Trip Reports
02-20-2007, 08:44 PM
Michael Banks - September 2002 - Animal Kingdom Lodge, All Star Movies
Time of Year: Fall
Travel Method: Plane, Rental Car
Resort: AKL, ASMoR
Accommodations: Standard Room
Ages Represented in Group: Infant, Elementary, Adult
WDW Experience Represented in Group: Veteran, Frequent, Infrequent, Rookie, DVC Member
Comments: Mike and Becca had intended to experience Walt Disney World without ever going into a park, but it's all about knowing the right people and that planned changed. They take a easy approach to things in this trip report and have a great time.
Michael Banks -- September 2002 -- Walt Disney World (AKL, ASMoR)
Cast Members
The Banks Family:
Mike (31) - your tour guide
Becca (30) - my wife
Cole (13 mo.) - our little guy
The Iacono Family:
Tracy (34) - my cousin
Dave (35) - Tracy’s husband
Jenna (9) - my cousin, Tracy’s niece
Alec (4) - Dave and Tracy’s (D&T) son
Pre-Planning
4/6/2002
Simple phone calls to see how family members are doing. That’s all it takes for us to get the thought of a trip down to WDW into our head. Becca called my cousin Tracy to see how the were doing. Through the course of the conversation Tracy mentioned to Becca that they bought super cheap airfare from Southwest with their friends fly free promotion. No sooner was Becca off the phone than we were online with Southwest checking airfare. We were given a price of $224 for 2 round trip non-stop tickets from Buffalo to Orlando. We made note of the price and decided to call WDW the next morning.
4/7/2002
Bright and early today we called Disney Club and booked a room at All Star Movies for Aug 30 - Sept 3 in hopes that we could go before school starts up and be able to convince John and Jen to join us. The next weekend we talked to J&J and tried our best but still couldn’t convince them to join us (looking back now it’s better they didn’t, John will be starting a new job and have to be away for training during our vacation).
4/14/2002
Since J&J wouldn’t be joining us we decided to push back our vacation one week so we could avoid Labor Day and, more importantly, be able to join Dave and Tracy for a couple of days.
5/12/2002
After reading about a few discount codes on mousesavers.com, I checked Sunday's travel section and saw the codes that were mentioned. I called Disney Club and booked Animal Kingdom Lodge at $129/night for a standard room for the first two nights of our trip, September 6 and 7. I then canceled the first two nights of our ASMoR reservation giving us four days at WDW, the first two at AKL and the last two at ASMoR. We decided that this trip down was going to be a first for us, a no-park trip. We always want to be able to spend more time at the pool and Downtown Disney so we decided this trip we would do just that. To help with all our resort hopping that we planned on doing, we decided to rent a car while we are down there. I joined National’s Emerald Club and using the Disney Club free day coupon and my contract ID number got a good deal on a full size car for our stay.
7/27/02
After talking it over for a while we decided on our itinerary for a park-free vacation. I called and made priority-seating arrangements for two meals, Boma on the first night and dinner at Chef Mickey’s the next night. All our other meals are going to be spur of the moment decisions.
8/19/02
It seems that our park free vacation is no longer park free. My mother told us that a family friend who works at WDW said that if anyone was ever going down there to call her and she’d hook us up. My mother called on our behalf and our friend said that she would get us into the parks for free every day we were down there if we wanted. Becca and I reexamined our itinerary and decided on going to the parks three of the four days we are down there. Since this was suppose to be relaxing WDW visit we made our visits to the park short (only one of the three days at the park we plan on being there for over three hours) so we can still enjoy the hotels and other out of park attractions.
THE TRIP
9/6/02
After a rough start to our last trip (Cole would sleep the night before our flight, Jan ’02), I am very happy to say that our boy gave us a full-night sleep, just like he normally does. We put Cole to sleep about 9:00 the night before and were able to get all our packing done so that all we had to do was grab the bags as we walked out the door. We set our alarms for 5:30, for our 8:00 flight, and before we knew it the alarm was going off and we were loading up the truck. Everything was packed and ready to go by 5:45 so Becca went upstairs and picked Cole up from a sound sleep.
