched Miyuki for a little bit - I kinda wanted to get another dragon made but headed on instead. It started to rain again. It rained every single day by the way. At least it cooled things off. Used the squeeze breezes only once. We headed over to Ice Station Cool. I didn't bother with the other flavors. Well, actually I did try Israel's again. But remembered that I didn't like it. I stuck with Vegitabeta after that. Jim wanted to try them all again, including the Beverley (to remember how it tasted). We then leaned back and watched other people try them. We saw one kid get ALOT of the beverley. Drink it. Scrunch his face. Pour the rest out. And then get another cup of the stuff for mommy. Sweet kid, eh? We went on to Innoventions where we did IBM's postcard - if I remembered right, we sent the same one to the lab as last time. We then tried to play some of the Sega games. We eventually got one of them - some racing game with cute little animals. Had trouble getting the hang of it, it was very similar to N64 and made me dizzy like N64. I still won one of the games. Well, it was about time for our FP for TT. But it was raining. So, that wasn't going to happen. Instead we went to wonders of life and did Body Wars with about a 5 minutes wait plus 3 possible line jumpers. I can't be too sure they were line jumpers, but I don't think the kid that the other two kids were "catching" up with was in front of the family they ended up in front of. That family didn't look too thrilled, but didn't say anything. So, I'm not sure they were line jumpers. So body wars, Jim really liked it. Better than star tours. It seems a little more motiony to me. Plus he recognized Elizabeth Shue (is that who it is??) after we got off the ride. He has a slightly delayed memory. We played around with the coils and other things in the play area. In the place where you're trying to figure out the object by feel, Jim and I had a finger fight with each other in the box. Unbeknownst to us, it's totally visible on the other side. Oh well. Hope we didn't offend anyone. We left to go see the Universe of Energy. We had to wait about 10 minutes. After the preshow was over, we were about to walk in to the ride when I realized I was without my hat. I had been carrying/wearing a red (maroon) floppy fisherman shaped hat with a navy blue trim from the Gap (I only give this much description in case anyone runs into it), and it was gone. I was distraught, since I really liked the hat and it was gift from a good friend of mine. We went in anyways figuring we could look for it afterwards. After the ride, we backtracked to Wonders of Life. We went to the Body Wars exit. The CM there went to look for it in the vehicle we were in. Not there. So we checked at the lost and found there (gift shop) - again, not there. Checked the bathroom there, not there. Decided maybe I had lost it in the line at Universe of Energy. The guy found a red cap, but it wasn't mine. By this time I wanted to stop looking. I was getting frustrated. Jim suggested going to Innoventions - I thought it was to relax and do something else. Nope, he wanted to keep asking. Which frustrated me even more because he would go ahead and try and ask about it but he wasn't describing it correctly! So I would have describe my hat and get very frustrated. I was ready to just wait until the end of the day and go to the general Epcot Lost and Found. By the time I got jim to stop looking for my hat (we had checked everywhere we had been anyways), it was 6 pm. It was still sprinkling and I was quite irritated. Originally we were going to just get fast food for dinner. But because I was so irritated (I'm so not fun when I'm irritated) I wanted to sit down and eat something real on real plates with real silverware (okay, so sometimes I can be high maintenance). We decided (actually, I made Jim roll out the choices while I vetoed) to go back to the World Showcase and see if we could get a table at Norway. We made it there and it was still raining. I was thinking that maybe they weren't going to do tapestry of nations or Illuminations, which we were planning on seeing that night. We had to wait about 5 minutes for table. Stine was our server (Jim approved, since last time we got Peter, a guy). She was very friendly and answered our questions about the different bread and cheeses. The buffet was great - pigged out on the smoked and cured salmon. Jim was pretty good with it too (not a fish person). We also even ordered dessert. I forgot what it's called - but it's the one with the rice creme layers. Really good. So dinner cheered me up. By the time we left there was still some time before ToN started (and they were going to have it - there was only very light if any rain left) so we went to Mexico. We headed to the boat ride, which of course had no line, and despite that we still ended up on a full boat. We always just seem to arrive when other people arrive to fill up the boat. I like this ride up until the market scene. After Mexico we exited and started to stake out a spot for Illuminations and ToN right near Norway. At first we were next to this family of three. Then the mom decided that they didn't want to stand here since they wanted to see the other ToN parade. She thought they were different. Then this other family - a 3 generational one (grandmother, mom, daughter - I love seeing those families visit!) came. We talked a little bit and staked out a place next to each to be in the front row for the parade. The parade was excellent. Really great puppets. The daughter and I were both taking a lot of pictures. And then this other 3 generational family (like the previous one, all women) crossed the road and parked themselves right in front of us. Well, having already been irritated earlier today, it was really easy to set me off. I was really upset at these people. The grandmother of the first family couldn't see very well and these people just crossed and stood right in front of her!!! She eventually went back to the railing by the lake (which ended up being a good thing as it saved their illumination spot). I was trying to get pictures of each different set of puppets, so when the daughter got in front of me (of the 2nd family) I was not going to let that stop me. I edged my way back to almost where I was, bent over quickly and took a picture of our generational parade line-jumpers. Then I edged back to where I was in front of them again. Okay, so to those who thought that this was really rude of me - we did ask the mom (who was the one who was directly in front of me) to please step back, and she did. It was the daughter that didn't. And to clarify further, this was not a 10 or even 13 year old daughter. She seemed at least 18, _and_ she was taller than me. (I'm 5 feet 3 1/2 inches. I need that 1/2 inch.) Now usually, I'm a very laidback, mellow, pushover sort of person and don't do stuff like push back. And I shouldn't, I'm on vacation and at a place that generates a lot of crowds. But really, I'm on my vacation just as much as they are and I _waited_ for my spot in the front. So whether this was rational (argument and actions), I don't care. Despite this, I really like ToN. Jim during that time eventually went to stand by the railing for Illuminations. We ended up next to this nice couple from California that had just done a cruise (I don't think it was disney) and somewhere else and was finishing with disney. They were really nice and erased my bad feelings about humankind. While waiting for Illuminations Jim came up with a theory about Akershus. He thinks they purposefully only have the female CM outside the restaurant to lure people in. Later in the week he noticed Canada does the same thing but with guy CM's - he says it's not as effective. Whatever. I love how they build up to Illuminations - "Because GE brings good things to life, in just XX minutes Illuminations 2000 will begin." Or something like that. Very commercial. Well, the wind was blowing that night. And it was blowing in our direction. The show was pretty good, but I don't really care for the video segments. There's also this point in the show where it gets really quiet - alot of people think it's ended and start moving. And then *boom* more fireworks. When it's over, you'll know. At the end of the show, we really couldn't see much due to the smoke. Otherwise it was good, but I prefer the other one. After the show we said goodbye and started to walk/weave our way out - I wanted to get to Guest Relations to see if they had found my hat. We eventually got there (after stopping several times) and, no hat. Sigh. We stepped out and ran into the couple from LA again. We were going to go catch our bus to the hotel, but when looking at our watch, it was maybe 9:30...we could catch the bus to MGM...catch Fantasmic... Well, we didn't know which was the MGM bus stop. So we went to ask. For future reference, it's that last one around the corner - _before_ you get to the info booth. As it was, we had just missed a bus so we were first in line for the next one. We were first in line of a very very long line. And when the bus came (about 25 minutes later) it was packed as full as possible and still some people were left. We made it to MGM and noted that CSR has a very good busstop. And then rushed in. We headed directly for Fantasmic with no huge line and got seated at about 10:30 in the Scar section. This was the same section and approximately the same time we made it in last year except this year we didn't wait amongst others for about an hour. I enjoyed Fantasmic more this time around. Except that there was no preshow. I had read from the newsgroup the Delman was gone, but I was hoping for something. They were selling those gadgets before the show that you twirl around and it spells out stuff. We thought about getting one -they were neat but pricey ($20). After Fantasmic we made it out as fast as we made it in and were again first on the bus. Jim promptly fell asleep at 12:15am. Tomorrow - E-Night Costs: Breakfast and Refill Mug $14.05 Lunch $33.00 Rose and Crown Dinner $50.00 Norway Gifts $33.71 Souvenirs

