Trip Reports
02-20-2007, 11:15 AM
Noreen Chin -- April 2002 -- Walt Disney World (Offsite)
This is Noreen's fourth trip report for MousePlanet.
WHO ARE WE?
Noreen - 33 years old; First Vice President at an Investment Banking Firm in New York City. I will be the author of the report.
Paul (my husband) - 33 years old; Multimedia Developer at a Management Consulting Firm in New York City. Paul may insert his comments in the report.
Paul and I have been to Disney World several times in the last few years. It has become our favorite Vacation. We went to Disney Land (California) for the first time in January 1997 and became engaged at Sea World.
PLANNING
Historically Paul and my vacation plans for any given year usually include two 10-day trips (usually 1 to Disney) and several long weekend trips. Normally during the Disney trip we would spend a week in our timeshare (Vistana) and several days at one of the Disney Resorts. Now that we have Kiki (our adorable Akita puppy) we don’t want to be away that long, so we’ve cut our trips down to a week or a week and a day. We started this when we went to Disney September 2001 and flew down Saturday afternoon, spent Saturday night at a cheaper hotel, then checked into the timeshare Sunday for the next week. We liked that plan and will probably do it again (unless Paul wants to drive down then we’ll have to fiddle with the days again)
An extra Disney Trip - One day in February 2002 Paul and I were in the car discussing when we wanted to go to Disney and where else we wanted to go this year. I figured he’d want to do one trip to an Island or maybe a cruise. But he surprised me by asking when our Premium Annual passes expire (September 8, 2002) and saying why not get even more value out of them by planning another Disney trip prior to their expiration. You don’t have to ask me twice – I love Disney. The next night I received my Mickey Monitor and saw they are having special Annual Passholder rates at the various hotels so now we’re thinking maybe an August trip. We’ve never been to Disney World in August and I’m sure it will be disgustingly hot and steamy, but since we go to Disney often, we don’t have to keep running through the parks – we can spend the early morning at a park, spend the hot part of the day at either a water park or even the hotel pool, then back to a park at night. We’re still deciding but the thought of going again before the passes expire make me very happy. I booked 9 days at Disney’s Yacht & Beach Club (Beach Club side) for August 2002.
Another extra Disney Trip – I found out I need to go to Orlando on business in May (staying at the Hyatt at the Orlando airport). Since I’m going to be there anyway, have a premium annual pass, and the rates are so good – I added a few days to the business trip and will stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge (Savannah view) after the business portion of my trip.
Back to this trip - Our plans changed several times throughout the planning process for this trip…First our timeshare was not available the dates we wanted, booking a week at Animal Kingdom Lodge and planning to drive since flight prices were being quoted as around $500 each, then realizing we can fly at a reasonable price midweek and we aren’t locked into arriving on the weekend if we’re not staying at the timeshare and booking Disney’s Old Key West Resort (1 Bedroom) for a Tuesday to Tuesday, then finding out we can stay at Vistana (our timeshare) from Tuesday to Tuesday after all. Although I kept making Disney reservations, I did cancel them as my plans changed to free up the rooms for others.
I will try to note the prices we paid for things throughout the trip but won’t be compulsive about it. I’ll know what we spent for a meal in a restaurant because we’ll have a receipt but for how many ice cream bars, bottles of water, etc that we buy during the day, I won’t be compulsive about keeping track of those.
Lodging
On 3/5/02 I tried to book one week at our timeshare (Vistana) for Sunday 4/21/02 to Sunday 4/28/02 but nothing was available for that week. This is the first time the week I wanted wasn’t available and we’ve owned our timeshare since 1995. Our timeshare only allows you to check in Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Or so I thought – I later learned of some other ways to use my timeshare.
Paul suggested we try booking something at Disney’s Boardwalk for the week instead. I called Disney also on 3/5/02 and nothing is available at the Boardwalk with any discount for that week either. The only deluxe property available with an annual pass discount is Animal Kingdom Lodge Savannah View for $1,659 total with tax for the 7 nights so I booked that. I cancelled this reservation on 3/22/02.
Paul and I were looking into various flights and were not having much luck with the dates we wanted. We were being quoted $500 each for the round trip flight to Orlando. That’s ridiculously high – the most we’ve ever paid to go to Disney by plane was around $250 each (and that was around New Year’s Millennium when it turned 2000). So we were planning to drive down to Florida. However, if we could fly on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday we could get a cheaper flight (and not have to drive 20 hours each way). Since our timeshare isn’t available anyway, we aren’t locked into arriving on the weekend. So I called Disney again on 3/16/02. I booked Old Key West Resort a 1 bedroom (which has a jacuzzi, full kitchen, living room, washer and dryer) with the annual pass discount it came out to $2040. This was cancelled on 3/26/02.
I kept trying Vistana (our timeshare) to see if anything opened up. I was advised to book a later week and just put it through the exchange system and exchange into another resort. Disney’s Old Key West, Boardwalk Villas, and Wilderness Lodge Villas are part of the exchange company. On March 21, 2002 that ’s what I tried doing, but the exchange company said Vistana isn’t set up yet for request first and deposit later service and I had to speak to Vistana member services.
Finally, I spoke to Harumi at Vistana Member services and she explained the benefits of our timeshare and the options portion and told me we can stay at Vistana (our timeshare) using options with a midweek check in. Our regular 2 bedroom 2 bath condo is worth 65,000 options. A 2 bedroom isn’t available Tuesday to Tuesday, but a 1-bedroom premium is and only costs 44,000 options. So we will have an additional 21,000 options to play with this year. The 1-bedroom premium has the same amenities as our normal 2 bedroom but without the second bedroom. So this is now booked. We’ll still have a jacuzzi in the master bedroom, living room, kitchen, dining room, patio, washer dryer, etc. This was too good to pass up and since my timeshare is paid for already we’ve just saved the over $2000 Disney’s OKW would have cost us for a 1 bedroom.
Car Rental
We are definitely going to rent a car as we have in the past. Since our trip will be spent off-site a rental car is a must. Even when we stay at Disney, Paul doesn’t like being dependent on a bus/boat/etc. We’ve found a lot of fun things to do and restaurants we like off-site and want the flexibility to go. We may use the Disney transportation sometimes (for park hopping), but I like the convenience of knowing my car is waiting for me in a lot and not having to depend on a bus/tram/boat.
On 2/12/02, I reserved the following rental car:
National – A fullsize with unlimited mileage for $336.89. Used the Disney Annual Pass discount code. Pickup is at the airport. This was for our original dates of 4/13- 4/20. This was cancelled on 3/22/02.
On 3/7/02, I reserved the following rental car:
Avis – A midsize with unlimited mileage for $338.50. Used AAA and Delta discount. Pickup is at the airport. This was for our second set of dates for 4/20 – 4/28. This was cancelled on 3/22/02.
On 3/18/02, I reserved the following rental car:
National – A fullsize with unlimited mileage for $336.89. Used the Disney Annual Pass discount. Pickup is at the airport. This is for 4/23-4/30
Flight
On 3/7/02 I held our flight. $295 per person. On Delta Airlines on Saturday 4/20/02 leaving from Newark Airport at 4:15 pm landing in Orlando at 6:50 pm. Coming home Sunday 4/28/02 on Delta Airline it’s leaving Orlando at 7:10pm, connecting through Atlanta, and landing at Newark Airport at 11:52 pm. This will be held until midnight Friday 3/8/02. We let this expire since we really didn’t want to waste time connecting and it wasn’t that cheap anyway and we changed the dates of our trip.
On 3/21/02 I held our flight. $201 per person. On Delta Airlines on Tuesday 4/23/02 it’s flight #2453 leaving from Newark Airport at 2:05 pm landing in Orlando at 4:41 pm. Coming home Tuesday 4/30/02 on Delta Airlines it’s flight # 2478 leaving Orlando at 7:40pm and landing at Newark Airport at 10:17 pm. This will be held until midnight Friday 3/22/02. I called back on Friday 3/22/02 and paid for the tickets – they will be Etickets. Nice direct flights without stopping or changing planes and a reasonable price.
We are going to use long term parking right near Newark airport at Corporate Park. We used them for our last Disney trip (September 2001) and it was great.
Driving
We were in Disney World on September 11, 2001 when the terrorist attacks occurred. Although we weren’t scheduled to leave until the Sunday after, we ended up driving all the way back to NJ rather than flying back. Paul still isn’t keen on getting on a plane. We’re thinking we may drive down again for this trip. Yes, it will take longer to get there and we’ll have less time for playing in Disney. But we’ll have the peace of mind of controlling our journey. Also, we’ll save money on plane tickets, airport parking, and the car rental. Since we decided to go Tuesday to Tuesday and found a relatively inexpensive flight, we are back to flying down.
Attractions
Paul and I are thinking of visiting Discovery Cove so we can swim with the Dolphins. We swam with Dolphins during our trip to Hawaii in September 2000 and really enjoyed it. However, I read in someone’s trip report that went that most of the attractions (including swimming with the dolphins) are in deep water. Paul doesn’t know how to swim so I don’t know if we’ll go after all. Paul said I should go and he’ll watch, but maybe we’ll wait for another trip to do so. We later decided to save this for our August trip since the parks generally will be crowded and hot; at least Discovery Cove limits the amount of people that go. Since the Discovery Cove admission also gets us admission to Sea World we will save that for August as well. We are also planning to spend a day at Universal Studios / Islands of Adventure. We may also go to Busch Gardens since we haven’t done that in a few years.
Food
There are some restaurants we’ve been to on previous trips and will probably repeat. Some of the restaurants I’m hoping to try for the first time this trip are at the Resorts (Citricos in the Grand Floridian and Jiko at Animal Kingdom Lodge). Some of the restaurants we’ve visited in the past and will probably repeat are Beaches & Cream at the Beach Club, Wolfgang Puck at Disney’s West Side, California Grille at the Contemporary, and Emeril’s at Universal City Walk.
We find it hard making dinner and/or lunch reservations in advance. We’re usually very spontaneous with these things. I don’t know what I’ll want to eat two months later or even what time I’ll want to eat. We’ve also run into a few problems during our trips because we’ll run around at the parks and by the time we leave and are ready to eat dinner it’s late and many times the restaurants are closed by the time we get there. We’ve ended up with cereal, leftovers, or any 24hour place we can find for dinner several times during our last few trips. At least in the timeshare we will have a full kitchen that we will make sure we have some food in. It’s a great convenience (as well as a money and time saver) to have a regular breakfast right in the timeshare.
During the last few trips, we’ve made a few priority seatings and they’ve worked out pretty well for us. We made a few priority seatings before leaving for Florida. The priority seatings we had are as follows:
Tuesday 4/23 – Jiko – 7:15pm
Saturday 4/27 – Citricos – 7:40pm
Monday 4/29 – California Grille – 9:15 (fireworks at 9:30; arrive early ask for window seat)
I tried making a reservation for dinner at Emeril’s on Friday 4/26 but they are totally booked for dinner the whole month of April. So I made a reservation for lunch on Friday 4/26 at 1:30pm.
Admission Media
Paul and I bought premium annual passes during our September 2001 trip. We also have one day left on our Universal passes that include Universal Studios and Universal Islands of Adventure.