He was surprisingly happy for being up 2 hours before he normal wake up time. He kept grinning the whole car ride, like he was getting away with something he shouldn’t be doing. Becca’s father was waiting outside his house for us at 6:00 to take us to the airport. We checked into our flight and were informed that the flight wasn’t full so we would be able to seat Cole in his car seat for the flight. Once checked in we changed Cole out of his pajamas and let him play at the Fisher Price play area they have set up in the airport.
The direct flight from Buffalo to Orlando left on time and actually arrived in Orlando 20 minutes early. The flight was great and seemed incredibly short. I was very worried about the flight, but Cole sleeping through half of it and having a direct flight made this a very enjoyable flight. We lugged all of our carry-ons down to baggage claim and before to long had our luggage. It seems our big suitcase didn’t have quite as good of a flight as we did. The corner of it was ripped apart. You couldn’t see any clothes but it was pretty bad. We had already started walking toward the rental car and didn’t feel like turning around so we decided we would talk to someone about it on our return flight.
The walk to the rental car was horrible. For some reason we decided not to rent one of those luggage trolleys and just carry our luggage. This was too tough (you have to bring a lot of luggage when you have a 1-year-old) and by the time I got down to the bus pickup area a couple things had slipped out of my hands. I was starting to reorganize my load when a bus driver who was sitting to the side came up to us with a trolley. This was a godsend. We were able to pile all of our luggage on there and Becca could push Cole in the stroller without worrying about the luggage. We took the elevator up to the national car rental area and to the Emerald Aisle where we had our choice of cars. We eventually decided on a Dodge Intrepid and after loading all of our luggage car seat and stroller into the car we were on our way.
Since we weren’t going to the parks this afternoon we didn’t have to rush to the hotel. We took the Greenway about halfway there before we exited for our grocery store stop. We ended up in Williamsburg and stopped at the same Publix we have been to on two previous trips. I told Becca as we were pulling in that I have been to this Publix in the middle of Orlando as many times as I have been to the convenient store at the end of our street. We both thought that was pretty funny.
After picking up some pop and breakfast-type foods for or hotel room we bought a couple of hot dogs they were selling outside the store, we figured this would hold us over until we could grab a bite for dinner at MGM tonight. We continued to the I-4, which we took to the 192 with plans to find AmeriHost resort (somehow we were offered free Universal tickets and we were told we could pick them up there). After getting sidetracked (the map they gave us was wrong) we finally arrived at Amerihost. Becca ran in while I waited in the car. It was then that I had my first experience with off-property tourists. While I was sitting in the car I noticed a bunch of people sitting outside the front entrance looking through WDW park maps. I thought to myself why would you put yourself through the torture of not staying on property and having to shuttle back and forth to the parks on a courtesy shuttle that doesn’t run every 20 minutes. It just seems to me that it would be worth it to pay the extra costs and stay at the All-Stars. But I could be biased because I’ve only stayed on property and don’t feel the need to visit anywhere else off property, except the local Waffle House of course.
After what seemed like forever Becca finally reemerged from the hotel and we were on our way. She told me how they tried to talk her into buying these other passes for different parks and she basically told them she wanted her tickets because she had to go. We weren’t too far from the 192 so in a matter of minutes we were on WDW property and ended up pulling into AKL at 12:20. We pulled up into the porte cache where I unloaded all our bags and groceries onto the bell man’s cart and let Becca and Cole get out of the heat and into the hotel lobby while I parked the car.
Being such a huge fan of Disney’s Wilderness Lodge I was very excited to see what kind of atmosphere Peter Dominick (the architect who’s firm designed WL) created here. The impressive glass wall overlooking the savanna is the most powerful and unique feature of the lobby. From there the lobby seems to go downhill and is missing something that makes the WL such an awesome place to be in. The lobby seemed much more chaotic than the one at WL, it didn’t seem as wide or as high and there was a lot of furniture that made the lobby seem very cluttered. Although I was overall impressed with the hotel I still missed WL and would rather stay there on future trips.