June 27th, Day 4 - Animal Kingdom - Eride night (Tuesday)

I woke up at 9:30AM. Jim was still asleep, so I went swimming at the quiet pool for about 15 minutes. Just long enough to get water in my ear. Jim woke up at 10AM and we got ready for the parks. So, I guess I'll mention now that Jim found the bed extremely uncomfortable. Perhaps this was why he was sleeping late, since he would wake up several times during the night. Plus, before WDW, Jim had been experiencing back trouble at home. So this wasn't helping. The only reason I mention this is because Jim doesn't usually sleep that late and this later affects our sleeping arrangement. Anyways, we waited 10 min. for the bus to AK and got the gate at 10:45AM. The bus system. Coronado is considered an AK resort right? So you would think it would get there fairly fast, right? And return fast, right? Wrong. On the way to AK you stop at Blizzard Beach first. Which was okay. But on the way back you again stop at Blizzard beach. This tacks on at least another 5-10 minutes. In addition, going to MGM one evening, the bus stopped at the Boardwalk and then at Blizzard Beach. In the morning it would just go straight. So, if you stay at CSR - at least be aware of the extra stops. Otherwise it can be a little agitating. DeVine was out when we first entered. All these people were standing there watching her so you had this jerky stopping action in the crowds (people who were walking normally and just all of a sudden stop to watch, oblivious to where they are). It was pretty neat. We headed straight for the Safari (50 min. wait) and picked up a fastpass for a 1pm return. We were then going to go Asia or Dinoland and eat lunch - but first I wanted to find the secret path. We walked towards Asia and I kept my eyes open for "off-the-beaten- path" type trails, and...we found it. It's cool, and kinda neat when you find it. Just somewhere nice and quiet and a little removed - though you could still see people. We then headed to dinoland and ate at the BBQ place. Jim got pork and I got beef (I think). There were storm clouds approaching so I wanted to sit under some cover. So I turned into a table vulture. I descended on a table under the covering and we ate right by the river. Far off in the distance you could see some herd animals so I pulled out my binoculars (I remembered to bring them) and watched them for a bit. From our seats you could hear the Tarzan show (it was really loud!!). And then at the table next to us, these two kids sat down, the parents had to sit at another table (no chairs). We were just about through with lunch and it started to rain, so I told the kids that they should perhaps sit at our table, since ours was further in and wouldn't get as wet. The parents were also then able to move and sit with their kids. After lunch, we put on our trusty ponchos and we did the Maharajah trek. I had to use the bathroom before the trek and well, everyone decides to congregate right outside the bathroom when it rains. And they're all wearing the same mickey yellow poncho. So when I exited, I was for a small moment concerned I would never find my husband, who was dressed like everyone else, who would also be looking for me, dressed like everyone else. Jim, smart guy that he is, also foresaw the problem, and was standing outside the bathroom jumping and waving. It was still raining something good. But we decided that this would be a perfect time to see all the animals. The first one that they have out is the tapir. Which is not an anteater. We talked to the CM there, I thought it was huge for a tapir - apparently the one they have is the largest breed of tapirs. It was really active and swimming and eating. People would come up to the area and say something like "Hey - look at that thing!" "It looks like an anteater" The CM would then correct them "No, it is not an anteater, it is a giant tapir". We were there for maybe 10-15 minutes. We heard the exact conversation repeated at least 5 times. I'm sure she gets very aggravated by the end of the day. So...it's a tapir, not an anteater. And that _is_ its poop floating in the water with it (I asked). The komodo dragon was also out and about too. Which was really neat since usually that thing is hiding under a rock or something. The bats were the one animal that we wanted to take some pictures of (I did get a shot of the tapir). We wanted pictures of it because last year, we forgot and we wanted evidence that they are pretty much all...well...male bats. That was very visible last year. This year it seems they were alot more modest as none of them were exposing themselves. I also want verification of this, because I have never seen this fact mentioned in other trip reports - makes me think that either a)I'm wrong or b) I'm overly concerned about bat genders. The tigers were lying around near the glass and made for some great shots. Then we hit the bird area. I wish they would switch it so the bird area is at the beginning. I think I tire out by the end and then I don't spend as much time as I would like looking at the birds (they're so beautiful!). But I did make us spend quite some time there regardless. After Jim prodded me, we headed down to countdown to extinction. The line was 40 minutes long. (We figure that was okay). Okay, I think that will be the last time I ride this thing. I know some people think its totally tame, but in the same way that AE just gets me, this one gets me too. In all three (or more, don't remember) times I've done this ride, the pictures have never shown my face - it's always in Jim's shoulder. Silly, isn't it? We got off this ride and rushed over to the safari - with no wait (FP's). All the animals were out and you could even see the lions (they were still sleeping though). The warthog was moving about. They're interesting critters. Afterwards we did the Pangani trail - we spent a lot of time (I spent a lot of time) with the birds and hippos. I could see the African greys interacting with each other and several other birds that naturally blend with the foliage with my binoculars. The gorillas were also running about. There were two little ones playing - one was trying to climb a tree and jump. He didn't make it. After the trail we were tired so we left the park around 3pm. We waited 15 minutes for a bus and made it back to the room at 3:45pm for a nap. I really wanted to rest earlier since tonight was eride night - but the whole day was thrown off by starting later. We napped for a little bit and got up and ready at 4:30pm. This time we were heading for MK and the poly for O'Hana's. At MK it was extremely busy and still raining. We went to the town hall to get our wristbands and they directed us around the corner. Jim thought the wristbands were pretty flimsy since they looked like they were just paper - but it's super strong - fiber reinforced. We walked around for a little bit - we went to see if we could get on Pooh - but there were no more FPs and it said there was a 65 minute wait. So instead we left the park and headed for the monorail. Our PS was for 5:30pm and we got there a little early. They seated us within 5 minutes. The place was really casual and friendly though it kinda weirds me out to be called cousin by everyone. I really liked the turkey (so moist!), shumai and the salad. The shrimp was a little dry. Jim liked the spring rolls, vegetables, beef and sausage. We asked for more wontons and vegetables/lo mein noodles. Jim also got more sausage. The vegetables/lo mein came with salmon (also good, but way too stuffed to eat more) and when they brought the second helping of veggies, we asked them not to include the salmon. But they did. I feel really guilty not eating the second salmon. They were serving some drink in pineapples - and I wanted to order it, but I figure it was probably pina colada (which I don't like). The singer guy was out entertaining, but we were sitting at the far end of the dining room so we couldn't see most of it. They did do a hula hoop contest for kids at one point. There was this family sitting near us with two young girls (7 and 10??). The younger one decided she wanted to participate. She and her dad go up there and she tries to do the hula hoop - she didn't last very long and sulked back to her chair afterwards. I don't think she enjoyed dinner after that. The pineapple for dessert was absolutely wonderful!!! Oh wow it was soo good! And I usually _hate_ caramel. But this....yum. After dinner, I wanted to wander the Poly for a bit. Except it was really raining. So we checked out just the bathroom and walked around the ceremonial house. Then we hopped on the monorail and got off at the GF. The lobby of this place is so gorgeous. I think I would want to stay here - but only if I could stay in the main building. I don't think I would want to walk outside to the monorail. Esp. if I'm paying, what is it?, nearly $300 a night. So I guess that means concierge or contemporary towers, right? We took the glass elevator for the sake of taking the glass elevator and wandered a bit. We found where the 1900 park faire. There was another restaurant on the