Other People
Paul likes to invite other people to join us in Disney World for two reasons. One – we normally have a two bedroom, two bath condo when we stay at the timeshare so we certainly have the room. Two – I like to run around (typical commando mode) while Paul is more laid back. If other people are with us, it tends to slow us down a little. It’s just going to be us this time since we are staying in a 1 bedroom. However, my sister’s sister in law (Denise), her husband (Paul), and their children (Nicole & Anthony) will be at Disney and our dates overlap a little. We’re planning to get together with Denise & Paul for dinner and Pleasure Island one night. Denise’s in-laws will also be there so they will baby-sit one night so Denise & Paul can come out with us.
General Planning
I know it’s useful to make a rough outline of what parks to hit on what days as well as make priority seatings in advance of the trip. I’ve printed out the park hours for the dates we’re there and am trying to come up with a rough game plan. I’m trying to use the blocks of time method (ex – morning, afternoon, evening, night). Paul doesn’t like this idea because he feels it takes away the spontaneity of just having fun on vacation.
I’m also going to try to right down the tentative plan for the day and see how close we come to doing what was planned.
DAY BY DAY
The week before our trip
Nothing out of the ordinary – just work and all the last minute details of going away.
The day before our trip – Monday 4/22/02
Paul had Monday off also (he has all these extra vacation days he needs to use). I worked all day to get things set before leaving. I didn’t leave work until 6:30 (later than I normally like to leave since I start at around 7:30am). Driving home it was pouring rain – better today than tomorrow when we’re flying out. When I got home, Paul was in the hot tub and Kiki (our puppy) was soaked because she was hanging out on the deck with Paul. They looked like they were having fun, so I changed and jumped in too.
We picked up dinner from a local restaurant – Mamacitas, then finished the rest of the packing.
Our friends (Chris & Alise) who are going to check on the house didn’t have the keys to our house anymore. Good thing I called to check. So on the way to the airport we’ll drop a set in their mailbox.
Tuesday 4/23/02
Tentative Plan: Drop off Kiki, Fly to Orlando, Check in Vistana, Publix, Priority Seating at Jiko 7:15
I got up all excited because we’re finally going to Disney World. Since our flight isn’t until the afternoon we don’t have to leave until about 10:30 or so. We used to always take early flights – the earlier the better to get to Disney as soon as possible. Since we have to take Kiki to her school, and they don’t open until 10, we’re taking a later flight. In a way it wasn’t that bad – we weren’t as rushed in the morning and had time to finish any other last minute things.
We left about 10:30. We dropped off Kiki at her school. One of the teachers dog sits on the side and will take her home with him for the week. She was happy to be there. We were upset to leave her. I felt really bad when I turned to leave and she started following me, but her teacher was holding her leash so she had to stay.
We dropped our keys in Chris and Alise’s mailbox and then we were finally on the way to the airport. We dropped the car at Corporate Park (right near Newark airport). We used them last trip also. They are very efficient. We pulled up – they load our luggage into their van, ask when we’re returning, give us a little ticket and take us right to the airport.
We did curbside check in with Delta. We did pretty good packing – my new big suitcase (which is huge) carried almost everything and still had plenty of room in it was checked. It ended up getting a “heavy” ticket on it because it weighed a lot. It wasn’t overweight where we had to pay extra but it was heavy. We each had a carry on that had an outfit, bathing suit, and then between us we had the laptop, video camera, digital camera, and some other stuff. We always overpack.
We got through security pretty quickly. We were at the gate by 12 noon and our flight isn’t until 2:05. This is the first time we’re doing a midweek type of vacation (leaving and returning on Tuesday instead of the weekend). We had some pretzels from Wetzel’s pretzels in the airport for lunch – about $11. But not just normal pretzels – a pretzel wrapped around a hot dog, a cheese pretzel, very interesting pretzels.
We boarded the plane around 1:30. It was very empty. Only about 40 people on the whole plane. So the person who was supposed to sit in the row with us moved and took another row. They didn’t show any movies or serve any meals. Just soda and trail mix. The flight was very prompt – we were taking off exactly at 2:05. We landed early – at about 4:20.
Since it was so empty we didn’t do our usual routine of Paul going to get the luggage while I wait on the line for rental cars. We both went to get the luggage which came out really fast (ours was the 3rd bag out), then went down to the rental car counter. There was nobody on line and we were helped right away. We got our paperwork done and went to pick out a full size car. I like the way National does this – you get to pick your own car. We picked a grey Buick Century. Paul wanted a different one instead but the keys weren’t there.
This was the first time we flew since September 11 and it was a good experience.
We got to Vistana to check in and were on our way to our room - #1935 in the Lakes section and a top floor. We walked in and there was a problem. We weren’t in the right type of room. We were supposed to be in a Deluxe One Bedroom which has all the amenities of the normal two bedroom we usually get but without the second bedroom. This room wasn’t that but a lock off unit – it was a one bedroom but smaller with a mini kitchen, no Jacuzzi and no balcony. It was very nice, but we are using more options to pay for the bigger one. So I called the front desk and they looked into it and called me back in about 10 minutes. They screwed up and would move us. So we went back to the front desk and got a new room - #1794 in the Lakes Section also a top floor. We usually request the top floor because they have nice vaulted ceilings. They are out of the deluxe one bedrooms so they gave us a two bedroom.
By the time all this took place and we got into our new room, it was about 6:40pm. Since we have Jiko reservations at 7:15pm I called to change them to a little later. I didn’t think we’d make the 7:15. Also, Paul wanted to get settled in a little. The only thing they had available was 8:45 so we took that. I had time to unpack now.
We went to Publix in the meantime to do our food shopping for the week. Nothing major, but we like to have breakfast food, soda, snacks, bottled water to freeze and carry to the parks. We spent $67.67 in Publix. We put the food away, then headed off to Jiko.
We got to Animal Kingdom Lodge about 8:40. We waited about 10 minutes to be seated. While waiting we wandered around outside by the pool and the arcade and Mara.
We were seated before 9. Service was very quick. We were starving. We started off with the bacon/onion flatbread (the waitress recommended this highly). It was brought out quickly and was very good. We both had soda. Paul had the lamb shank dish and I had the monkfish (another recommendation by the waitress). It was delicious. I read on the internet that American Express users receive free dessert with $50 purchased so I asked about it and sure enough received a free dessert. I had the apple crumb dessert. Our total with tax and tip was $75.91.
We wandered around Animal Kingdom Lodge some more after eating. We looked at the overlook to see the animals. When I’m in Orlando on business in May, I’m adding a few extra days at Disney and have been debating whether to stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge or Port Orleans. I have reservations for both. Paul wants me to stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge since he feels it will be safer since I’ll be alone. I have a nice savannah view room booked so it looks like I may get to use it.
Paul didn’t want to go to Pleasure Island. He was tired and hasn’t been feeling that great so wanted to get a good night’s sleep to be ready to run around tomorrow.
We got back to Vistana around 11:30. Paul logged onto the computer to check in with work. We watched some TV and went to bed by 1am.
Did we meet the tentative plan? Yes, but changed the time on our priority seating at Jiko
Wednesday 4/24/02
Tentative Plan: MGM, Epcot (AP Lounge and AP Illuminations), Dinner at Kimonos
I was up by 7 and started getting ready. I made breakfast in the timeshare – bacon and eggs.
I woke Paul a little after 8. After eating Paul still wasn’t feeling good so he lay back down for a little while. I worked on this report while waiting for him.
Meanwhile, I know time is ticking away and the parks aren’t open that late so I’m anxious to get there.
We got to MGM around 10:30am. We went through the security check pretty quickly.
We saw the first Who Wants to Be a Millionaire Show at 10:50. When we came out we got a fastpass for the 12:30 show.
We went through Walt Disney’s – One Man’s Dream exhibit. This was very interesting and I can see how people spend a long time in here. The movie was pretty good too. I never realized how he really went from nothing to creating all of this.
One thing I was happy to notice – the bathrooms now have normal liquid soap. I hated the old powder soap they used to have. I used to carry my own little liquid soap because I don’t like the powder one; I guess I won’t have to do that anymore.
We saw the 12:30 Millionaire show. We were getting hungry by now, but wanted to go on Tower of Terror and Rock n Roller Coaster before eating lunch.
We got a fastpass for Rock N Roller Coaster which was good from 1:45 to 2:45. Then we waited on line for Tower of Terror. There was about a 30 minute wait which worked out well. By the time we got off Tower of Terror it was 1:45 so we headed over to Rock n Roller Coaster and went right into the fast pass line. The standby line was up to 45 minutes now so we avoided that. The ride broke down when we were in the room where the cars take off. It took about 15 minutes for it to get running again and we waited for the front row.
By the time we got out it was about 2:45 and we were starving. Paul wanted to eat at 50’s Prime Time Café so we headed over there. Imagine our surprise when it was crowded and it was about a 30 minute wait. We put our name in and waited. While waiting we were wandering and ended up seeing Hollywood & Vine (which is connected by the bathrooms. It looked really good so we figured we’d ask how long a wait to eat there for lunch (and we’d see characters too). Unfortunately, they closed at 2:30 but reopened at 3:30 for dinner. We didn’t want to wait that long so we went back to waiting at 50’s Prime Time Café. When it was 3:20 and we still weren’t called I went over and put my name in at Hollywood & Vine for 3:30 and asked for the Fantasmic Dinner Package. There aren’t characters at the dinner buffet. We were seated at 3:35 and were given our blue slip for Fantasmic. The food was good and a nice selection. I even tried the red velvet cake for dessert that I really liked. The total with tax and tip was $45.14.
At 5pm we watched the Stars and Motor Cars Parade. It was cute but very short. I would hate to wait for hours holding down a piece of concrete for it. We watched from the other side of the lagoon. It wasn’t the best seats but we were able to see enough and weren’t crushed.
At 5:30 we went to the Great Movie Ride. We waited about ½ hour and had the gangster side. This was closed when we were here in September so we wanted to go on this time.
We saw the first ½ of the 6:30 Hunchback of Notre Dame show but Paul wanted to go to the 7pm Millionaire show so we went over there. This was the last show of the day. We didn’t make it into the hot seat but were in the top 10 a few times.
When we got out we wandered over to Oscar’s (where we were supposed to go with our Fantasmic card to go into the special seating area). We got seated for Fantasmic about 8pm – the show starts at 8:30. It was packed. Meanwhile, we strolled in at 8 and got front row seats in the Witch section. I was worried we’d get wet from the water parts, but we didn’t. The Fantasmic meal was worth it. We wouldn’t have sat around waiting 2 hours for Fantasmic. I guess that’s why we’ve been in the Standing section the last few times we saw it. The only time we waited a long time holding our seats was for the premiere of Fantasmic (we were here for it).
After the show ended, it took a while to exit the theater. I don’t get why they don’t open more exits (like the ones on the bottom of the theater). We finally made it back to the car and headed back to Vistana. We were still full from our late lunch so didn’t feel like having dinner. Also, we were kind of tired and decided not to go to Pleasure Island tonight.
We went in the Jacuzzi and were in bed by midnight.
It doesn’t sound like we’re doing much which is very unlike my normal commando mentality, but we’ve been here many times and will continue to return. Also, it’s kind of crowded. Instead of rushing from one thing to the next, we’re spending more time on our favorite things and seeing new things. The weather was beautiful today. Warm but not boiling hot and not very humid.
Did we meet the tentative plan? No, we ended up spending the whole day at MGM
Thursday 4/25/02
Tentative Plan: Magic Kingdom, MGM (Fantasmic), Dinner at Wolfgang Puck and Pleasure Island with Denise and Paul
We had breakfast in the timeshare.
We went to Magic Kingdom because I wanted to see Cinderella’s Surprise Celebration show at the castle stage. We missed the first show but saw the second one at 11:30.