After I was done examining the lobby, I joined Becca in line at the check-in to help with the Cole-watching duties. The poor kid had been sitting since almost 8:00 this morning so I let him loose on the lobby. Becca was the next guest to be called over so I tried to keep him in the check-in area. Unfortunately every sitting area had a telephone at it and Cole just couldn’t keep his hands off of them. Laura greeted us at the check-in counter and she couldn’t have been nicer. We asked her about transferring the money from our ASMoR stay and staying here the final two nights, she said it would be no problem but we would have to pay an additional $150. We told her we would think about it and then asked her about being upgraded from our standard room to a savanna view. She told us that the savanna views were booked for that night but we could have a pool view with a slight view of a savanna, which we gladly accepted.
After a lengthy check-in process we were finally on our way up to our room, number 4032, which is on the giraffe trail. The room was very nice, same thing as at WL and had a great view of the pool and the savanna just as we were told. While we waited for our luggage to be brought up we settled into our room. Cole was happy to finally be able to walk wherever he wanted. It took a couple trips for our luggage to be brought up to us, they forgot our milk in the fridge and then forgot they were suppose to bring it back up to us but eventually we had everything and where ready to cool off with a dip in the pool.
On the way down to the pool we stopped at the phones off of the lobby and called our friend, who was at work, about meeting us at MGM tonight. She offered to meet us at the gate at 4:30; I think she was happy for an excuse to leave early today, instead of the 5:00 we had talked about a few weeks ago. With our plans all set for tonight we walked down to the pool. It was very hot out today, about 90 with very high humidity, so the pool was so refreshing. We all loved the zero entry depth; it was nice to only have to worry about Cole tripping in a few inches of water instead of having to stand between him and the pool while he walked around. The pool was so great, and huge it felt like you had the whole pool to yourself even though at one point I counted about 60 people in the pool. As we were swimming, actually walking in the water while we took turns holding Cole, we noticed that Cole’s nose was running a little and he had sneezed a few times. This concerned us a little, but not enough to change our plans for the rest of the day. We all stayed down by the pool a little while longer before Becca took Cole upstairs to put him down for a nap.
I stayed in the pool enjoying the surroundings until about 3:30 before I headed back up to the room to get ready for MGM. When I got up to the room Becca was organizing the room while Cole was sleeping. Becca told me that Cole put up a fight falling asleep (a sign of things to come). Cole was nice enough to wake up for us right around 4:00 though, giving us just enough time to get to MGM by 4:30. Cole was looking pretty pathetic, he was obviously feeling worse, and he just sat there looking lifeless in his stroller. We decided to go to the park anyways and if we had to leave the park right away it would be no big deal, we weren’t paying to get in the park anyway.
We pulled into MGM just before 4:30 and I started to get panicky because as soon as I pulled in I saw a ton of cars but my wife reminded me that they had changed the parking around and this wasn’t the overflow area. She was right on about the parking and we were given a spot right up front. We unpacked our gear and arrived at the gait only a couple minutes before our friend did. We talked briefly after she let us in before we parted ways. She was going home for the night and we had to stop in at the baby care center to look for tissues for Cole. There were no tissues to be found so we continued down Hollywood Blvd and took a seat on a shady bench behind the tip board. We gave Cole a little snack while we waited for the Stars and Motorcars parade. We just finished up Cole’s snack as the parade started. Even though we were a few people deep we were still able to enjoy the parade. Even Cole started to seem a little livelier.
We still haven’t eaten dinner so after the parade we headed down Sunset Boulevard to Rosie’s All American Café where we ordered a couple of burgers and a chicken finger meal for Cole. We found a perfect corner table and we were able to, with the help of a few planters, arrange the benches so that Cole had a little play area that he couldn’t escape and we could enjoy our meal without chasing him all around. As we were finishing our burgers, which were delicious, Beauty and the Beast was just starting across the street so we headed over to catch part of the show. We made it through about one song before Cole had had enough of being held and wanted to walk around.