first floor, but I'm not sure what it is. Since we checked out the bathroom in the poly, and this was supposed to be even swankier, we had to check out the bathrooms here too. Well, it was definitely nice. I would have taken a picture but there was someone in there throwing up. A CM came in to check on her. They also have rosy bourkes in a beautiful cage! I wish I had a cage that large for my birds. We headed back to the monorail (also while locating the general area of V&A's) and went back to MK. We headed straight for Pooh. Figuring that we were never going to get to the MK early enough and we were going to do the other rides later tonight, we might as well wait. Well the advertised wait of 45 minutes was really 25. Totally bearable. We then went to Peter Pan with an advertised wait of 45 minutes and an actual wait of 30 minutes. IASW had a really long line. I guess people were just jumping into lines since it was still raining. We got on to Pirates with no line - and again no line but a full boat. And then there was a boat jam at the exit. The moving walkway at the exit was not working so that ended up being a nice little hike up. No wait at Jungle cruise - and you guessed it - full boat. At least on this ride you want a full boat. It would seem kinda silly to go through the ride with just like 2 people. It was still raining when we left the jungle so they canceled the 9pm parade. I had wanted to not do the erides until tonight, but since the parade was canceled and we still hadn't done some of them, we went ahead and did the haunted mansion. We had a small wait to get inside. It's strange but it's a little more freakier to do this thing at night considering that it's always dark inside. The CM loading the doom buggies was trying to scare people. We then headed back to do the country bears. I really like this attraction and I don't know why we didn't do it before last year. I love the Buford song!!! We crossed back into Fantasyland to do pooh again. Since this wasn't going to be open during the eride night and we had the time, we figured, why not? This time it was only a 20 min. wait. They never changed the approximate wait sign (still reading 45 min). I saw several people not enter the line because of it. The FP line was non-existent. I think we saw maybe 5 people use it. We then walked toward toontown. I was thinking that maybe we could catch the train to frontierland so we could start at splash and big thunder mountain, it was nearing 11pm. Well, we get to toontown and instead we get on the barnstormer (no wait). For a kiddie roller coaster - it's got some pretty good turns! After the ride, this kid who was on it wouldn't listen to the CM and exit, instead, he crossed back into the loading area where some of his party was. I could see this job getting very frustrating if a lot of people act like this. The kid's mom was part of the party and she didn't seem to be discouraging him at all. Well, we saw the train, we heard the train and as we ran up to get to the train, we missed the train. So we went back into toontown (it occurs to me that this is not toontown - is it? The one at Disneyland is toontown, right?) and went to minnie's house as the CMs were beginning to make their walk throughs. There was another couple doing the same thing. Neat stuff in Miss Minnie's house. I took a picture of jim in her chair, but he was not very happy. Well, we left minnies house and saw another train. Jim suggested we take this one, so we ran to catch this one. But of course this was the very last train. I had a feeling about this...it was going to stop at mainstreet only. Oh well. We get to Mainstreet and what do we run into? The Mainstreet Electrical Parade. We weave ourselves around the parade and headed to tomorrowland instead of frontierland. And jim leads us to Alien Encounter. It was past 11pm so they were now checking for wristband. The couple ahead of us did not have wristbands. The CM was trying to explain what eride was and what the wristbands were for. It was kinda painful to watch. But...it was in the resort newsletter (at least for CSR - he was staying at the Poly). We get into the holding pen, and I'm thinking we're wasting valuable time on this attraction that I hate except for Skippy. Well, I made sure to sit right next to the door so I could exit as fast as possible. And I keep my eyes closed. I really can't help it - if I let myself go I really do imagine up a storm (and those idiots at the imagination institute said I was empty!). We finish and I'm almost cursing (but I'm not). That's when Jim realizes I do _NOT_ like that ride. I think Jim gets some sort of sick thrill out of it. He promises me that we will never do it again. Well, that killed about 30 minutes. We headed to Space Mountain. The line was out the door - 20 minute wait though. We decided to might as well get in line. Here I was slightly disappointed in enight. But, it turned out okay. We chose the left side and we noticed after we got on that the line for the left all of a sudden disappeared and everyone was going to the right. Both sides were open. This was the first incidence of cattle behavior - if there's a line that's where you go, if there's no line - something must be wrong. So our new mantra is: if there's no rope, both sides are open - choose the one with no people. We walked over to frontierland while passing chip, dale, donald, pluto, minnie in the hub. What a _great_ character meeting time! I mean if we had kids that absolutely had to meet characters I would have paid the 10 bucks just for this opportunity! Just a couple people interacting with them too. Usually a couple of them would have NO ONE with them. We saw chip starting to dance around by himself (really cute). Well, sadly, I'm shy at interacting with characters and we were heading to big thunder. We waited 13 minutes. Then to Splash - 7 minutes - that's walking time and about 2 minutes of looking at the empty left hand side wondering if something was going on. There wasn't. It was really empty - and they were still loading from that side. We jumped sides. I have no idea why lines behave like this. Had we stayed, we would have waited another 7 minutes. After we were loaded we heard the left side CM say to the other CM - no one's going on his side - so he started to pull people from both sides. After the ride, we went back on the ride - they had decided to close left side but by then the ride was a walk-quickly-on. Cool. Now, I liked enights. We headed back to tomorrowland to do buzz lightyear - it was a speedy line and we each got our own car. I ended up beating him: 139700 v. 129700. Heh, heh, heh...(evil laugh)...I'm a secret minion of the emperor zurg out to destroy jim's video game playing ego... Instead of going back to Space Mtn, we decided to do AstroOrbiter. We have never done this ride. The lines are too long usually and it seemed like a very kiddie ride. Well, we get in our holding pen, then in the elevator, and then we shared a rocket. Jim steered. He loved it. He really really loved this ride. And my goodness you're so freaking high! You can really feel the centrifugal force on you too. It was pretty neat. We got off the ride and thought (I thought) about going back to space mountain for our last ride, then jim mentioned how much he liked the AstroOrbiter. So we went back to it. This time, there was this group of 3 kids around 10 and under. The CM had directed them into the holding pen. And then he directed us into the same holding pen. Well, those kids would not move from the entrance of the pen. So we couldn't get in. They finally moved so we could get out of everyone's way. But they stayed right by the entrance. I think they were scared that somehow they would be skipped and wouldn't make it on to the ride. After the CM saw that we had trouble getting past them, he herded everyone else into the other pen. We got to the elevator (kids entered first and stayed at the door - making it difficult for us to get on) and they started pressing all the buttons. They quickly figured out that we weren't going anywhere until the CM pressed it. We got to the rockets, jim and I each got our own rocket. The three kids were running around trying to get the "best" rocket. So, by myself it was okay, I felt much better being in control of my own rocket. Jim was in front of me playing tie-fighter. Well, the ride ends, we all go back to the elevator - jim still thinks its a cool ride. The three kids are in the elevator with us. The conversation between them goes something like this (with slightly numbed faces): "That's not what I was expecting." "Yeah" "That was lame." "Yeah" "Nothing happened." "yeah" Jim and I looked at each other and held in our laughter until we exited. We saw the kids go to their parents complaining about the ride. Then we started laughing really hard. I guess it doesn't take much to amuse us. It was 2am so we staggered back to the buses. I'm assuming we made it back in one piece since I'm writing it now - but I don't really remember anymore of that night other than it was really late. Costs: Lunch $16.78 BBQ at AK Dinner $56.55 O'Hana's