After the show, we went to the Haunted Mansion. There was about a 20 minute wait. It was pretty crowded and hot today. It was about 12:45 by now. We were starting to get hungry for lunch but figured we’d wait until we got to Typhoon Lagoon. As we were passing the Ice Cream shop on Main Street, we saw all these people with ice cream so Paul wanted some. He got a double scoop cone with chocolate chip mint and strawberry. This was huge. I asked for an empty little cup so I could take some of his ice cream. Good thing I got the cup, his cone broke. Too much ice cream on it I guess. We sat and ate the ice cream. Then we left Magic Kingdom.
We packed our stuff for Typhoon Lagoon and had it in the car. We headed to Typhoon Lagoon. We stopped at the gift shop to buy a Water Camera ($16.95) since they didn’t have any in Publix yesterday. We went into the Wave Pool and waited for the big waves. They didn’t start right away but had the bobbing waves instead. Finally, they started the big waves. One of my water shoes went flying off my foot when a wave hit. Luckily, a lady grabbed it so I got it back.
After spending some time in the wave pool, we got out and went to Leaning Palms for lunch. Paul also had his sandwich he packed. We ordered the double cheeseburger combo (came with fries and soda) that we shared. It was about $10.
After lunch it was about 3:15 and Paul wanted to go in the lazy river; I wanted to go on some slides so we decided to each go do our thing and meet back by the hot dog stand by the wave pool around 4:15. I went on Mayday Falls and Keelhaul Falls. They were both fun. On one of them, when I got to the end, the tube flipped over and tossed me into the water. Then I walked to the other side of the park and went to the Storm Slides. I went on the center one. I didn’t feel like waiting on line again for the other two. I figured I’d jump in the lazy river to get back to the other side to meet Paul. As I was coasting along on the lazy river who catches up to me but Paul. That was convenient – now I don’t have to look for him at our meeting spot. It wasn’t that sunny anymore, so we got our stuff and left Typhoon Lagoon. We picked up some mini donuts and a strawberry slushie on the way out (about $7).
We went back to Vistana to shower and change. Paul also downloaded some of the pictures from the digital camera onto the laptop. While he did that, I did some laundry. It sounds like a chore, but I enjoy doing laundry and the machine is right in the timeshare.
It poured for about ½ hour. We sat on the patio and watched the rain.
We headed over to the Polynesian around 7:45. We had dinner at the Kona Café. We shared the crab cake appetizer and the chicken wings appetizer. Then we also split one entrée – the Asian stir fry with chicken. We both had soda. The appetizers were very good. The Asian stir fry was way too salty. The waitress offered to bring us another one without salt but we were kind of full already so declined her offer. The total with tax and tip was about $44.
Denise and Paul met us at Kona Café as we were finishing our meal. Then we headed over to Pleasure Island. We missed the 9:30 comedy show but wandered around and went into 8 Traxx for a little while. Paul and Denise did one of those posters where you put your face on someone else’s body. We went to the 10:40 comedy show. It was really funny. Then we went into the Adventurer’s Club for a little while. We didn’t want to get too involved because we wanted to see the countdown to midnight show. What a disappointment that was. It used to always be a whole show with dancers and at midnight fireworks and confetti. Well, the dancers were gone, the band that’s been playing throughout the night just kept playing and a few minutes before 12 some security type guy comes out to stop them playing. Then you count down to midnight and there are a few fireworks – no confetti. At first I thought maybe the dancers are on vacation, but Paul said maybe this was done to save some money. It’s much cheaper to do it this way. I hope it isn’t a permanent change. Denise was tired so we started heading out. Paul (Denise’s Paul) was hungry so we drove over to Wendy’s to get him some food. We showed them our timeshare then dropped them back off at the Polynesian.
We got back and went to bed about 2am.
Did we meet the tentative plan? No, we changed the plan again, but we did make it to Magic Kingdom and later met up with Denise & Paul for Pleasure Island.
Friday 4/26/02
Tentative Plan: Universal, Islands of Adventure, Lunch at Emeril’s
We decided we didn’t feel like going to Universal today. They haven’t added anything new since our last trip so we decided to do some more Disney stuff.
I was up by 8 and got ready, did some laundry, and made breakfast.
We headed to Animal Kingdom around 10:30. We went into DinoLand and started off at Primieval Whirl. There was about a 25 minute wait. You get banged around a lot. It was a cute ride though.
Next I went on Triceratop Spin. Paul videotaped me on this but didn’t go on. It’s very similar to Dumbo or Magic Carpets of Aladdin except these are dinosaurs. I only waited about 10 minutes for this.
Next we walked right onto Dinosaur. That was a surprise – we expected a bigger wait here.
It was about 11:30 by now so we got a fastpass for It’s Tough to Be a Bug which was good from 12:10 to 1:10. It was getting kind of hot out so we got a frozen lemonade and an egg roll which we ate while waiting. We were planning to go to Kali River Rapids, but I didn’t feel like sloshing around the rest of the day so decided against it. Once it was 1:10 I went to get fast passes for Kilamanjaro Safari. These were good from 1:20 to 2:20; the standby line was already up to 45 minutes.
We went to Tough to Be a Bug and got right on with our fastpasses. We walked past a lot of people waiting in the standby line. This was very cute – as it always is. We were done by 12:30. We didn’t want to wait for almost an hour to do the safari so we left to head to Epcot. We gave our fastpasses to some people getting onto the tram as we were getting off.
We got to Epcot around 1:15. We went right on Spaceship Earth with no wait. Then we walked through Innoventions and saw the Segway People Mover.
We walked over to the Land to find the Annual Passholder Lounge. It was very peaceful and calm in there. I thought Paul was going to take a nap. There are soft comfortable couches, TV’s, free drinks (soda, water, coffee, tea, hot chocolate), magazines and newspapers.
We were getting hungry and trying to decide what to eat for lunch. We took the boat across World Showcase and went to Japan. We had a late lunch around 3pm at Yakitori House. I had the shogun combination which had chicken on skewers, beef with onions, and rice. Paul had the beef curry with rice and a bowl of udon soup. We both had soda. The total came to approximately $18.
After eating we wandered around the store in Japan. They have all these nice moving clocks that play different songs and as we’re looking at them, we see the one we have that we bought in Fortunoff for our first anniversary.
By the time we were done browsing in the store in Japan it was almost 4:30 and time to head over to the America Gardens Theater for their Flower Power show. We saw Orleans perform. It wasn’t that crowded. We got there at 4:20 and had our choice of seats for a 4:30 show. It was very hot out.
When the show ended we listened to the American Fife & Drum corp. playing. Then we went into the American Adventure. It was nice and cool in here, but the show didn’t start until 5:30 (we waited about 15 minutes). Paul took a nap in the show. I thought it was very good. But they need to update the end – when they show the NY skyline, it still has the World Trade Center (which is still upsetting to see since I work close to where it used to stand).
We took the boat back across towards Future World. Since it was already after 6, we headed over towards Norway to watch Tapestry of Dreams Parade that was scheduled for 6:30. We got a fiesta margarita ($7) on the way. It had a combination of Lime, Strawberry, and Mango margarita. We watched the parade from an area in Norway. Cute, but I’m glad we didn’t claim a piece of sidewalk and hold it for long.
After the parade we went to Test Track. The standby line was 2 hours, so we went into the Single Rider Line. Even this was crowded. While standing in line waiting, they announced that inclement weather was coming and the ride may shut down. Sure enough 10 minutes later they closed the ride and told everyone to turn around and exit the same way they came in. It was raining pretty hard with lightening and thunder so we decided to leave. We got pretty wet running towards the exit. Then when we got to the trams, they weren’t running because of the lightening. This was our longest wait of the day. Just as we were planning to leave and just walk to the car, they started up. We waited almost 40 minutes for the trams to start up. So we got on the wet tram, get to the car, and realize we left the windows open since it was so hot out. So the seats in the car were wet too.
We went back to Vistana to change out of our wet clothes and decide where to go for dinner. We went in the Jacuzzi for a little while. We were looking at the different menu’s on the internet trying to figure out where to go for dinner, and we just weren’t in the mood to go running. So we cooked the frozen pizza we bought in Publix and had that for dinner. It was very good – DiGiorno – Mushroom, Spinach, and Garlic Pizza. I did some laundry and we went to bed.
Did we meet the tentative plan? No, we changed our plans.
Saturday 4/27/02
Tentative Plan: Animal Kingdom, Typhoon Lagoon, Magic Kingdom (fireworks),Priority Seating at Citricos 7:40
We decided to scrap our plans today. Paul’s feet are hurting – he has blisters on both of them.
We went to breakfast at Chef Mickey’s. We haven’t been there in years. It was a lot of fun and we took pictures with all the characters that came around. There was a decent selection on the buffet. As fun as this was, I’m glad we have the kitchen in the timeshare and we don’t have to spend time going out for breakfast every day. It took a long time. We got to the Contemporary around 10:30 and by the time we were seated and ate it was after 11:30. Breakfast cost approximately $40 with tax and tip.
We wandered around the Contemporary for a little while. Paul likes their arcade so he played in there. He won a lot of tickets (almost 400) on one game. They have a ticket counter machine that takes all the individual tickets and gives you a receipt saying how many credits you have (much easier to carry).
After the Contemporary we headed over to the Marketplace. We did a lot of shopping in World of Disney. I don’t understand how we always have so much more to buy when we’re here pretty often. This time, we had everything shipped home rather than trying to pack it in our suitcases and worrying about it breaking. We spent $275 in the World of Disney (including $16 for shipping). Then we went in Disney’s Days of Christmas. I found a bunch of ornaments in World of Disney so didn’t buy as much in here as I normally do. I only found one more ornament to buy in here. We also wandered around the Gourmet Pantry.
By the time we were done with all this shopping it was about 3pm. We figured we should eat a light lunch so we don’t mess up our dinner plans too much. We stopped at Wolfgang Puck Express and shared a Chinois Chicken Salad. Cost approximately $9. It was OK.
After eating we headed over to Blizzard Beach. We rented a locker for $9, changed, and went into the Lazy River. We circled the park about 2 times then got out and went on the storm slides, then the Family Raft Ride. Paul doesn’t really like going on the slides – he would prefer just to stay in the Lazy River. Then we went to the Wave Pool. Then back into the Lazy River. The park was closing at 6 so we got out of the Lazy River, got our stuff, and left by 5:45. Both water parks are fun, but we like Typhoon Lagoon better than Blizzard Beach.
We came back to Vistana to shower and change. We had a priority seating at Citricos, but Paul wasn’t in the mood for that so I cancelled the priority seating.
We went to Fulton’s Crab House for dinner at Pleasure Island. When we first gave our name (around 8:45) we were told it would be an hour wait. Then we found out you can eat at the bar tables and they are first come first serve. We ended up securing a table in the bar in about 15 minutes and we ate there. We both had soda. We started off with the fried calamari and lobster bisque soup. Then we shared the Lobster and Crab feast for two which had a whole lobster and various crab legs, potatoes, and spinach. Except for the spinach it was very good. The total with tax and tip came to $113.03
We were done around 10:15 and walked over to Pleasure Island to see if we could get into the 10:40 show, but it was already full. So we wandered over to the Westside and into the magic store. Paul enjoys watching the tricks and bought a few.
Did we meet the tentative plan? No, totally changed the plans again.
Sunday 4/28/02
Tentative Plan: Busch Gardens, Pleasure Island
As it’s becoming the norm, we did not follow our tentative plan today. We had breakfast in the timeshare.