We left the show and walked over to the Rock-n-Roller coaster gift shop where I wanted to pick up a pressed quarter I didn’t get a chance to get last trip. When we got into the shop there was a pressed penny machine where the quarter machine use to be. At least I thought it was a quarter machine, maybe it could have been a penny machine, oh well. I took a peek at the limos that were pulling up and saw that only about half of the seats were filled. I thought about going on real fast but opted not to.
We thought that Cole might enjoy Little Mermaid so we made our way there via the shops along Sunset Boulevard, not really to shop but just to get out of the heat. After a quick diaper change we walked into Mermaid and took a seat toward the back with no one to the exit side of us in case we had to make a quick exit. And of course we had too, not because Cole was too rambunctious, this time he threw up all over his shirt just after the show started. The fact that the show started made it a little difficult to clean him up so we decided to take him outside to clean him up. We gave Cole a sippy cup of milk before Mermaid, he must have drank it too fast because that’s what we where wiping off of him.
Since we where missing Mermaid we walked toward the Backlot area thinking that Cole might like the Backlot Tour. Along the way we were detoured by Mike and Sulley who were out meeting guests. As Cole was walking up to M&S we were told that he has to have his shirt on, we took it off because it was drenched from his milk incident at mermaid, so we put his dirty shirt back on him for a quick picture. After the meet and greet we let Cole take a lazy walk down New York Ave. We made it about halfway down the street when Cole got distracted by a leaky fire hydrant. He must have played for about 5 minutes sticking his hands in the water and getting sprayed all over, he would laugh every time the water would spray him in the face.
We still were hoping to get onto Backlot Tour so we had to tear Cole away from his water fun, despite his protests. When we finally got over to BT we realized that we had just missed the last showing. We weren’t too upset; we just figured that Cole might enjoy this ride. As much as we enjoy this park, we quickly realized that MGM doesn’t have too much for a kid his age. Next time we come his attention span should be a little better and he should have more fun. Becca thought that Cole might enjoy the playground so after a couple of pictures with the Flik figurine we stopped in.
The playground was once again an attraction that Cole was still a little to young for. In theory he should have enjoyed it but when we got in there it was full of kids twice his size running around. It was a little too dangerous to let him play in here, next year. By now it was about 7:15 and Fantasmic was starting in just over an hour. Cole seemed to be a little healthier so we figured we would putz around until Fantasmic. The time spent walking around waiting for the show was great. With everything in the back of the park closed for the night it was practically empty so it seemed like we had the park to ourselves. We stopped in the Stage 1 Company Store and then onto The Writers Stop where we bought a few snacks. We still had a little bit of time so we stopped in One Man’s Dream which was just as vacant as the back of the park was.
OMD was a great stop. It was nice to be able to see this attraction again; you never know when they are going to close something out of nowhere (Hunchback). We were running short on time so we didn’t stay for the movie, which I love but we did have to get over to Fantasmic. Once we finally got up to the Hollywood Amphitheatre we pulled a little trickery, even though everyone was being directed to the left we cut over to the right. We’ve never done this before but we figured with Cole not feeling well we wanted to duck out of the show as soon as it was over and not have to wait with a huge crowd. As it turned out we ended up only watching half of the show, it was too hard having Cole stay still.
We found our stroller in the huge stroller parking and took a casual walk back to Sunset Blvd. By the time we got down to Sunset, Cole had fallen asleep. This gave a chance to look through the shops on the way out without anyone, and I mean no one, in them. After grabbing a snack for later we made our way out to the car. As we were pulling away we saw the hordes of people leaving the park, perfect timing.
After a quick ride back to AKL we took Cole up to the room and put him to sleep. With Cole tucked into bed Becca and I had a little relaxation time on our balcony watching everyone unwind in the pool while we unwound over our sweets we brought back from MGM. We ate about half of the chocolaty marshmallow thing before we decided to call it a night. Actually I should say before we decided to lie down and TRY to go to bed. We were in bed no more than 10 minutes before sick boy woke up crying. We tried everything over the next 45 minutes to calm him down but nothing worked. It’s not like we were at home where we could walk him all around, we were really confined to a narrow little walking strip between the beds and the armoire. I really felt bad for our neighbor, luckily we were on and end unit so we only had people on one side of us, who knows maybe they were young people who were still at Pleasure Island, and it was only 11:30 so maybe.