June 28th, Day 5 - Animal Kingdom - (Wednesday)

After staying up late for eride night (til past 2am) you would think I would sleep in really really late. Especially when at school if I stay up that late I can't seem to wake up before 9:30am without a lot of effort. Well, I woke up at 8:30am. Jim was still asleep. So I went back to sleep to wake up at 9:45am. Jim was still asleep. Jim finally woke up at 10:45am. We left the room at 11:30am and got to AK by 12:15pm. This is not the schedule for a commando. We headed straight for the FotLK. It was really good - we were in the elephant section. We both still really like this show. We were able to make it out in time for the 12:55pm pocahontas show. Well, it was okay. And just okay. The story line was really really drummed in. The animals were cute, except one of the doves couldn't seem to fly away (one of my birds has a similar problem - he drops like a rock and seems shocked when he doesn't get anywhere). Jim wasn't too thrilled with this Pocahontas (he really liked the one from last year). And she had this weird thing sticking out from under her wig. It was very distracting. After the show, we were hungry so we went to the Tuskers house (my personal favorite). I really wanted to get the sandwich thing. But then some guy walked by with the fried chicken and it looked so good...so I got that instead. Jim got the peanut crusted chicken. Not surprisingly I believe this is what we ordered last year. We sat in one of the smaller rooms and when I went to go get more water, there was a CM standing at the door (who had seen me exit and get water) who wouldn't let me go back in until I told him I was already sitting in there. I saw him do this to several other parties as well. I guess they were just trying to close off the room now that the lunch rush was over. We headed to the bird show after lunch. I love this show - especially Groucho. I want a yellow-naped amazon! Groucho made it through 3 songs this time. We then did Conservation station - as we entered they just finished one of their creature encounter sessions with a bird. I don't remember what it was, I think it was one of those rare black parrots that you don't usually see as a pet. We watched the solomon's eclectuses (eclecti?) for a while. The red (female) bird was in a foul mood (or would that be fowl??? *groan*). Anytime the green (male) bird would try and climb the branches she would go over there and peck at him until he fell or gave up. He only won one of the battles. Pocahontas, meeko and rafiki were out for pictures. I asked Jim if he wanted to take a picture with pocahontas but he said this wasn't the one he liked. Whatever. We left conservation station and bought a juicesicle for the walk back to the train. It was sooo good! (Orange juice) When we try and make them at home they do not turn out that way (too much water perhaps). On the ride back, I was still raving about the juiciscle so as soon as we got off the train I found another food cart and bought another one. We finished that one as we headed for It's Tough to be a Bug. Jim got to read all the poster/fliers - he thought they were really clever. The one I like the best is Beauty and the Bees - mainly for the outline drawing of the bee as the beast. Now that I know when all the surprises happen I avoid them all. Despite that, I love this show - due to the audience reactions. We left AK and got off at Bus Stop 1 instead of 3 so we could pick up our package from Panchito's. I also remembered to bring our mug with us. I showed jim how the food court works and he really did not care for it - nor the 10% charge they tack on. Jim went to the arcade and I went to go pick up the stuff that we had sent over from Japan. I found jim in the arcade - it seems smaller than the one at CBR. He was pretending to be a NASCAR driver. As we walked back to our room, Jim realized how far we are from the center. But he figures that since we got the room at a discount, it was okay. We made it back at 5pm and took a nap. At 7pm I woke up to the sound of rain. Jim woke up a little after as we tried to think of what to do. I wanted to go to Epcot so we grabbed our ponchos and went to the bus stop. Well, we waited for a bus and it wasn't coming. This was the longest wait we had, about 20 minutes, we decided to get on an Epcot bus or MGM bus - whichever came first. The MGM bus came, and then it went to Blizzard Beach. After Blizzard Beach it went to the Boardwalk. After the boardwalk I was getting worried that we weren't headed for MGM. It finally pulled into MGM at 7:30pm and we headed straight for the movie ride. I got the cowboy side!!! I have never gotten the cowboy side! It was actually the cowgirl side. The ride was pretty good - I definitely like it better than the gangster side. Our cowgirl was really good too. We headed for dinner at the commissary. Jim got a caesar wrap and red beans and rice (he really loves this dish) and I got the quesadillas. This was after the dinner crowd so we had trouble finding enough plasticware. While jim was still eating (he eats slow) I was still cold from the outside and wet (it was still raining). And now I was freezing (combo of A/C and it was actually a little chilly outside). I went to get some coffee (hot coffee is soo nice when it's cold!) and then got chocolate pie. Yum. We finished dinner and headed to Sounds Dangerous. It was okay. We played with the stuff afterwards - that was kinda neat. Those sound booths though - I could sleep soundly in there. Jim played for some time adding sound effects to the starwars scene. We then headed to Star Tours with no wait and then the muppets with no wait. We caught almost all the preshow and this time the clock is back up!! After the muppets (Jim finally noticed the holes in the wall at the end), we headed directly into the store to buy lots of muppets stuff. They don't have lots of muppet stuff. I was rather upset. I wanted to buy anther bunsen and beaker shirt since mine is now rather ratty with holes. They didn't have them. In fact, the selection they had was rather poor in both tshirts and stuffed animals. My sister wanted me to buy some stuff for her and they didn't seem to have much of anything! I was getting upset since I didn't know what to buy (either we already had it or I/she wouldn't like it). Jim went to ask the CM there what happened to the inventory. The guy told us that there's supposed to be a new shipment in august. Whew. I was thinking they were cutting back on the stuff so they could close this tiny little corner devoted to muppets stuff. Relieved, I went ahead and bought her Bean "I'm so cuuuuute" Bunny. We headed on to ToT but at the last minute changed and went to RnRC (standby line) - I love this ride. Jim merely tolerates it. But he'll pick it over ToT anyday. It was nearing 11pm so we headed back to the busses and went to sleep at a slightly earlier time than before. This was also the first night we did not ride on the same bus back (at the end of the day) as this family of a mom, grandmom and like 4 little kids. I loved them - they were so well behaved, respectful and friendly. I guess their vacation ended. I was getting used to seeing them on the bus too. And last item for the day, I cancelled our Liberty Tree lunch PS for tomorrow, and was going to make them for Tony's. But, then I realized we would actually be at MGM tomorrow - so I made new ones for Prime Time Cafe. I wasn't sure how jim would take to it, but they definitely have food jim likes (home style - well, not _our_ home, but fried chicken and the sort). Costs: Snack $2.50 Orange juiciscle Snack $2.50 Orange juiciscle Lunch $18.96 Tuskers Dinner $16.96 Commissary Dessert $3.71 Commissary Gift $28.04 Muppet - Bean Bunny