We headed to Epcot in the morning. We went on the single rider line at Test Track. The standby line was already up to 45 minutes. It turned out that we were in the same car and ended up sitting next to each other in the front seat anyway. It was a family (mother, father, and two kids) that we went on with. The kids were both scared and wanted to sit with the mother in the back so we jumped in the front with the father.
Then we headed to Ellen’s Energy Adventure. Paul fell asleep in here. The show is very cute.
I wanted to see the Magical Moments parade at Magic Kingdom and Paul was exhausted and wanted to go to Disney Quest. Our plans were to each do the things we wanted and meet up again later. Paul dropped me off at the Polynesian to take the Monorail to Magic Kingdom around 1:15. Our plan is to meet at Epcot between 6 and 6:15 at the Off Kilter 6pm show in Canada.
I just missed a monorail but another one came by quickly. I got to Magic Kingdom and walked through to Liberty Square. I saw the 2:30 Hall of President’s show. When we exited, I found a great spot to watch the parade. The only negative was it was right in the sun so very hot. There was a bratty boy next to me with his family whining about this being lame and he didn’t want to wait. The mother seemed like she was fed up with him by now and just ignored him. Then the grand marshals for the parade came through but nothing else after that for a few minutes. So the bratty kid starts saying it’s over and that was dumb and let’s go (things like that). He really got on my nerves so I turned to him and told him the parade hasn’t started yet – that’s why all the people are still waiting. Then he says it’s supposed to start at 3 and it’s already after 3. I look at my watch and tell him – No, it’s only 3 minutes to 3. Finally, at 3 the parade begins. It was really cute. They have times when the kids in the audience go out and interact with the characters in the parade. Normally kids around 4 or 5 were participating. Well, the bratty boy (who I’d guess was maybe 8 or 9) decided to join in too. It was amazing to watch the transformation from this brat at the beginning to a boy really enjoying himself and interacting with the parade. He was all smiles by the time the parade ended.
I stopped in Peco Bill’s Café to have lunch after the parade. Cheeseburger, fries, and soda – cost $8.25. I found a little table near the back and sat to eat my lunch.
After lunch I was planning to go on Pirates of the Caribbean but the wait was way too long so I headed out of Magic Kingdom. I was planning to go to Epcot, but decided to go by way of the Boardwalk to try the black and white pretzel they have there. A bus to the Boardwalk was there when I exited so I jumped on. Once I got to the Boardwalk, I got my pretzel, then took the boat to Epcot and entered through the International Gateway.
The pretzel was just OK – it wasn’t what I expected. It was kind of like a cookie.
I was in time to see the 5pm showing of Impressions De France. It was very pretty and does make you want to visit France. When it ended I saw the Statue Act in front of Paris.
I headed over towards Canada but was still a little early for the Off Kilter show so wandered around. I found a seat for the show a little before 6. They really have big following – the show was packed. They performed about 5 songs. The last time we watched them they only performed 3 songs so this was better. Most of the songs they played all sounded pretty similar to me.
Paul was late as usual. When the show ended (around 6:25) he still wasn’t there. I checked my cell phone and he left a message at 6:20 that he was just pulling into the Epcot parking lot and should be here shortly. I tried calling him back to meet him in Future World instead but went right into voice mail so just waited. He showed up a few minutes later looking well rested. Turns out, he went back to the hotel and just watched TV and relaxed.
We went to Honey I Shrunk the Audience next. No wait – we were able to walk right into the pre-show.
We drove over to the Swan next for dinner at Kimonos.
At every other Disney hotel we’ve driven too we’ve been asked at the guard booth what we were there for and asked for ID. The swan didn’t even have a guard booth, we just drove right in and parked. I guess it’s not really Disney.
We were in the mood for sushi and I read that the sushi here is very good and a lot of Japanese tourists eat here. It was very quiet when we got there and we chose a nice comfortable table with couches to sit at. We both had soda. We had pieces of eel sushi, egg sushi. A shrimp tempura roll, a soft shell crab roll, a dragon roll (kind of like a California roll but with eel and avocodo on top of it), and a spicy tuna roll (for Paul). The food was very good. As we were eating it became more crowded in the restaurant and there were a lot of Japanese people coming there to eat (always a good sign when Japanese people are eating at a Japanese restaurant). The total with tax and tip came to $56.12
We were planning to make it back to Epcot for Illuminations but by the time we were done eating it was 10 to 9 already. We just missed the boat back to Epcot so we watched the fireworks from a bridge by the Boardwalk. Then we walked back to the swan. Karaoke was going on in Kimonos so we walked back but no one was singing
We went back to the car and headed over to Pleasure Island. What a difference from last night to tonight. We found a great parking spot (there were plenty) and strolled in. It was so empty. We walked into Mannequins and there were only 4 people there and no one was dancing so we walked out. We walked into Motion which also only had about 4 people none of which were dancing. But we sat down and started watching the music videos. We stayed for about 40 minutes then headed over to Comedy Warehouse. We saw the 10:30 show. It was funny, but not as funny as Thursday’s show was.
We left Pleasure Island after the show and headed over to Goodings to pick up another bottle of soda. Goodings is open 24 hours, but they are more expensive than Publix.
We got back to the room and went to bed by 1:30am.
Did we meet the tentative plan? No
Monday 4/29/02
Tentative Plan: MGM, Blizzard Beach, Epcot, Priority Seating at California Grill 9:15 – fireworks at 9:30 arrive early ask for window seat
We deviated from our tentative plan again.
We got a late start and didn’t leave until close to 11am. I wanted to go back to Magic Kingdom while Paul wanted to go to Disney Quest. So that’s what we did, with plans to meet at Wolfgang Puck Express at the Marketplace at 2pm.
Paul dropped me off at the Wilderness Lodge where I just missed the boat to the Magic Kingdom. About 20 minutes later another boat came and I was off.
I went through the security check with no hassles. It’s odd – some of the security guards scrutinize every item in your bag, while others just give it a cursory look. The Magic Kingdom was crowded today. I waited on a long line (about 40 minutes) to see Pirates of the Caribbean. Then I walked over to the Country Bear Jamboree. People in the audience were really getting into this show. On the way out I wandered through Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe and saw 2 really cute ornaments. I figured since we were meeting at the Marketplace, I’d check the Days of Christmas store for them.
By now, it was about 1pm so I needed to start heading over to the Marketplace to meet Paul. I took the resort Monorail to the Grand Floridian; then took the bus from there to the marketplace. I just missed a bus and had to wait about 10 minutes for the next one. While on the monorail my cell phone rang – it was Paul. So I told him I was running a few minutes late and would be at Wolfgang Puck Express closer to 2:15. I got there at 2:20.
We had lunch at Wolfgang Puck Express. Paul had the Asian Noodle Salad and Mango Iced Tea. I had the spinach and mushroom pizza and soda. The total was about $21.
We went into Disney’s Days of Christmas next. I found the two ornaments I saw in Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe as well as a few others so we bought them. We spent about $92 with our Disney Club Discount.
By now, it was around 3:15 so we headed over to Typhoon Lagoon. We floated around the Lazy River then went into the Wave Pool
We left Typhoon Lagoon around 5:40 (they close at 6) and headed over to Belz outlets. Paul found a nice suede jacket, some shirts, sunglasses, and some souvenirs.
Then we headed over to this Go Cart place that we used to go to. We went on the two people cars then played some video games.
We decided we weren’t in the mood to go to California Grille tonight after all. We ended up having dinner at Bill Wong’s on International Drive. This is a Chinese buffet we’ve gone to a few times on other trips. The total with tax and tip was $41.
We got back to Vistana around 10:45 and started doing some laundry and packing since we are checking out tomorrow.
Did we meet the tentative plan? No
Tuesday 4/30/02
Tentative Plan: Check out Vistana, Magic Kingdom, Fly Home
We never received maid service at all this whole week that we were here. This was odd. Usually we received maid service once during the week. We figured since we checked in mid week, it threw off their schedule. Not a big deal – we did fine without it.
At 9am the maid was knocking on our door to see when we were checking out. I told her not until around 10 or 10:15. Check out is 10 so it’s kind of rude that they are knocking at 9 to see when you are going. Then the engineer came and knocked because he thought we were gone already and wanted to check something with the lights. Paul called the front desk and asked if we can have a little later checkout – so they said 11:30 is fine. Then at 10 the maid knocked again, I told her we were staying a little longer – until 11:30. Then I put the do not disturb sign on the door.
We left around 11 and went to check out. There were no charges. We made a few local calls as well as connecting to the internet several times. I asked about the maid service. The clerk checking us out was clueless, but one of the women working there even thought it was odd that we didn’t get maid service. But she didn’t know why not. She said I should call owner services and ask them since it was noted in the computer that there wasn’t maid service.
We headed to MGM. It was pretty crowded today. We got fastpasses for the Little Mermaid since there was a 75 minute wait.
We had our picture taken with Mickey.
We went to the 12:30 Millionaire show. Paul made it to first place, but not when they were looking to fill the hot seat unfortunately.
When the show ended we went to see the Muppets since we didn’t see that the other day when we were here. Paul was snoring during this show.
We snacked on a pretzel with cheese sauce to hold us over until our late lunch we’d have before leaving.
We went to see the little Mermaid with our fastpass – very convenient. We walked right in.
We saw the next Millionaire Show (I think it was 2:40). Neither of us made it to the hot seat, but we had fun anyway.
When this ended we headed over to the Marketplace. We had lunch at Wolfgang Puck Café. We both had soda. We started with the fried calamari appetizer. I had the shrimp with linguine in scampi sauce. Paul had the rosemary chicken with a side of Pad Thai. We couldn’t finish our food, so got a lot of it wrapped to go. We figured it would make a good snack on the plane. Total with tax and tip was approximately $54.
We went into the Gourmet Pantry and bought some chocolate covered pretzels for Paul to bring to work and some for me too. I finally remembered (Paul reminded me) to get the raspberry chocolate chip cookie that I like.
We realized the Wolfgang Puck containers wouldn’t do well being packed and jostled around on the plane so we stopped in Goodings and bought some gladware which we transferred the food into.
We headed to the airport and it started raining. We got there later than we planned to. We didn’t get to the airport until around 6pm. They had kiosks that we used to check in rather than stand in the long line to get to the counter. This was very quick and convenient. Luckily, we packed an extra bag – we always end up going home with more stuff than we started with. So we checked our big bag and also the extra bag we packed.
The flight left about 15 minutes late. There was a lot of turbulence and it was a very bumpy ride.
We landed about 5 minutes late. It was about 50 degrees in New Jersey when we landed. It felt good after all the heat of the last week.
We got our luggage and called Corporate Park to let them know we were ready. They picked us up within 5 minutes and our car was ready for us. We were on our way home within a few minutes. We got home a little after midnight.
Did we meet the tentative plan? No, except for flying home
FINAL THOUGHTS
I really enjoyed flying on Tuesday. The airport wasn’t crowded and the flights weren’t full.
Spending some time on my own, and letting Paul rest for a few hours here and there worked very well. We’ll probably do more of that on our next trip in August.
Usually, I’m really depressed when a Disney trip comes to an end, but I’ll be back in about two weeks for a few extra Disney days after a business trip to Orlando; and Paul and I will both be back in August.
Since we’ve been here so often, we don’t have to spend all our times in the theme parks. Some of the best times we had this trip were playing in the water at Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach.