We finally put Cole in his stroller and wheeled him back and forth in those 15 feet in front of the beds. For some reason this did the trick. We didn’t want to press our luck so we tucked the stroller between our beds and let Cole sleep there for the night. He woke up a couple times throughout the night but we were able to put him right back to sleep by nudging the stroller from the bed
9/7/02
Before the trip I had planned on waking up at sunrise to go out and take some pictures around the property but in the middle of walking Cole last night I decided not to set the alarm and see what happened. I didn’t wake up but for some reason Becca was awake early and peaked out our balcony. This woke me up so I decided to quietly grab my stuff and head out. I walked down to the main overlook but I didn’t see any animals. As I later found out they were doing grounds work and didn’t bring the animals out for their safety. I was thinking that if I had paid for a savanna room for our two-day stay here and the animals weren’t even out I would be pretty mad. Luckily we were upgraded to our pool view room and the only thing I was missing was a little bit of sleep.
I ended up taking a few pictures of the hotel before I found a lounge chair near the pool and caught up on my trip report notes. I situated myself so that while I was writing I could keep an eye on our room and wait for Becca wake up. It was about an hour before Becca and Cole walked onto the balcony. When I got up to the room I found out that Cole wasn’t too happy about being awake. Becca tried to put him back to sleep but he wanted to be grumpy so she started off his day. Part of his crabbiness may be due to the fact that he was now even sicker than he was yesterday. We poked around the room a little bit before we were finally ready to start our day. Cole picked a good trip to get sick on. Since we only going to the parks a few days, and not paying to get in the parks when we did go, it wasn’t a major inconvenience to work around his schedule.
This morning was an off property morning for us so our first stop was the Walgreens we saw yesterday on the 192. We kinda missed our turn and ended up driving through Celebration. I have always wanted to go through here so we did just that. The town was very beautiful but a little freaky in the way that everything was perfect, no dirt, graffiti, garbage or overcrowding. As we drove through the town’s business district we drove by a cruise night, I know it’s the middle of the morning, and the only car’s I saw were Jaguars, Mercedes and Lexus’. Needless to say this is a pretty affluent community. We eventually found our way out of Celebration and back onto the 192.
We were going to buy some medicine for Cole but after talking to the pharmacist he told us that we already had the medicine that he needed, we just weren’t giving him enough, the container said to consult a physician for children 2 and under, a bit much to do at midnight on vacation. Of course we left the medicine back in our room so we went back to AKL where I ran up to our room and picked up the medicine. After drugging up Cole we were back on the road. I jumped onto the interstate to get some breakfast. We wanted to go to Waffle House just off property but I missed the exit. Of course the next exit was like 10 miles away, a little too far to double back. We were planning on gong to the Belz outlet so I figured if we take the next exit to International Drive and just take that all the way to the outlet mall we were bound to run across another WH. Well we didn’t and holy cow is that International Drive long. We probably passed by everything else in the world though, including countless t-shirt and souvenir stores, very cheesy.
On our way to Belz, Cole was falling asleep and waking up about every mile, he was very cranky. When we pulled into the mall Cole was sleeping so I had Becca go inside while I waited for her. She didn’t make it to far before Cole woke himself up again so we went inside to join her. Once inside I let Cole down so he could walk around a little bit, he loved this. We really didn’t find anything at the store or the other one so we made our way back to the interstate and this time didn’t miss the Waffle House exit. Of course on the way there Cole fell asleep, this time he was out cold. We debated about what to do but decided we wanted to eat so Cole had to get up. The food was great, a little pricey but still worth it.
Cole fell asleep again on the way back to AKL so I dropped the two of them off in the Porte cache while I parked the car. Becca was waiting in the lobby for me when I walked in so we walked up to our room to drop off some stuff so we could take a walk around the hotel while Cole was sleeping in his stroller. We finally saw some giraffes and an animal that looked kinda like an ox. After our quick little AKL tour we went back up to our room where we enjoyed a little relaxation time on our balcony while Cole was still sleeping. This was truly relaxing, after dealing with a VERY fussy kid the past 24 hours this little down time was exactly what we needed. We even saw a few giraffes grazing on the savanna.