June 29th, Day 6 - MGM - (Thursday)

Leapin' Lizzerrds - we're up by 9AM and out by 9:30AM!!! Okay, but there's reasoning behind this. First we went to sleep relatively early. Second, we figured out the previous night that it was the bed that was not too friendly with Jim's back. He switched beds. I didn't. It was a _great_ vacation being able to sleep diagonally in a double bed - the feeling was mutual. And just to let everyone know, our marriage is fine. We kept this sleeping arrangement for the duration of the trip. (Because of Jim's back he would get up several times during the night, which almost always wake me up - so it really was beneficial for all involved, also the other bed was firmer so it was better for him). So here's a theory. We were sleeping in the bed closer to the bathroom. That seemed like the more worn bed. The other bed was closer to the windows and door. So our hypothesis is: most people, if they need only one bed will choose the one furthest from the door due to safety temp or whatever. So if you want the less used bed, try the one closer to the door. Still, we didn't make it to MGM until 10:30am. We got a fastpass to ToT (return at 11:15 am). Then headed to rock and roller coaster. The line wasn't terribly long and soon we were in. Though I think this is the most annoying line to be in as a standby. After the coaster we headed for the animation tour. It's strange but, MGM is my least favorite park but it has my four must-do's - Muppets, RnRC, ToT, and the Animation tour. This tour was still good - even though they try and rush you and I think they changed the layout again??? The guy drew us mushu and we didn't really ask him any questions. This time when we went through the work area there were people actually working!! I saw one person color in some fire and another person was on the computer with animated smoke (the sketches I assume are scanned in). I love seeing what kind of toys the artists have on display - gives you some idea as to what kind of people they are. I'm always looking for muppet people. Jim looks for transformer people. Dumped into the gift shop we look around - I love the cells, and the cells as you exit were from fantasia 2000 - I loved it! I really loved the carnival of the animals sequence (flamingos, I laugh thinking about them) and the Rhapsody in Blue sequence (that one I nearly cried with the little girl!). I was looking for postcards of fantasia, but they didn't have any. I bought Mulan ones instead. After we exit, we stop at the stand infront of bear in the big blue house to buy pip and pup - now I have a complete collection! We made it back for our ToT FS (@11:45) and decided to skip our PS at the Prime Time cafe. I guess I won't find out how jim would take to it. In a way, that's good - I'm not sure how I would take to it either. We left MGM for Epcot by way of boat. It was about a 20 minute wait. The boats now go MGM - Swan/Dolphin - Yacht/Beach - BW - Epcot. No more getting off to board the Epcot boat, but I bet it's much more annoying for the people at the resorts. One day, I would like to find out. Maybe from the Yacht club - maybe from the BW (please oh please oh please let me make it through 2 more years and find a nice job!). By the time we made it to france it was near 1pm. This was in fact my secret mission since I wanted to catch the world showcase players (WSP) for Cyranose. I had to keep it somewhat under the cover since Jim really does not get this act. We get to france and Jim catches on (he sees the sign). We had some time before the next performance so I decided to splurge and get an absolutely wonderful - I sigh now as I type it was so wonderful - caramel souffle. Yum. Yum yum. Knowing how much I'm enjoying it, Jim doesn't even bother asking for a bite. The WSP showed up and picked out a Roxanne and then a cyranose that was hammy, foreign and maybe knew what was going on - great combination. As soon as the show was over it started to rain, so it was good that I caught them then. We walked toward the American Pavillion to catch Voices of Liberty - they were really good. Jim, of this past year, has really gotten into acapella singing. He's always liked singing and what not, but a cappella, it seems, he really enjoys ever since, ahem, _I_ introduced him to it by forcing him to go a concert. Since then he's been forcing me to all the arch sings they hold at princeton (there are several student a cappella groups that are quite good and at night during the year they gather in the school arches, assumably for the acoustics, and sing for about 30 minutes). So we watched VoL - some people were rude during the performance (audible "Oh god, they're singing"). We didn't want to stay for the american adventure (usually this is one of my must do's too) so we headed for the exit to encounter the _heaviest_ rain we'd seen all week. It was just dumping water everywhere like someone loosened a fire hydrant from above. Well, we figure, it's just rain. It's just water. We have ponchos. We have extra shoes. So we left to get lunch. Jim was in the mood for a sloppy joe. I have no idea where he could get a sloppy joe. I though perhaps the best place to try was the american pavillion counter service. We didn't even try to enter the place since everyone was huddled at the exit (that doesn't really help, okay?). In retrospect, the pork shoulder at AK was the closest thing to a sloppy joe that jim would've liked (and he would have liked to have gone back). So we're back out in the rain, and NO ONE ELSE IS OUT. The world showcase walkway is literally deserted. Perhaps this was not so smart, though in a way it was kinda neat. Well, it was neat for a little bit. Then Jim became a little miserable with wet shoes and socks and shorts (the wind was blowing the ponchos). So we went to the boat dock - they were running, but only once the rain stopped. That didn't help us. We decided that since we were as wet as we were going to get, might as well keep going and headed to Future world. On our way there, we heard several sirens. Jim and I looked at each other - this is _not_ a sound you hear a disneyworld. Since there was no way to find out nor was anyone panicking, we kept walking in our sloshy shoes. We made it to the land when the rain lightened. Wouldn't you know? We stopped outside and took off our shoes and socks and wrung out several cups worth of water. Yech. We headed inside and went to the bathroom to towel off. Normally, I hate those air blowers to dry your hands, but one would have been extremely useful this time. Oh well. We headed to the food court to eat. I got my potato and a potato for jim and jim got a bbq pork sandwich (which is what he wanted). After I finished, I went back to get some carrot cake, yum. We headed into the land ride, unfortunately we coincided with the exit of the environmental movie (can't think of the name right now, circle of life??) so we had a short wait. Our tour guide CM faltered a little bit in her spiel and there were these two other CM sitting in the back of the boat. At the end of the ride, they break out in applause as does the rest of the CM's there. It was her first solo ride! Cool. We were still a little wet (who am I kidding? We could irrigate the land by walking on it) but we moved onto Imagination. We did the ride again (I