Until the next Disney Trip…
Noreen Chin
Noreen.s.chin@citigroup.com
This is Noreen's fourth trip report for MousePlanet.
WHO ARE WE?
Noreen - 33 years old; First Vice President at an Investment Banking Firm in New York City. I will be the author of the report.
Paul (my husband) - 33 years old; Multimedia Developer at a Management Consulting Firm in New York City. Paul may insert his comments in the report.
Paul and I have been to Disney World several times in the last few years. It has become our favorite Vacation. We went to Disney Land (California) for the first time in January 1997 and became engaged at Sea World.
PLANNING
Historically Paul and my vacation plans for any given year usually include two 10-day trips (usually 1 to Disney) and several long weekend trips. Normally during the Disney trip we would spend a week in our timeshare (Vistana) and several days at one of the Disney Resorts. Now that we have Kiki (our adorable Akita puppy) we don’t want to be away that long, so we’ve cut our trips down to a week or a week and a day. We started this when we went to Disney September 2001 and flew down Saturday afternoon, spent Saturday night at a cheaper hotel, then checked into the timeshare Sunday for the next week. We liked that plan and will probably do it again (unless Paul wants to drive down then we’ll have to fiddle with the days again)
An extra Disney Trip - One day in February 2002 Paul and I were in the car discussing when we wanted to go to Disney and where else we wanted to go this year. I figured he’d want to do one trip to an Island or maybe a cruise. But he surprised me by asking when our Premium Annual passes expire (September 8, 2002) and saying why not get even more value out of them by planning another Disney trip prior to their expiration. You don’t have to ask me twice – I love Disney. The next night I received my Mickey Monitor and saw they are having special Annual Passholder rates at the various hotels so now we’re thinking maybe an August trip. We’ve never been to Disney World in August and I’m sure it will be disgustingly hot and steamy, but since we go to Disney often, we don’t have to keep running through the parks – we can spend the early morning at a park, spend the hot part of the day at either a water park or even the hotel pool, then back to a park at night. We’re still deciding but the thought of going again before the passes expire make me very happy. I booked 9 days at Disney’s Yacht & Beach Club (Beach Club side) for August 2002.
Another extra Disney Trip – I found out I need to go to Orlando on business in May (staying at the Hyatt at the Orlando airport). Since I’m going to be there anyway, have a premium annual pass, and the rates are so good – I added a few days to the business trip and will stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge (Savannah view) after the business portion of my trip.
Back to this trip - Our plans changed several times throughout the planning process for this trip…First our timeshare was not available the dates we wanted, booking a week at Animal Kingdom Lodge and planning to drive since flight prices were being quoted as around $500 each, then realizing we can fly at a reasonable price midweek and we aren’t locked into arriving on the weekend if we’re not staying at the timeshare and booking Disney’s Old Key West Resort (1 Bedroom) for a Tuesday to Tuesday, then finding out we can stay at Vistana (our timeshare) from Tuesday to Tuesday after all. Although I kept making Disney reservations, I did cancel them as my plans changed to free up the rooms for others.
I will try to note the prices we paid for things throughout the trip but won’t be compulsive about it. I’ll know what we spent for a meal in a restaurant because we’ll have a receipt but for how many ice cream bars, bottles of water, etc that we buy during the day, I won’t be compulsive about keeping track of those.
Lodging
On 3/5/02 I tried to book one week at our timeshare (Vistana) for Sunday 4/21/02 to Sunday 4/28/02 but nothing was available for that week. This is the first time the week I wanted wasn’t available and we’ve owned our timeshare since 1995. Our timeshare only allows you to check in Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Or so I thought – I later learned of some other ways to use my timeshare.
Paul suggested we try booking something at Disney’s Boardwalk for the week instead. I called Disney also on 3/5/02 and nothing is available at the Boardwalk with any discount for that week either. The only deluxe property available with an annual pass discount is Animal Kingdom Lodge Savannah View for $1,659 total with tax for the 7 nights so I booked that. I cancelled this reservation on 3/22/02.
Paul and I were looking into various flights and were not having much luck with the dates we wanted. We were being quoted $500 each for the round trip flight to Orlando. That’s ridiculously high – the most we’ve ever paid to go to Disney by plane was around $250 each (and that was around New Year’s Millennium when it turned 2000). So we were planning to drive down to Florida. However, if we could fly on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday we could get a cheaper flight (and not have to drive 20 hours each way). Since our timeshare isn’t available anyway, we aren’t locked into arriving on the weekend. So I called Disney again on 3/16/02. I booked Old Key West Resort a 1 bedroom (which has a jacuzzi, full kitchen, living room, washer and dryer) with the annual pass discount it came out to $2040. This was cancelled on 3/26/02.
I kept trying Vistana (our timeshare) to see if anything opened up. I was advised to book a later week and just put it through the exchange system and exchange into another resort. Disney’s Old Key West, Boardwalk Villas, and Wilderness Lodge Villas are part of the exchange company. On March 21, 2002 that ’s what I tried doing, but the exchange company said Vistana isn’t set up yet for request first and deposit later service and I had to speak to Vistana member services.
Finally, I spoke to Harumi at Vistana Member services and she explained the benefits of our timeshare and the options portion and told me we can stay at Vistana (our timeshare) using options with a midweek check in. Our regular 2 bedroom 2 bath condo is worth 65,000 options. A 2 bedroom isn’t available Tuesday to Tuesday, but a 1-bedroom premium is and only costs 44,000 options. So we will have an additional 21,000 options to play with this year. The 1-bedroom premium has the same amenities as our normal 2 bedroom but without the second bedroom. So this is now booked. We’ll still have a jacuzzi in the master bedroom, living room, kitchen, dining room, patio, washer dryer, etc. This was too good to pass up and since my timeshare is paid for already we’ve just saved the over $2000 Disney’s OKW would have cost us for a 1 bedroom.
Car Rental
We are definitely going to rent a car as we have in the past. Since our trip will be spent off-site a rental car is a must. Even when we stay at Disney, Paul doesn’t like being dependent on a bus/boat/etc. We’ve found a lot of fun things to do and restaurants we like off-site and want the flexibility to go. We may use the Disney transportation sometimes (for park hopping), but I like the convenience of knowing my car is waiting for me in a lot and not having to depend on a bus/tram/boat.
On 2/12/02, I reserved the following rental car:
National – A fullsize with unlimited mileage for $336.89. Used the Disney Annual Pass discount code. Pickup is at the airport. This was for our original dates of 4/13- 4/20. This was cancelled on 3/22/02.
On 3/7/02, I reserved the following rental car:
Avis – A midsize with unlimited mileage for $338.50. Used AAA and Delta discount. Pickup is at the airport. This was for our second set of dates for 4/20 – 4/28. This was cancelled on 3/22/02.
On 3/18/02, I reserved the following rental car:
National – A fullsize with unlimited mileage for $336.89. Used the Disney Annual Pass discount. Pickup is at the airport. This is for 4/23-4/30
Flight
On 3/7/02 I held our flight. $295 per person. On Delta Airlines on Saturday 4/20/02 leaving from Newark Airport at 4:15 pm landing in Orlando at 6:50 pm. Coming home Sunday 4/28/02 on Delta Airline it’s leaving Orlando at 7:10pm, connecting through Atlanta, and landing at Newark Airport at 11:52 pm. This will be held until midnight Friday 3/8/02. We let this expire since we really didn’t want to waste time connecting and it wasn’t that cheap anyway and we changed the dates of our trip.
On 3/21/02 I held our flight. $201 per person. On Delta Airlines on Tuesday 4/23/02 it’s flight #2453 leaving from Newark Airport at 2:05 pm landing in Orlando at 4:41 pm. Coming home Tuesday 4/30/02 on Delta Airlines it’s flight # 2478 leaving Orlando at 7:40pm and landing at Newark Airport at 10:17 pm. This will be held until midnight Friday 3/22/02. I called back on Friday 3/22/02 and paid for the tickets – they will be Etickets. Nice direct flights without stopping or changing planes and a reasonable price.
We are going to use long term parking right near Newark airport at Corporate Park. We used them for our last Disney trip (September 2001) and it was great.
Driving
We were in Disney World on September 11, 2001 when the terrorist attacks occurred. Although we weren’t scheduled to leave until the Sunday after, we ended up driving all the way back to NJ rather than flying back. Paul still isn’t keen on getting on a plane. We’re thinking we may drive down again for this trip. Yes, it will take longer to get there and we’ll have less time for playing in Disney. But we’ll have the peace of mind of controlling our journey. Also, we’ll save money on plane tickets, airport parking, and the car rental. Since we decided to go Tuesday to Tuesday and found a relatively inexpensive flight, we are back to flying down.
Attractions
Paul and I are thinking of visiting Discovery Cove so we can swim with the Dolphins. We swam with Dolphins during our trip to Hawaii in September 2000 and really enjoyed it. However, I read in someone’s trip report that went that most of the attractions (including swimming with the dolphins) are in deep water. Paul doesn’t know how to swim so I don’t know if we’ll go after all. Paul said I should go and he’ll watch, but maybe we’ll wait for another trip to do so. We later decided to save this for our August trip since the parks generally will be crowded and hot; at least Discovery Cove limits the amount of people that go. Since the Discovery Cove admission also gets us admission to Sea World we will save that for August as well. We are also planning to spend a day at Universal Studios / Islands of Adventure. We may also go to Busch Gardens since we haven’t done that in a few years.
Food
There are some restaurants we’ve been to on previous trips and will probably repeat. Some of the restaurants I’m hoping to try for the first time this trip are at the Resorts (Citricos in the Grand Floridian and Jiko at Animal Kingdom Lodge). Some of the restaurants we’ve visited in the past and will probably repeat are Beaches & Cream at the Beach Club, Wolfgang Puck at Disney’s West Side, California Grille at the Contemporary, and Emeril’s at Universal City Walk.
We find it hard making dinner and/or lunch reservations in advance. We’re usually very spontaneous with these things. I don’t know what I’ll want to eat two months later or even what time I’ll want to eat. We’ve also run into a few problems during our trips because we’ll run around at the parks and by the time we leave and are ready to eat dinner it’s late and many times the restaurants are closed by the time we get there. We’ve ended up with cereal, leftovers, or any 24hour place we can find for dinner several times during our last few trips. At least in the timeshare we will have a full kitchen that we will make sure we have some food in. It’s a great convenience (as well as a money and time saver) to have a regular breakfast right in the timeshare.
During the last few trips, we’ve made a few priority seatings and they’ve worked out pretty well for us. We made a few priority seatings before leaving for Florida. The priority seatings we had are as follows:
Tuesday 4/23 – Jiko – 7:15pm
Saturday 4/27 – Citricos – 7:40pm
Monday 4/29 – California Grille – 9:15 (fireworks at 9:30; arrive early ask for window seat)
I tried making a reservation for dinner at Emeril’s on Friday 4/26 but they are totally booked for dinner the whole month of April. So I made a reservation for lunch on Friday 4/26 at 1:30pm.
Admission Media
Paul and I bought premium annual passes during our September 2001 trip. We also have one day left on our Universal passes that include Universal Studios and Universal Islands of Adventure.
Other People
Paul likes to invite other people to join us in Disney World for two reasons. One – we normally have a two bedroom, two bath condo when we stay at the timeshare so we certainly have the room. Two – I like to run around (typical commando mode) while Paul is more laid back. If other people are with us, it tends to slow us down a little. It’s just going to be us this time since we are staying in a 1 bedroom. However, my sister’s sister in law (Denise), her husband (Paul), and their children (Nicole & Anthony) will be at Disney and our dates overlap a little. We’re planning to get together with Denise & Paul for dinner and Pleasure Island one night. Denise’s in-laws will also be there so they will baby-sit one night so Denise & Paul can come out with us.