Around 3:30 Cole finally woke up so we got him changed and went down to the pool. Once again the pool wasn’t too crowded but that still didn’t make it enjoyable for the little guy. He was still in a daze from the medicine and his cold and just wasn’t into the pool today. Becca ended up taking him back up to the room to give him some playtime while I stayed down at the pool. A short while later I made my way back up to the room and started to get ready for dinner.
Tonight’s meal was Boma. Becca and I were both pretty excited for dinner. The atmosphere was great; it is a seamless transition from the hotel itself into the restaurant. The food, however, wasn’t to my liking. I’m more of a basic meat and potatoes kind of guy. I did enjoy the spare ribs and prime rib and I tried the more exotic offerings they had, but I kept going back to the ribs. The desserts were unbelievable, definitely the highlight of the meal. The meal was mostly enjoyable, I probably would have had a better experience if Cole wasn’t so sick and crabby, he’s normally pretty good at restaurants but not this time.
After dinner we hopped in the car and drove over to Downtown Disney where we were corralled into the West Side parking lot. This just didn’t work out for us so we jumped back out and over to the Marketplace which was very crowded but we managed to find a spot right near the World of Disney store. Since we were in front of WoD we decided to start here where we picked up a few things for Cole and me, once again poor Becca walked away with nothing. Our next stop was Team Mickey and then on to Once Upon a Toy which was great. It was super crowded with kids running around playing with all the toys out on display. I really look forward to bringing Cole here when he gets a little older. >From Once Upon a Toy we stopped at Disney Home, Days of Christmas and the art store but didn’t pick up anything from these places. It was now 8:30 and sick boy was starting to get really tired so we decided to call it an evening and head back to AKL.
Once back at the hotel I dropped off Becca and Cole at the entrance and drove back out to get a few pictures of the illuminated AKL sign. We both really liked the way it looked. After parking the car I walked back up to the room and helped Becca pack up our stuff for our move to ASMoR tomorrow while Cole was sleeping. After most of our stuff was packed up I convinced Becca to go downstairs and enjoy the hot tub before we check out of AKL and no longer have one. She finally decided that it was a good idea and scooted out of the room. After about 20 minutes, which I spent enjoying our balcony, it was my turn. I snuck by the crib, which was in front of the door and escaped down to the pool. Once I got down there the hot tub near our balcony was closed, don’t know why, Becca was just in it a few minutes ago, so I went over to the other one. After a quick dip in the pool and a lengthy stay in the hot tub I went back up to the room. The smart thing would have been to go to sleep but I just couldn’t turn in without a little more downtime on the balcony. After about 30 minutes I called it a night and went back inside.
9/8/02
8:00 was here before I knew it, now I was regretting not going right to bed last night, and we got our wake up call from Mickey, not Lilo and Stitch as some people have been receiving. Today was our day for the Character Caravan so we took Cole down in his P.J.’s to meet some of the characters. We saw Goofy, Rafiki and Pumba and got pictures with each of them, Cole really could have cared less. After the meet and greet we went back up to the room where Cole and I took a few bags and Cole down to the car with hopes of checking into ASMoR while Becca finished up the room. By the time I got to ASMoR it was already 9:00, and we had 9:45 seating at Chef Mickey’s.
When I got to ASMoR I saw that it was pretty crowded so I decided not to check in and instead go back to AKL to pick up Becca and the rest of our luggage. Becca was ready when I got there and at 9:30 we were on our way to the Contemporary. My big concern now was parking. We planned on going to MK after breakfast and weren’t sure if we could park at Contemporary long enough without getting into trouble so that was out. I figured it would take way too long to do the whole TTA thing between the parking and the resort loop all the way around the lake so we settled on parking at Wilderness Lodge and taking the boat to the Contemporary. Although this was probably the best solution we still didn’t get over to breakfast until 10:10. They didn’t even care we were late and we were seated promptly right near the buffet line. I’ve read mixed reviews about Chef Mickey’s but we both thought the food was really good. And the character interaction was great; Cole really enjoyed everyone coming around now that he was more awake. As we were finishing up I called our friend and arranged for her to meet us at MK at a11:00.