do like the color of red they picked for the buggies). And then we did Imageworks. So now, the stuff we really didn't like about the new place. Imageworks!! What in the world happened to this wonderful place!!! No more music floors (sure they got the sounds and floors, but not the same thing)! No more orchestra to conduct! Instead you get to conduct noise. Yech. And there were too many of the email sites - with too many people hogging them to send something to everyone in their address book (we waited almost 30 minutes for this family to finish). What happened to the paint guns and the nail beds? Jim remembered the old Imageworks too and really liked it. So the new place is a big two thumbs down from us. And to heap insult on top of this - the exit from this place is designed like a funnel. It takes a while and sometimes some bumping to get out the place. We headed next to the Living Seas where we skipped "and it rained and rained and rained" (saw that already outside thank you very much). Jim loves this pavillion. We saw the dolphins, but not the show. Somehow we never make it up to the second floor in time for the dolphins, we spend too much time staring on the first floor. I watched the fish in one of the tanks that clear out rocks to make a little hiding place and jim watched his alien fish (yellow guy that is just bizarre looking). After we finally made it out of the living seas we went to spaceship earth (no line) and then played with stuff that they had there. I liked the communication game that you would play with a randomly selected person. Half the time though the other person didn't understand the game and would leave. It was about 6pm when we left so we walked by TT, the standby was 45 minutes (not bad considering) but I decided that I was hungry. I wanted to go back to the WS and maybe grab something there. The problem was that I was not only hungry, I was cranky too. So as we walked back jim is trying to go over the options with me. Mexico? No. Norway? No, we already went. Fastfood at germany? No. We still hadn't decided yet (or I hadn't agreed to anything yet) when we run into ToN. We maneuver our way around but it makes me slightly more crankier so when we reach morocco, I give up. I'm tired, we're still a little wet, I'm hungry, I'm cranky. I go into the museum part of it and just look around - it's very nice and relaxing, however my feet still hurt. I go to the fountain and sit down. We're watching the parade and I point out tangierine cafe. Jim says no (nothing he would like at those prices - he would if it were lower). Then I say what about the restaurant? At this point, I think jim realizes he has one really cranky wife to deal with and he agrees even though we both know it's going to be expensive. Jim goes up to see how long the wait is - no wait. So we head to the restaurant. They have a nice picture menu to look at front. Jim decides that this won't be so bad. We get a table extremely close to where the musicians sit and the waiters enter/exit. It was okay. We ended up ordering the royal feast. Okay, the royal feast came with two appetizers (salad/cold veg dish and brewats), lamb (very good), chicken (also good) and couscous (yum). It also came with a dessert (apple pastry thingy with lots of honey). The amount of food was extremely filling, so be aware when ordering this thing. We had thought about the marrakesh feast (I think that's what it was called) but this one had the lamb. Whenever we go to a place where we aren't familar with the food - we almost always order a sampler type platter. Well, we're working on our entrees when the musicians come out. They play for a little bit and jim asks me "is this the place with the belly dancer?" Yes. *Now* he is interested in the restaurant. He's glad of our seat but damns the columns that will obscure his view. The musicians play for a bit and jim wonders when she's coming out. I tell him to be patient. She finally arrives and Jim takes a couple of pictures and enjoys the show (she is quite good). She dances for about 15 minutes and then leaves. Jim's disappointed - she doesn't stay the entire time?? No - could you keep that level of physical activity up for the entire dinner hours? I don't think so. However, I told him that I think she has another performance. At that point he essentially slows his eating to a crawl and says that I should do the same. Why? So we can make it for the next show. Sigh, that's my husband. He literally was regretting that he had eaten during her first dance not realizing that it would be only 15 minutes long. During our ultraslow chewing, this family gets seated next to us. They're quite talkative and keep referring to the UOG (unofficial guide). They're trying to make it out to see Illuminations (I didn't really think that was going to happen). They also keep looking at the menu and looking over at our table. Finally, after I noticed them doing it (and overhearing them trying to decide what to order - they wanted a complete meal) I told them it was the royal feast and explained what was on it. They ended up ordering it. The belly dancer came out at the same time as our dessert. Jim stopped eating this time and made me take the pictures. After dinner Jim was quite happy with entertainment, and I was happy with dinner. The only thing we didn't particularly enjoy was the dessert. We don't like honey too much and this was too much honey. We made it out and headed to the millenium village before illuminations. We looked around some more but again, a little too briefly as they were closing. Towards the end I noticed they had a world culture quiz. I really wanted to do it - I love trivia games (I kept trying for Who Wants to be a Millionaire, but they would never call me back!). We caught the almost tail end of illuminations and then went to wait for a bus. We were once again first for a bus. Behind was this large (and probably extended) family. The boy was talking something about hostage....boardwalk....huh???? I didn't think anything of it. We got back to CSR and since it was still early (10pm) headed to the main pool for a swim. I got jim to do the slide (totally tame), he ended up doing it several times since he liked it. This was yet another thing I would have never predicted that he would like! He always managed to come down the slide and keep his head above water. I managed to sink like rocks each time. When we got back to the room and started watching the news. Revelation - this is what they were talking about!!! The hostage situation at the boardwalk. We had _no_ idea. We had been thinking about going to the boardwalk too. This of course explained the sirens we had heard while at Epcot and the conversation of the people behind us at the bus stop. Being the news junkie that I am (public radio all the time, RealAudio stream of news, Internet news, replay of morning edition, and then MSNBC or CNN at night - sadly though, there's not much variation in what they report), I watched this into the night and then went to sleep. Costs: Snack $3.82 France, extremely good souffle Lunch $6.95 The Land, Jim's lunch $8.43 The land, two potatoes $3.29 The land, cake Souvenir $12.72 MGM, pip and pup Souvenir $1.59 Postcards from MGM Dinner $71.00 Marrakesh This was not a low-cal low-fat day, was it? (contrast with Sue, WDW1972)