General Planning
I know it’s useful to make a rough outline of what parks to hit on what days as well as make priority seatings in advance of the trip. I’ve printed out the park hours for the dates we’re there and am trying to come up with a rough game plan. I’m trying to use the blocks of time method (ex – morning, afternoon, evening, night). Paul doesn’t like this idea because he feels it takes away the spontaneity of just having fun on vacation.
I’m also going to try to right down the tentative plan for the day and see how close we come to doing what was planned.
DAY BY DAY
The week before our trip
Nothing out of the ordinary – just work and all the last minute details of going away.
The day before our trip – Monday 4/22/02
Paul had Monday off also (he has all these extra vacation days he needs to use). I worked all day to get things set before leaving. I didn’t leave work until 6:30 (later than I normally like to leave since I start at around 7:30am). Driving home it was pouring rain – better today than tomorrow when we’re flying out. When I got home, Paul was in the hot tub and Kiki (our puppy) was soaked because she was hanging out on the deck with Paul. They looked like they were having fun, so I changed and jumped in too.
We picked up dinner from a local restaurant – Mamacitas, then finished the rest of the packing.
Our friends (Chris & Alise) who are going to check on the house didn’t have the keys to our house anymore. Good thing I called to check. So on the way to the airport we’ll drop a set in their mailbox.
Tuesday 4/23/02
Tentative Plan: Drop off Kiki, Fly to Orlando, Check in Vistana, Publix, Priority Seating at Jiko 7:15
I got up all excited because we’re finally going to Disney World. Since our flight isn’t until the afternoon we don’t have to leave until about 10:30 or so. We used to always take early flights – the earlier the better to get to Disney as soon as possible. Since we have to take Kiki to her school, and they don’t open until 10, we’re taking a later flight. In a way it wasn’t that bad – we weren’t as rushed in the morning and had time to finish any other last minute things.
We left about 10:30. We dropped off Kiki at her school. One of the teachers dog sits on the side and will take her home with him for the week. She was happy to be there. We were upset to leave her. I felt really bad when I turned to leave and she started following me, but her teacher was holding her leash so she had to stay.
We dropped our keys in Chris and Alise’s mailbox and then we were finally on the way to the airport. We dropped the car at Corporate Park (right near Newark airport). We used them last trip also. They are very efficient. We pulled up – they load our luggage into their van, ask when we’re returning, give us a little ticket and take us right to the airport.
We did curbside check in with Delta. We did pretty good packing – my new big suitcase (which is huge) carried almost everything and still had plenty of room in it was checked. It ended up getting a “heavy” ticket on it because it weighed a lot. It wasn’t overweight where we had to pay extra but it was heavy. We each had a carry on that had an outfit, bathing suit, and then between us we had the laptop, video camera, digital camera, and some other stuff. We always overpack.
We got through security pretty quickly. We were at the gate by 12 noon and our flight isn’t until 2:05. This is the first time we’re doing a midweek type of vacation (leaving and returning on Tuesday instead of the weekend). We had some pretzels from Wetzel’s pretzels in the airport for lunch – about $11. But not just normal pretzels – a pretzel wrapped around a hot dog, a cheese pretzel, very interesting pretzels.
We boarded the plane around 1:30. It was very empty. Only about 40 people on the whole plane. So the person who was supposed to sit in the row with us moved and took another row. They didn’t show any movies or serve any meals. Just soda and trail mix. The flight was very prompt – we were taking off exactly at 2:05. We landed early – at about 4:20.
Since it was so empty we didn’t do our usual routine of Paul going to get the luggage while I wait on the line for rental cars. We both went to get the luggage which came out really fast (ours was the 3rd bag out), then went down to the rental car counter. There was nobody on line and we were helped right away. We got our paperwork done and went to pick out a full size car. I like the way National does this – you get to pick your own car. We picked a grey Buick Century. Paul wanted a different one instead but the keys weren’t there.
This was the first time we flew since September 11 and it was a good experience.
We got to Vistana to check in and were on our way to our room - #1935 in the Lakes section and a top floor. We walked in and there was a problem. We weren’t in the right type of room. We were supposed to be in a Deluxe One Bedroom which has all the amenities of the normal two bedroom we usually get but without the second bedroom. This room wasn’t that but a lock off unit – it was a one bedroom but smaller with a mini kitchen, no Jacuzzi and no balcony. It was very nice, but we are using more options to pay for the bigger one. So I called the front desk and they looked into it and called me back in about 10 minutes. They screwed up and would move us. So we went back to the front desk and got a new room - #1794 in the Lakes Section also a top floor. We usually request the top floor because they have nice vaulted ceilings. They are out of the deluxe one bedrooms so they gave us a two bedroom.
By the time all this took place and we got into our new room, it was about 6:40pm. Since we have Jiko reservations at 7:15pm I called to change them to a little later. I didn’t think we’d make the 7:15. Also, Paul wanted to get settled in a little. The only thing they had available was 8:45 so we took that. I had time to unpack now.
We went to Publix in the meantime to do our food shopping for the week. Nothing major, but we like to have breakfast food, soda, snacks, bottled water to freeze and carry to the parks. We spent $67.67 in Publix. We put the food away, then headed off to Jiko.
We got to Animal Kingdom Lodge about 8:40. We waited about 10 minutes to be seated. While waiting we wandered around outside by the pool and the arcade and Mara.
We were seated before 9. Service was very quick. We were starving. We started off with the bacon/onion flatbread (the waitress recommended this highly). It was brought out quickly and was very good. We both had soda. Paul had the lamb shank dish and I had the monkfish (another recommendation by the waitress). It was delicious. I read on the internet that American Express users receive free dessert with $50 purchased so I asked about it and sure enough received a free dessert. I had the apple crumb dessert. Our total with tax and tip was $75.91.
We wandered around Animal Kingdom Lodge some more after eating. We looked at the overlook to see the animals. When I’m in Orlando on business in May, I’m adding a few extra days at Disney and have been debating whether to stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge or Port Orleans. I have reservations for both. Paul wants me to stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge since he feels it will be safer since I’ll be alone. I have a nice savannah view room booked so it looks like I may get to use it.
Paul didn’t want to go to Pleasure Island. He was tired and hasn’t been feeling that great so wanted to get a good night’s sleep to be ready to run around tomorrow.
We got back to Vistana around 11:30. Paul logged onto the computer to check in with work. We watched some TV and went to bed by 1am.
Did we meet the tentative plan? Yes, but changed the time on our priority seating at Jiko
Wednesday 4/24/02
Tentative Plan: MGM, Epcot (AP Lounge and AP Illuminations), Dinner at Kimonos
I was up by 7 and started getting ready. I made breakfast in the timeshare – bacon and eggs.
I woke Paul a little after 8. After eating Paul still wasn’t feeling good so he lay back down for a little while. I worked on this report while waiting for him.
Meanwhile, I know time is ticking away and the parks aren’t open that late so I’m anxious to get there.
We got to MGM around 10:30am. We went through the security check pretty quickly.
We saw the first Who Wants to Be a Millionaire Show at 10:50. When we came out we got a fastpass for the 12:30 show.
We went through Walt Disney’s – One Man’s Dream exhibit. This was very interesting and I can see how people spend a long time in here. The movie was pretty good too. I never realized how he really went from nothing to creating all of this.
One thing I was happy to notice – the bathrooms now have normal liquid soap. I hated the old powder soap they used to have. I used to carry my own little liquid soap because I don’t like the powder one; I guess I won’t have to do that anymore.
We saw the 12:30 Millionaire show. We were getting hungry by now, but wanted to go on Tower of Terror and Rock n Roller Coaster before eating lunch.
We got a fastpass for Rock N Roller Coaster which was good from 1:45 to 2:45. Then we waited on line for Tower of Terror. There was about a 30 minute wait which worked out well. By the time we got off Tower of Terror it was 1:45 so we headed over to Rock n Roller Coaster and went right into the fast pass line. The standby line was up to 45 minutes now so we avoided that. The ride broke down when we were in the room where the cars take off. It took about 15 minutes for it to get running again and we waited for the front row.
By the time we got out it was about 2:45 and we were starving. Paul wanted to eat at 50’s Prime Time Café so we headed over there. Imagine our surprise when it was crowded and it was about a 30 minute wait. We put our name in and waited. While waiting we were wandering and ended up seeing Hollywood & Vine (which is connected by the bathrooms. It looked really good so we figured we’d ask how long a wait to eat there for lunch (and we’d see characters too). Unfortunately, they closed at 2:30 but reopened at 3:30 for dinner. We didn’t want to wait that long so we went back to waiting at 50’s Prime Time Café. When it was 3:20 and we still weren’t called I went over and put my name in at Hollywood & Vine for 3:30 and asked for the Fantasmic Dinner Package. There aren’t characters at the dinner buffet. We were seated at 3:35 and were given our blue slip for Fantasmic. The food was good and a nice selection. I even tried the red velvet cake for dessert that I really liked. The total with tax and tip was $45.14.
At 5pm we watched the Stars and Motor Cars Parade. It was cute but very short. I would hate to wait for hours holding down a piece of concrete for it. We watched from the other side of the lagoon. It wasn’t the best seats but we were able to see enough and weren’t crushed.
At 5:30 we went to the Great Movie Ride. We waited about ½ hour and had the gangster side. This was closed when we were here in September so we wanted to go on this time.
We saw the first ½ of the 6:30 Hunchback of Notre Dame show but Paul wanted to go to the 7pm Millionaire show so we went over there. This was the last show of the day. We didn’t make it into the hot seat but were in the top 10 a few times.
When we got out we wandered over to Oscar’s (where we were supposed to go with our Fantasmic card to go into the special seating area). We got seated for Fantasmic about 8pm – the show starts at 8:30. It was packed. Meanwhile, we strolled in at 8 and got front row seats in the Witch section. I was worried we’d get wet from the water parts, but we didn’t. The Fantasmic meal was worth it. We wouldn’t have sat around waiting 2 hours for Fantasmic. I guess that’s why we’ve been in the Standing section the last few times we saw it. The only time we waited a long time holding our seats was for the premiere of Fantasmic (we were here for it).
After the show ended, it took a while to exit the theater. I don’t get why they don’t open more exits (like the ones on the bottom of the theater). We finally made it back to the car and headed back to Vistana. We were still full from our late lunch so didn’t feel like having dinner. Also, we were kind of tired and decided not to go to Pleasure Island tonight.
We went in the Jacuzzi and were in bed by midnight.
It doesn’t sound like we’re doing much which is very unlike my normal commando mentality, but we’ve been here many times and will continue to return. Also, it’s kind of crowded. Instead of rushing from one thing to the next, we’re spending more time on our favorite things and seeing new things. The weather was beautiful today. Warm but not boiling hot and not very humid.
Did we meet the tentative plan? No, we ended up spending the whole day at MGM
Thursday 4/25/02
Tentative Plan: Magic Kingdom, MGM (Fantasmic), Dinner at Wolfgang Puck and Pleasure Island with Denise and Paul
We had breakfast in the timeshare.
We went to Magic Kingdom because I wanted to see Cinderella’s Surprise Celebration show at the castle stage. We missed the first show but saw the second one at 11:30.