By the time we finished breakfast and got ourselves together it was getting close to 11:00. I thought it would be faster to walk over to MK from the Contemporary rather than taking the monorail and risk missing our connection at MK. As it turns out we made to MK well before our friend did and regretted not taking the air-conditioned monorail as I wiped the sweat off of my forehead. We were finally in the park and walking down Main St by 11:45 and made a beeline to the Emporium to get out o the heat for a few minutes. We meandered our way through the shops and headed over to Tomorrowland where we rode Buzz and the TTA, both of which Cole loved. That was about all the rides Cole could do here so we walked over to Fantasyland where we picked up a fastpass for Pooh. Along the way Cole passed out in his stroller so we decided to get out of the heat and sit down a little while we decided what to do. As soon as we stepped into Pinocchio’s Village Haus the skies opened up and the restaurant became very crowded. Luckily we grabbed a bench off to the side just before it started to get filled up with people trying to escape the rain. After about 15 minutes the rain let up so we decided to take a walk to city hall to see if we could find out if my cousins have checked in yet. As it turned out they had checked in but they weren’t in their room at the time so I left them a voice mail.
Cole was still sleeping so we decided to head back to the car and check into ASMoR as we waited to hear back from Dave and Tracy. After a very enjoyable boat ride back to WL, which Cole was still sleeping through, we piled in the car and were on our way to our next room. Once we were at ASMoR I ran inside to check-in since Cole was still sleeping. We were given room 0707, exactly what I requested, a ground floor room in the Buzz building in the Toy Story section. At the check-in desk I called back over to BCV and Dave was in the room this time. He told me Alec was sleeping and Tracy was at the pool with Jenna. When I got back to the car Cole was finally awake so we decided to get ourselves situated in our room before we met up with D&T.
The room was nice, nothing special, no animals grazing out your window or a nice balcony to enjoy on the warm evenings, but that’s what you get when you spend about $50 less a night. Since we were leaving to go home in a couple of days we didn’t unpack too much stuff. We really just pulled out our swim gear and some clothes for tonight, what we were wearing was pretty damp from all our walking around (September is a pretty gross time to come down here) and drove over to the Beach Club Villas, where Dave and Tracy were staying. We parked the car and walked over to the BCV quiet pool and called up to Dave’s room. Dave said everyone was resting in the room and he would come down to the pool and meet us. It was so hot I couldn’t wait any longer; Cole and I just had to get into the pool. This was my first time at this hotel and the surroundings were beautiful. I love the style and color they use for the Yacht and Beach Clubs.
After a few minutes in the pool Dave met up with us. They had just gotten in a short while ago so we caught up on how their flight was and what they had done this afternoon. I was content with relaxing in the quiet pool for a while but Dave brought down an extra room key and walked us over to Stormalong Bay. It was about 2:00 now so we made plans to meet them up at in their room at 5:00. The pool was great, I especially liked the slide, although it took me a couple of times going down it before I was able to make it out without any water up my nose. Although we really enjoyed the pool, after a while I found it a pain to walk through the thick sand. I also almost got caught going into the really deep part of the pool. I was carrying Cole trying to get over to the kiddie area so he could play in the sand and before I knew it the water was up to mine and Cole's chin. I tried to turn around but of course I was in the lazy river part and was trying to go upstream. After quite a struggle I finally made it to a decent depth and we jumped out of the pool to bypass the deep stuff. And after all my hard work wouldn’t you know Cole didn’t even like playing in the sand.