June 30th, Day 7 - Lots of Parks - (Friday)

We woke up at 9am. Not due to any biological or alarm clock though. Jim's mom called to check on us. Thanks to her call though, we left the room at 10am and headed to Epcot. Here, we got a FP for TT (return time at 1:50pm) but also hopped into the single rider line. We had a 5 minute wait before jim and I were placed in the same car with a family from Ohio. The ride was working well until the doors opened to the outside. You could hear the engine roaring and the display was showing acceleration, but ants move faster than we were. We eventually just plain stopped in the middle of the track. We did get a nice long look at the back areas. The guy came to fix our car and we started up again at a very slow crawl. Going on that embankment at a slow speed is definitely more interesting than doing 60mph. The CM at the loading area had us get off and get in another car - yea! This time we were held up right before the safety check. When the CM was checking our seatbelts, she told us there were 6 (or 8, I don't remember) hidden mickeys in the ride. I think I only found one though. This time our ABS brakes didn't work and we got stuck in the place right before the hot room. However, our car fully accelerated and we made it through at full speed - right when big drops of rain started coming down. When we entered the building again they were stalled (I guess trying to get people out due to the rain) so we were stuck in the car for a while before someone came to get us out. We were also given skip the line passes. Cool. So essentially three rides out of a 5 minute single rider wait. We didn't use the passes and are planning on saving them for a future visit. We looked at the cars in the showroom (we checked out the Century which is one of the cars that I was considering - Jim was not since it's too big and it's an "older" person's car. Whatever. It's big and roomy). We put on our ponchos again (we really got our 10 bucks out them) and headed onto Innoventions (I forget which is east and which is west. This is the one without the IBM email and sega stuff). We stood through the stuff of the future (okay, but I don't think we would have done it if we knew what we were getting into) and we watched the environemental quiz show. We also played some computer submarine game. Jim won his game at 2900 pts, I won mine at 4000 pts. At the end of Innoventions was a fuel cell run car. It's kinda interesting since Jim and I had recently been talking about them. However, I still feel that until they make a fuelcell/battery/electric/alternativefuel/whatever car that is midsized - they're going to be hard to sell. I would buy one (cost prohibitive besides the point) if it were a bit bigger. But now, they're the same size as an economy car. We left innoventions to go to the millenium village - I wanted to play the culture quiz. Jim and I each played - this other guy started out ahead but I quickly overtook him and then _boom_ Jim gets the big question right, and all of a sudden he wins!!! I could not believe it. Oh well. I still beat him in trivia stuff usually. If you haven't noticed, I can be quite competitive. Backtracking a little, we ate lunch in the food court - we had something from Africa (I can't remember now, but I know I had the beef something from africa and didn't like that much), S. America (Jim had something he really liked) and I got a guava pastry (that one was good). Jim hadn't realized that the food court was here and regrets we hadn't eaten here earlier. We left Epcot to go to MK. We got off at the TTC and decided to take the ferry instead. I don't know why. It was a bad decision. It was raining quite hard and actually a little chilly. Once we got on the ferry, I decided I wanted to go the second level. Jim, showing that he did deserve to win the quiz, stayed on the bottom. I was totally splattered with water on the second level. There really weren't any safe places. However, the view was cooler. We headed straight for the CoP - both jim and I like this attraction alot. We got stuck in front of a tour group that was loud throughout the show (extremely annoying - and when it was over, I noticed the loudest one was the tour leader!). We also got stuck in the second to last scene and saw it twice. I wish they could add a couple of scenes in between that one and the last one. That would be nice. After CoP we were tired and just walking around slowly, in the rain. We saw the guy walking up Main Street selling balloons (the mylar ones) and bought one - they're expensive but a nice indulgence. We were going to head back to the room when I remembered that I wanted to show jim the penny arcade - or what remains of it in the train station. So we went up there, it was totally uncrowded and did all of them. Jim thought they were pretty neat. We're both fascinated with old mechanical things, and this fits right in. We took the bus back to CSR and got off at the main stop to refill our mug. When we got back to the room we took a little nap. We headed out again at 6pm and got to MGM at 6:30pm. Headed straight for the backlot tour. In the line for the tram where it leads you through props - they have lots of stuff from the tv show Dinosaurs! (the one by henson productions with the Sinclairs) I loved this show! We lagged behind a little so I could take pictures of the stuff. My sister would love to have seen this! The AFI exhibit at the end (this is the part of the backlot tour I like - where you exit) showcased type of transportation in the movies. They had the balloon from the great muppet caper with kermit and fozzie! We took pictures of that. They also had some rider thingie from Star Wars (I'm sure I should know what it's called, but I apparently, I'm good at tuning out SW and the other two pretty well). We took pictures of that too for Jim. We left MGM for Epcot by way of boat. In my notes I have written down, "obnoxious kid". So I'm assuming we ran into an obnoxious kid. However, thinking about it, I think we ran into about 5 obnoxious kids on the boat that were out there in the back of the boat with us. Perhaps my tolerance for kids was low this evening since the only thing I can recall them doing was being loud, moving around a lot, and trying to edge me out of my seat. Oh, maybe that's what it was. We entered Epcot coinciding with the 8:10pm ToN parade. Jim was hungry and he wanted that thing from millenium village (south america....starts with a c??...) and I wanted to eat at the Japanese fast food place. So we threaded our way through the crowds to MV - rushed in got Jim's food, felt a little bad going through the bldg really fast (like we weren't interested in all these people's cultures). Then exited. Jim needed to use the bathroom so we had to stop. I was able to watch the parade come through their staging area - it was neat - they are totally in character even though they are "backstage" still. We made it over to Japan where I got tempura udon but with soba noodles instead. Yum. The place wasn't too crowded since it was late which is good. Jim also got some yakitori too. There was this father and his two sons there (not too young) and the father got 3 bowls of udon soup. Well, the two sons kinda just look at the soup and then look at the dad - "I don't think this is what we want..." Kinda funny. After we finished eating (btw the way, I love the yakitori house - you can get great stuff there for not much more than what the local teriyaki boy charges) we played dodge the crowd as we made our way back to the International gateway. Easier said than done since Illuminations was actually taking place. We made it onto the friendship boat and watched the remaining bits of Illuminations. Again we witnessed people leaving at the fake ending of Illuminations. They should do something about that. The boat was soon crowded and we headed off to the boardwalk. Sadly, we did not arrive the week before - according to the newsletter we got at CSR when we checked in there were some virtual reality stuff on the BW. Now there were some kids stuff. Oh well. We walked around a little bit and ended up at the bakery (gee, how did we get there?) I wasn't sure what to order and we ended up with a crumb cake. It was really good and rather large. Somehow, we managed to finish it. I'm definitely not Sue. This was our last night here - wow it went by fast. So sad. I wanted to do something fun and outside the parks. I chose the Atlantic City Dance Club. I _thought_ Jim would enjoy it. I mean we took lessons and he's always complaining that I don't like to dance (so we might have a little role reversal in our marriage). However, I neglected to factor in that Jim hates paying for anything that he thinks is extraneous. The $5 fee is considered extraneous. I did convince him to go in (it was this, Jellyrolls, or convincing jim to pay $20 to go to Pleasure Island). It wasn't crowded at all, and I'm pretty sure the people in the getups were disney plants. Great plants though. We definitely felt a little underdressed, but who cares. We danced for a bit and there was this band Cigar Indian something??? They were really good. At one point they had everyone get on the stage with them, that was fun. Most of the people on the floor were definitely better than we were, but it's not how many moves you know, it's how you do the few you know. We left at 11pm - things were picking up at the club - but we had to get up and leave (agony) the next morning. Since I knew CSR had a bus pick from the BW, we decided to get the bus there. Well, we were waiting and there was this group of three couples and their very rambunctious kids. They (the kids) were running around chasing each other like they were in the super bowl or something. Well, of course, kids running around fueled on sugar, hard concrete ground, shorts, that equals at least one fallen child. In this case it equaled one child falling twice. After the first fall, he looked up, a little shocked. But you could see his young mind quickly turning and boy did he use those crocodile tears! I don't think he even managed the tears just the bawling. Of course that prompted a "Be careful". And being kids - they proceeded to run around again. And well, he must have oiled his sneakers 'cause that kid went splat right in front of mom. This time he tried crying again - but instead of sympathy (and I assume a treat of some kind) the kids got a stern "stop running". This worked temporarily (they started wrestling one of the dads down). Then they started running again. Thankfully, the bus arrived and we didn't have to watch the kid fall for a third time. Well, on the bus, we overheard an interesting conversation. At the CSR we had noticed quite a few people were there for a convention. They crowded the food courts and there were golf cart stops for them. On the bus, we found out what it was for. Tahitian Noni. Anyone heard of it? We hadn't. According the lady on the bus - it's really good for a)hangovers b)helping cure/help her husband before surgery for prostate cancer c)curing her cat (of what I don't remember). From her extremely perky personality, I would hazard to guess that it contains high fructose syrup as well. This piqued Jim's curiousity, and we subsequently looked them up on the web. Their website wasn't working properly though and we haven't been back. We packed that night to leave the next day. Sigh. Expenses: Lunch $14.50 Millenium Village Balloon $ 5.00 Dinner $ 4.00 Something Jim really liked in MV Dinner $15.27 Japan Snack $ 4.24 BW Bakery - crumb cake $10.00 Atlantic City Dance Hall

July 1st and 2nd, Day 8&9 - Leaving - (Saturday and Sunday)