After the show, we went to the Haunted Mansion. There was about a 20 minute wait. It was pretty crowded and hot today. It was about 12:45 by now. We were starting to get hungry for lunch but figured we’d wait until we got to Typhoon Lagoon. As we were passing the Ice Cream shop on Main Street, we saw all these people with ice cream so Paul wanted some. He got a double scoop cone with chocolate chip mint and strawberry. This was huge. I asked for an empty little cup so I could take some of his ice cream. Good thing I got the cup, his cone broke. Too much ice cream on it I guess. We sat and ate the ice cream. Then we left Magic Kingdom.
We packed our stuff for Typhoon Lagoon and had it in the car. We headed to Typhoon Lagoon. We stopped at the gift shop to buy a Water Camera ($16.95) since they didn’t have any in Publix yesterday. We went into the Wave Pool and waited for the big waves. They didn’t start right away but had the bobbing waves instead. Finally, they started the big waves. One of my water shoes went flying off my foot when a wave hit. Luckily, a lady grabbed it so I got it back.
After spending some time in the wave pool, we got out and went to Leaning Palms for lunch. Paul also had his sandwich he packed. We ordered the double cheeseburger combo (came with fries and soda) that we shared. It was about $10.
After lunch it was about 3:15 and Paul wanted to go in the lazy river; I wanted to go on some slides so we decided to each go do our thing and meet back by the hot dog stand by the wave pool around 4:15. I went on Mayday Falls and Keelhaul Falls. They were both fun. On one of them, when I got to the end, the tube flipped over and tossed me into the water. Then I walked to the other side of the park and went to the Storm Slides. I went on the center one. I didn’t feel like waiting on line again for the other two. I figured I’d jump in the lazy river to get back to the other side to meet Paul. As I was coasting along on the lazy river who catches up to me but Paul. That was convenient – now I don’t have to look for him at our meeting spot. It wasn’t that sunny anymore, so we got our stuff and left Typhoon Lagoon. We picked up some mini donuts and a strawberry slushie on the way out (about $7).
We went back to Vistana to shower and change. Paul also downloaded some of the pictures from the digital camera onto the laptop. While he did that, I did some laundry. It sounds like a chore, but I enjoy doing laundry and the machine is right in the timeshare.
It poured for about ½ hour. We sat on the patio and watched the rain.
We headed over to the Polynesian around 7:45. We had dinner at the Kona Café. We shared the crab cake appetizer and the chicken wings appetizer. Then we also split one entrée – the Asian stir fry with chicken. We both had soda. The appetizers were very good. The Asian stir fry was way too salty. The waitress offered to bring us another one without salt but we were kind of full already so declined her offer. The total with tax and tip was about $44.
Denise and Paul met us at Kona Café as we were finishing our meal. Then we headed over to Pleasure Island. We missed the 9:30 comedy show but wandered around and went into 8 Traxx for a little while. Paul and Denise did one of those posters where you put your face on someone else’s body. We went to the 10:40 comedy show. It was really funny. Then we went into the Adventurer’s Club for a little while. We didn’t want to get too involved because we wanted to see the countdown to midnight show. What a disappointment that was. It used to always be a whole show with dancers and at midnight fireworks and confetti. Well, the dancers were gone, the band that’s been playing throughout the night just kept playing and a few minutes before 12 some security type guy comes out to stop them playing. Then you count down to midnight and there are a few fireworks – no confetti. At first I thought maybe the dancers are on vacation, but Paul said maybe this was done to save some money. It’s much cheaper to do it this way. I hope it isn’t a permanent change. Denise was tired so we started heading out. Paul (Denise’s Paul) was hungry so we drove over to Wendy’s to get him some food. We showed them our timeshare then dropped them back off at the Polynesian.
We got back and went to bed about 2am.
Did we meet the tentative plan? No, we changed the plan again, but we did make it to Magic Kingdom and later met up with Denise & Paul for Pleasure Island.
Friday 4/26/02
Tentative Plan: Universal, Islands of Adventure, Lunch at Emeril’s
We decided we didn’t feel like going to Universal today. They haven’t added anything new since our last trip so we decided to do some more Disney stuff.
I was up by 8 and got ready, did some laundry, and made breakfast.
We headed to Animal Kingdom around 10:30. We went into DinoLand and started off at Primieval Whirl. There was about a 25 minute wait. You get banged around a lot. It was a cute ride though.
Next I went on Triceratop Spin. Paul videotaped me on this but didn’t go on. It’s very similar to Dumbo or Magic Carpets of Aladdin except these are dinosaurs. I only waited about 10 minutes for this.
Next we walked right onto Dinosaur. That was a surprise – we expected a bigger wait here.
It was about 11:30 by now so we got a fastpass for It’s Tough to Be a Bug which was good from 12:10 to 1:10. It was getting kind of hot out so we got a frozen lemonade and an egg roll which we ate while waiting. We were planning to go to Kali River Rapids, but I didn’t feel like sloshing around the rest of the day so decided against it. Once it was 1:10 I went to get fast passes for Kilamanjaro Safari. These were good from 1:20 to 2:20; the standby line was already up to 45 minutes.
We went to Tough to Be a Bug and got right on with our fastpasses. We walked past a lot of people waiting in the standby line. This was very cute – as it always is. We were done by 12:30. We didn’t want to wait for almost an hour to do the safari so we left to head to Epcot. We gave our fastpasses to some people getting onto the tram as we were getting off.
We got to Epcot around 1:15. We went right on Spaceship Earth with no wait. Then we walked through Innoventions and saw the Segway People Mover.
We walked over to the Land to find the Annual Passholder Lounge. It was very peaceful and calm in there. I thought Paul was going to take a nap. There are soft comfortable couches, TV’s, free drinks (soda, water, coffee, tea, hot chocolate), magazines and newspapers.
We were getting hungry and trying to decide what to eat for lunch. We took the boat across World Showcase and went to Japan. We had a late lunch around 3pm at Yakitori House. I had the shogun combination which had chicken on skewers, beef with onions, and rice. Paul had the beef curry with rice and a bowl of udon soup. We both had soda. The total came to approximately $18.
After eating we wandered around the store in Japan. They have all these nice moving clocks that play different songs and as we’re looking at them, we see the one we have that we bought in Fortunoff for our first anniversary.
By the time we were done browsing in the store in Japan it was almost 4:30 and time to head over to the America Gardens Theater for their Flower Power show. We saw Orleans perform. It wasn’t that crowded. We got there at 4:20 and had our choice of seats for a 4:30 show. It was very hot out.
When the show ended we listened to the American Fife & Drum corp. playing. Then we went into the American Adventure. It was nice and cool in here, but the show didn’t start until 5:30 (we waited about 15 minutes). Paul took a nap in the show. I thought it was very good. But they need to update the end – when they show the NY skyline, it still has the World Trade Center (which is still upsetting to see since I work close to where it used to stand).
We took the boat back across towards Future World. Since it was already after 6, we headed over towards Norway to watch Tapestry of Dreams Parade that was scheduled for 6:30. We got a fiesta margarita ($7) on the way. It had a combination of Lime, Strawberry, and Mango margarita. We watched the parade from an area in Norway. Cute, but I’m glad we didn’t claim a piece of sidewalk and hold it for long.
After the parade we went to Test Track. The standby line was 2 hours, so we went into the Single Rider Line. Even this was crowded. While standing in line waiting, they announced that inclement weather was coming and the ride may shut down. Sure enough 10 minutes later they closed the ride and told everyone to turn around and exit the same way they came in. It was raining pretty hard with lightening and thunder so we decided to leave. We got pretty wet running towards the exit. Then when we got to the trams, they weren’t running because of the lightening. This was our longest wait of the day. Just as we were planning to leave and just walk to the car, they started up. We waited almost 40 minutes for the trams to start up. So we got on the wet tram, get to the car, and realize we left the windows open since it was so hot out. So the seats in the car were wet too.
We went back to Vistana to change out of our wet clothes and decide where to go for dinner. We went in the Jacuzzi for a little while. We were looking at the different menu’s on the internet trying to figure out where to go for dinner, and we just weren’t in the mood to go running. So we cooked the frozen pizza we bought in Publix and had that for dinner. It was very good – DiGiorno – Mushroom, Spinach, and Garlic Pizza. I did some laundry and we went to bed.
Did we meet the tentative plan? No, we changed our plans.
Saturday 4/27/02
Tentative Plan: Animal Kingdom, Typhoon Lagoon, Magic Kingdom (fireworks),Priority Seating at Citricos 7:40
We decided to scrap our plans today. Paul’s feet are hurting – he has blisters on both of them.
We went to breakfast at Chef Mickey’s. We haven’t been there in years. It was a lot of fun and we took pictures with all the characters that came around. There was a decent selection on the buffet. As fun as this was, I’m glad we have the kitchen in the timeshare and we don’t have to spend time going out for breakfast every day. It took a long time. We got to the Contemporary around 10:30 and by the time we were seated and ate it was after 11:30. Breakfast cost approximately $40 with tax and tip.
We wandered around the Contemporary for a little while. Paul likes their arcade so he played in there. He won a lot of tickets (almost 400) on one game. They have a ticket counter machine that takes all the individual tickets and gives you a receipt saying how many credits you have (much easier to carry).
After the Contemporary we headed over to the Marketplace. We did a lot of shopping in World of Disney. I don’t understand how we always have so much more to buy when we’re here pretty often. This time, we had everything shipped home rather than trying to pack it in our suitcases and worrying about it breaking. We spent $275 in the World of Disney (including $16 for shipping). Then we went in Disney’s Days of Christmas. I found a bunch of ornaments in World of Disney so didn’t buy as much in here as I normally do. I only found one more ornament to buy in here. We also wandered around the Gourmet Pantry.
By the time we were done with all this shopping it was about 3pm. We figured we should eat a light lunch so we don’t mess up our dinner plans too much. We stopped at Wolfgang Puck Express and shared a Chinois Chicken Salad. Cost approximately $9. It was OK.
After eating we headed over to Blizzard Beach. We rented a locker for $9, changed, and went into the Lazy River. We circled the park about 2 times then got out and went on the storm slides, then the Family Raft Ride. Paul doesn’t really like going on the slides – he would prefer just to stay in the Lazy River. Then we went to the Wave Pool. Then back into the Lazy River. The park was closing at 6 so we got out of the Lazy River, got our stuff, and left by 5:45. Both water parks are fun, but we like Typhoon Lagoon better than Blizzard Beach.
We came back to Vistana to shower and change. We had a priority seating at Citricos, but Paul wasn’t in the mood for that so I cancelled the priority seating.
We went to Fulton’s Crab House for dinner at Pleasure Island. When we first gave our name (around 8:45) we were told it would be an hour wait. Then we found out you can eat at the bar tables and they are first come first serve. We ended up securing a table in the bar in about 15 minutes and we ate there. We both had soda. We started off with the fried calamari and lobster bisque soup. Then we shared the Lobster and Crab feast for two which had a whole lobster and various crab legs, potatoes, and spinach. Except for the spinach it was very good. The total with tax and tip came to $113.03
We were done around 10:15 and walked over to Pleasure Island to see if we could get into the 10:40 show, but it was already full. So we wandered over to the Westside and into the magic store. Paul enjoys watching the tricks and bought a few.
Did we meet the tentative plan? No, totally changed the plans again.
Sunday 4/28/02
Tentative Plan: Busch Gardens, Pleasure Island
As it’s becoming the norm, we did not follow our tentative plan today. We had breakfast in the timeshare.