Well, we woke up. The bill was out on our door. It was correct. We sadly (at least I sadly) packed up the remainder of our belongings and moved them to the car. I filled out the comment card commending Stine at Norway, Matt at the MK time board, and hammering CSR on the lack of some sort of internal transportation system. (Before anyone mentions this, there is the bus system - but it's not internal like the way CBR is internal. You could hop on the bus thinking Bus Stop 1 will be next, but nope, you're off the the MK) We decided to drive to the front and get one last refillable drink. While there, we noticed that Tahitian Noni convention. We ended up talking to a guy in the food court. These were all distributors that would then sell them to individuals. Or something like that. Jim wanted to try sneak in. I persuaded him not to. Instead of going to a park today, we decided we would go to DTD and buy our souvenirs and then head home. We only went to the World of Disney, but I took my time trying to figure out what to buy for my advisor's new kid. And for myself of course. I ended up getting two t-shirts, a baby bottle with pooh on it, socks with pooh on it, and candy for the lab (no pooh on it). We put the candy in the ice chest and then headed off. We officially left orlando by 11am. Bye disney. See you in several years. I hope. Anyways, to sum up the rest of trip, we stopped in St. Augustine at the outlet malls. I did some shopping for shoes and clothes. Jim found some toys. These items do not get added into our trip budget though. Lunch was at the outlet where this sub place had great macadamia and white chocolate cookies - I bought the rest of them (there were only two left). We finally quit driving at Fayetteville, NC. But we should have stopped in Lumberton, NC where we got gas. It started to thunderstorm immediately after we pulled out. And then the exit at Fayetteville - the right side was totally without electricity. The left side's hotels were practically booked up. We nearly had to fight with this other woman to get a hotel room at the best western. (but to show how human nature is at the base cooperative, they had 4 rooms left, but the desk was only saying they had 3 rooms - for us, the lady that cut in front of us and this family behind us. This guy came in from the rain needing one. She said they only had a king left. He needed two beds. So we switched with him giving him our room with two doubles and we took the king. The lady that we nearly had to knock over looked over at us kinda mad that we ended up with the king) For dinner we ate at yet another Shoney's. We did not learn a thing on this trip. and you think we would have been smarter. You think about it. Electricity on only one side of the highway. All hotel rooms are booked. Looking for hotel rooms we saw three buses of tour groups... Duh. Shoney's was packed. We got a table. Had their salad bar. And waited about 2 hours for no food. About 1/2 an hour for drinks. People were leaving rather peeved. We just paid for the bar and left. Sunday 7/2/00 Woke up, ate breakfast at the hotel. Left. Quite a few miles outside of D.C. we encountered horrendous traffic. We thought maybe this is due to July 4th. We found out, no. It was due to this badly burned greyhound bus on the side of the road. All the windows were gone. The whole side of the bus was seethrough. The only way you knew it was greyhound was that the tail end survived. Ouch. All in all, we arrived safely home after listening to CarTalk about 3 different times and Jim coming down with a cold during the last 6 hours of the drive. And to even further torture you with details, we have received recently a notice from Newark, DE that we failed to pay a $2 toll on our way back. I don't think so as I had to wake Jim up to give me the two bucks. You can see that my (driver) window is rolled down and I would never do something as stupid as not pay the toll. Especially since they're asking for $27 now. So there you have it. Our 2000 trip to WDW. I like saying that because it reminds that we had a 1999 trip to WDW too. It was nice. And we'll be going back again. But I promised Jim that it won't be until after we graduate. So maybe two more years. Next section will be a summary and cost overview. Comments or severe editorial criticism? Let me know, I might just ignore it. Expenses: Souvenirs $62.49 Dinner $15.13 Shoneys Gas $11.90 Lunch $ 5.29 $ 5.82 Snack $ 3.47 Cookies Gas $16.45 Hotel $65.35 Lunch $ 7.10 McD Gas $14.90

Summary

Well, it went by fast. The beginning of the week I really felt rushed since I knew we had 4 days less than we had last year. But afterwards I think I did learn to slow down. So in summary style:

Coronado Springs Pros: - I like the surroundings and landscaping of the resort - At night, provides for a very scenic view of the lake and buildings - Mayan pool was pretty nice, had a slide that my husband liked (means it's very tame) - Room was as big as we needed it, clean and comfortable, I actually like the bold color scheme too Cons: - 1 sink in the room - Very big resort - but unlike CBR, it is spread such that some places are extremely inconvenient without an internal bus system (which CSR really doesn't have) - Bus system while timely has too many in-between stops. We saw Blizzard Beach way more that we ever cared to - No package delivery to the room - Inconvenient at times to just get a drink refill at the food court General: - Do not request Ranchos if you don't like to walk.

Parks Pros: - Well, we keep coming back, so pretty much everything is a pro.

Enight - after the first hour it was great! - Being able to get into the restaurants with PS that we wanted (okay, so we went to low PS needing places like Marrakesh and Akershus) - Jim liked Millenium Village, esp. the food - Tapestry of Nations - Getting to MGM around 7pm to do everything with no lines Cons: - Enight - during the first hour - still (somewhat) long lines - JII imageworks - terrible stripped down overcrowded with nothing much to do version of the original - Didn't spend as much time in AK as we would have liked - Didn't do buzz as much as we would have liked Dining Pros: - We ate at many different places, fast food and otherwise, with such different variety that I did _not_ end up eating a long string of hot dogs and hamburgers - Marrakesh! What a great coincidence of timing that I end up that cranky in Morocco! - French patisserie! - Those really good Orange Juice bars. Yum. - Norway, I love salmon, any which way. Also I like one of those herrings. Jim likes the swedish meatballs and other things on the buffet. He also liked our waitress. Cons: - I didn't get to eat a lot of hot dogs with sauerkraut - never did the food court as CSR - don't think we ever will Driving down from NJ - we liked it. We would do it again too - we could definitely do it in a day. - I definitely prefer it to flying.

Misc.: We skipped a lot of attractions but I don't feel like we really missed them. I'm glad we had time to spend in the resorts looking around (Poly, GF, BW). We never made it to some of the PS that we had - but that's for next time. My one big regret is that we didn't come earlier - say February or something to use our AP's three times. Oh well. I can't imagine coming back to the park without an AP now. I'm hooked! Sadly, it expired a little less than one month after we came home. However, in other Disney vacation news, two weeks after we got back, a fellow grad student in the dept. went with his sister. I lent him my UOG. He had fun. Even made it to the water parks. Then a month later, my mom calls me at the office. Emergency bells go off in my head (parents should realize that their kids panic if they receive a call from them at work). Turns out, my cousin was coming from Taiwan - they were going to take him to WDW. She wanted hotel help. I called and got them the ASSport or the CSR (at $114/night! The CM said it just came up on her screen - this was for the first week of august). She ended up going with the Hampton Inn (this is her favorite chain). My cousin enjoyed WDW a lot. So did my parents. And better yet, they bought 5 day park hoppers and used only 4 days (they figured they could go again - yea for my parents!!!). So as you can see, I'm doing my best to spread the disney bug. I hope it's catching. One day I would love to go with my parents and sisters again. My sister and I are already scheming...

Expense summary: We tipped $2 a day for the maid. She took it each day except for the 3rd and 4th night - so the last day we tipped extra to make up. Travel expenses: Hotel $110.25 Gas $115.82 Tolls $ 13.00 (+beach fee) Food $ 74.21 WDW expenses: Hotel $739.00 (+ tips) Food $357.87 Souvenir/Misc $199.03 (+Eride night) total: 1609.18 We estimate had we flown it would be about $100 more. Maybe small savings overall - but like those MasterCard commercials - the time together minus the frustrations from flying - priceless.

Thanks for reading! Now I just get to sit tight for two years living vicariously through other peoples reports!

Li-Bong Lee