We headed to Epcot in the morning. We went on the single rider line at Test Track. The standby line was already up to 45 minutes. It turned out that we were in the same car and ended up sitting next to each other in the front seat anyway. It was a family (mother, father, and two kids) that we went on with. The kids were both scared and wanted to sit with the mother in the back so we jumped in the front with the father.
Then we headed to Ellen’s Energy Adventure. Paul fell asleep in here. The show is very cute.
I wanted to see the Magical Moments parade at Magic Kingdom and Paul was exhausted and wanted to go to Disney Quest. Our plans were to each do the things we wanted and meet up again later. Paul dropped me off at the Polynesian to take the Monorail to Magic Kingdom around 1:15. Our plan is to meet at Epcot between 6 and 6:15 at the Off Kilter 6pm show in Canada.
I just missed a monorail but another one came by quickly. I got to Magic Kingdom and walked through to Liberty Square. I saw the 2:30 Hall of President’s show. When we exited, I found a great spot to watch the parade. The only negative was it was right in the sun so very hot. There was a bratty boy next to me with his family whining about this being lame and he didn’t want to wait. The mother seemed like she was fed up with him by now and just ignored him. Then the grand marshals for the parade came through but nothing else after that for a few minutes. So the bratty kid starts saying it’s over and that was dumb and let’s go (things like that). He really got on my nerves so I turned to him and told him the parade hasn’t started yet – that’s why all the people are still waiting. Then he says it’s supposed to start at 3 and it’s already after 3. I look at my watch and tell him – No, it’s only 3 minutes to 3. Finally, at 3 the parade begins. It was really cute. They have times when the kids in the audience go out and interact with the characters in the parade. Normally kids around 4 or 5 were participating. Well, the bratty boy (who I’d guess was maybe 8 or 9) decided to join in too. It was amazing to watch the transformation from this brat at the beginning to a boy really enjoying himself and interacting with the parade. He was all smiles by the time the parade ended.
I stopped in Peco Bill’s Café to have lunch after the parade. Cheeseburger, fries, and soda – cost $8.25. I found a little table near the back and sat to eat my lunch.
After lunch I was planning to go on Pirates of the Caribbean but the wait was way too long so I headed out of Magic Kingdom. I was planning to go to Epcot, but decided to go by way of the Boardwalk to try the black and white pretzel they have there. A bus to the Boardwalk was there when I exited so I jumped on. Once I got to the Boardwalk, I got my pretzel, then took the boat to Epcot and entered through the International Gateway.
The pretzel was just OK – it wasn’t what I expected. It was kind of like a cookie.
I was in time to see the 5pm showing of Impressions De France. It was very pretty and does make you want to visit France. When it ended I saw the Statue Act in front of Paris.
I headed over towards Canada but was still a little early for the Off Kilter show so wandered around. I found a seat for the show a little before 6. They really have big following – the show was packed. They performed about 5 songs. The last time we watched them they only performed 3 songs so this was better. Most of the songs they played all sounded pretty similar to me.
Paul was late as usual. When the show ended (around 6:25) he still wasn’t there. I checked my cell phone and he left a message at 6:20 that he was just pulling into the Epcot parking lot and should be here shortly. I tried calling him back to meet him in Future World instead but went right into voice mail so just waited. He showed up a few minutes later looking well rested. Turns out, he went back to the hotel and just watched TV and relaxed.
We went to Honey I Shrunk the Audience next. No wait – we were able to walk right into the pre-show.
We drove over to the Swan next for dinner at Kimonos.
At every other Disney hotel we’ve driven too we’ve been asked at the guard booth what we were there for and asked for ID. The swan didn’t even have a guard booth, we just drove right in and parked. I guess it’s not really Disney.
We were in the mood for sushi and I read that the sushi here is very good and a lot of Japanese tourists eat here. It was very quiet when we got there and we chose a nice comfortable table with couches to sit at. We both had soda. We had pieces of eel sushi, egg sushi. A shrimp tempura roll, a soft shell crab roll, a dragon roll (kind of like a California roll but with eel and avocodo on top of it), and a spicy tuna roll (for Paul). The food was very good. As we were eating it became more crowded in the restaurant and there were a lot of Japanese people coming there to eat (always a good sign when Japanese people are eating at a Japanese restaurant). The total with tax and tip came to $56.12
We were planning to make it back to Epcot for Illuminations but by the time we were done eating it was 10 to 9 already. We just missed the boat back to Epcot so we watched the fireworks from a bridge by the Boardwalk. Then we walked back to the swan. Karaoke was going on in Kimonos so we walked back but no one was singing
We went back to the car and headed over to Pleasure Island. What a difference from last night to tonight. We found a great parking spot (there were plenty) and strolled in. It was so empty. We walked into Mannequins and there were only 4 people there and no one was dancing so we walked out. We walked into Motion which also only had about 4 people none of which were dancing. But we sat down and started watching the music videos. We stayed for about 40 minutes then headed over to Comedy Warehouse. We saw the 10:30 show. It was funny, but not as funny as Thursday’s show was.
We left Pleasure Island after the show and headed over to Goodings to pick up another bottle of soda. Goodings is open 24 hours, but they are more expensive than Publix.
We got back to the room and went to bed by 1:30am.
Did we meet the tentative plan? No
Monday 4/29/02
Tentative Plan: MGM, Blizzard Beach, Epcot, Priority Seating at California Grill 9:15 – fireworks at 9:30 arrive early ask for window seat
We deviated from our tentative plan again.
We got a late start and didn’t leave until close to 11am. I wanted to go back to Magic Kingdom while Paul wanted to go to Disney Quest. So that’s what we did, with plans to meet at Wolfgang Puck Express at the Marketplace at 2pm.
Paul dropped me off at the Wilderness Lodge where I just missed the boat to the Magic Kingdom. About 20 minutes later another boat came and I was off.
I went through the security check with no hassles. It’s odd – some of the security guards scrutinize every item in your bag, while others just give it a cursory look. The Magic Kingdom was crowded today. I waited on a long line (about 40 minutes) to see Pirates of the Caribbean. Then I walked over to the Country Bear Jamboree. People in the audience were really getting into this show. On the way out I wandered through Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe and saw 2 really cute ornaments. I figured since we were meeting at the Marketplace, I’d check the Days of Christmas store for them.
By now, it was about 1pm so I needed to start heading over to the Marketplace to meet Paul. I took the resort Monorail to the Grand Floridian; then took the bus from there to the marketplace. I just missed a bus and had to wait about 10 minutes for the next one. While on the monorail my cell phone rang – it was Paul. So I told him I was running a few minutes late and would be at Wolfgang Puck Express closer to 2:15. I got there at 2:20.
We had lunch at Wolfgang Puck Express. Paul had the Asian Noodle Salad and Mango Iced Tea. I had the spinach and mushroom pizza and soda. The total was about $21.
We went into Disney’s Days of Christmas next. I found the two ornaments I saw in Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe as well as a few others so we bought them. We spent about $92 with our Disney Club Discount.
By now, it was around 3:15 so we headed over to Typhoon Lagoon. We floated around the Lazy River then went into the Wave Pool
We left Typhoon Lagoon around 5:40 (they close at 6) and headed over to Belz outlets. Paul found a nice suede jacket, some shirts, sunglasses, and some souvenirs.
Then we headed over to this Go Cart place that we used to go to. We went on the two people cars then played some video games.
We decided we weren’t in the mood to go to California Grille tonight after all. We ended up having dinner at Bill Wong’s on International Drive. This is a Chinese buffet we’ve gone to a few times on other trips. The total with tax and tip was $41.
We got back to Vistana around 10:45 and started doing some laundry and packing since we are checking out tomorrow.
Did we meet the tentative plan? No
Tuesday 4/30/02
Tentative Plan: Check out Vistana, Magic Kingdom, Fly Home
We never received maid service at all this whole week that we were here. This was odd. Usually we received maid service once during the week. We figured since we checked in mid week, it threw off their schedule. Not a big deal – we did fine without it.
At 9am the maid was knocking on our door to see when we were checking out. I told her not until around 10 or 10:15. Check out is 10 so it’s kind of rude that they are knocking at 9 to see when you are going. Then the engineer came and knocked because he thought we were gone already and wanted to check something with the lights. Paul called the front desk and asked if we can have a little later checkout – so they said 11:30 is fine. Then at 10 the maid knocked again, I told her we were staying a little longer – until 11:30. Then I put the do not disturb sign on the door.
We left around 11 and went to check out. There were no charges. We made a few local calls as well as connecting to the internet several times. I asked about the maid service. The clerk checking us out was clueless, but one of the women working there even thought it was odd that we didn’t get maid service. But she didn’t know why not. She said I should call owner services and ask them since it was noted in the computer that there wasn’t maid service.
We headed to MGM. It was pretty crowded today. We got fastpasses for the Little Mermaid since there was a 75 minute wait.
We had our picture taken with Mickey.
We went to the 12:30 Millionaire show. Paul made it to first place, but not when they were looking to fill the hot seat unfortunately.
When the show ended we went to see the Muppets since we didn’t see that the other day when we were here. Paul was snoring during this show.
We snacked on a pretzel with cheese sauce to hold us over until our late lunch we’d have before leaving.
We went to see the little Mermaid with our fastpass – very convenient. We walked right in.
We saw the next Millionaire Show (I think it was 2:40). Neither of us made it to the hot seat, but we had fun anyway.
When this ended we headed over to the Marketplace. We had lunch at Wolfgang Puck Café. We both had soda. We started with the fried calamari appetizer. I had the shrimp with linguine in scampi sauce. Paul had the rosemary chicken with a side of Pad Thai. We couldn’t finish our food, so got a lot of it wrapped to go. We figured it would make a good snack on the plane. Total with tax and tip was approximately $54.
We went into the Gourmet Pantry and bought some chocolate covered pretzels for Paul to bring to work and some for me too. I finally remembered (Paul reminded me) to get the raspberry chocolate chip cookie that I like.
We realized the Wolfgang Puck containers wouldn’t do well being packed and jostled around on the plane so we stopped in Goodings and bought some gladware which we transferred the food into.
We headed to the airport and it started raining. We got there later than we planned to. We didn’t get to the airport until around 6pm. They had kiosks that we used to check in rather than stand in the long line to get to the counter. This was very quick and convenient. Luckily, we packed an extra bag – we always end up going home with more stuff than we started with. So we checked our big bag and also the extra bag we packed.
The flight left about 15 minutes late. There was a lot of turbulence and it was a very bumpy ride.
We landed about 5 minutes late. It was about 50 degrees in New Jersey when we landed. It felt good after all the heat of the last week.
We got our luggage and called Corporate Park to let them know we were ready. They picked us up within 5 minutes and our car was ready for us. We were on our way home within a few minutes. We got home a little after midnight.
Did we meet the tentative plan? No, except for flying home
FINAL THOUGHTS
I really enjoyed flying on Tuesday. The airport wasn’t crowded and the flights weren’t full.
Spending some time on my own, and letting Paul rest for a few hours here and there worked very well. We’ll probably do more of that on our next trip in August.
Usually, I’m really depressed when a Disney trip comes to an end, but I’ll be back in about two weeks for a few extra Disney days after a business trip to Orlando; and Paul and I will both be back in August.
Since we’ve been here so often, we don’t have to spend all our times in the theme parks. Some of the best times we had this trip were playing in the water at Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach.
Until the next Disney Trip…
Noreen Chin
Noreen.s.chin@citigroup.com