We spent the rest of our time just relaxing and before too long it was time to get changed and head up to D&T's room. Their room was beautiful, your standard studio vacation club accommodations with a nice view of Spaceship Earth. When we got up to the room they were ready to go, so we made our way to the lobby. Our dinner plans for tonight were to eat at the ESPN Club so I told them to head over there and I would meet them after I dropped off our swim gear in the car. When I got to ESPN I was shocked to see the restaurant only about half full on opening weekend for the NFL. I joined the rest of my party when I realized I didn’t know where my wallet was. Normally it doesn’t bother me when it’s lost but this time I had most of our vacation money in it. I know, not too smart but halfway through ordering dinner I realized it was in the camcorder bag in the stroller. Besides me ordering my chicken fingers way too hot the meal was great, a perfect place to bring young kids too.
After dinner we wanted to give the kids some more playtime so we walked over to the Boardwalk pool area and let the kids run around the playground there. I don’t know if I ever heard Cole laugh as much as he did when he was trying to walk across the little wooden bridge they have in one of the play sets. He kept trying to walk across it and would eventually fall down from the rocking motion, he loved it. After about a half hour at the playground we walked back out to the boardwalk where we visited the gift shop and watched a few of the street performers. While we were watching a performance a Friendship boat pulled up so we decided to jump on board for a little boat ride. It turned out to be a round trip to Epcot and back. On the way back we were able to grab the outside row in the back of the boat. This was a great way to enjoy a beautiful evening while the lights on the boardwalk began to light up the area. Once back at the dock we made plans for tomorrow and said our goodbyes, they were going to walk over to Fantasia Gardens for a round of mini-golf. Dave and I decided to meet up tonight at ESPN tonight at 10:30 to watch the Sunday night football game for a drink.
Becca and I grabbed the next boat over to Y&BC and started off to our car. Once at the Beach Club we decided to grab a treat to go from Beaches and Cream (we like to eat here once a trip but this was the best we could do, guess I’ll have to wait until February to have one of their yummy cheeseburgers). Becca ordered a peanut butter sundae while I had a root beer float. Both were delicious, the vanilla ice cream they use is out of this world. We took a relaxing walk through the beach club enjoying our ice cream until we got to the solarium where I left Becca and Cole and ran out to get the car. I just love the solarium with the high ceiling and all the windows; it must be a wonderful place to take a break from a busy day.
After picking up Becca we made our way back to ASMoR where were we finished the unpacking that needed to be done. Cole needed to get his bedtime milk so the two of us made our way slowly to the food court. We ended up stopping at a few places in Andy’s Room to play. Cole especially liked the remote control car. He’s starting to become very adventurous and loved climbing on it, well at least trying to climb, he’s not quite big enough to get his feet off the ground. After a little play time and a stop at the food court we were back in our room and getting ready for bedtime.
Everything was in order around 10:15 so I said goodnight to Becca and headed over to the Boardwalk to meet Dave at ESPN. Dave was already sitting down at the bar when I walked in and I was once again amazed to see that the bar was even emptier than it was earlier. We had a few drinks and hung out while we watched the second half of the game. It was a nice change to be out and not have to be entertaining a little one just like the old days. After the game we said our goodbyes and reconfirmed our plans for tomorrow morning. Originally Dave and Tracy were going to spend the day at their hotel but they decided to join us at the parks instead.
9/9/02
After such a busy day yesterday… last night… this morning … 7:00 rolled around way to fast. After going through our morning ritual we finally made it out the door at 7:45. We had plans to meet our friend at MK at 8:15 this morning so we were running a little late. Since we were tight on time I opted to park at Grand Floridian and take the monorail to the park. As we were parking the car a fear came over me that the resort monorail wasn’t running this early. The fact that as we were walking up to the resort and still hadn’t seen a monorail yet didn’t help to calm my fears. We walked to the elevator and when we got off we finally saw a monorail pull up, whew! We ended up making it to MK by 8:20, only 5 minutes late, not bad when you have a 1-year-old. Our friend was already there and once again got us into the parks. We had originally made PS at Tony’s for breakfast but she told us that CM could get their guests into the parks early without PS arrangements
We decided to skip breakfast at Tony’s, which we really weren’t planning on going to anyway, and walked down an empty Main St. to the castle. On our way back Mickey and Minnie were standing in front of the partners statue without anyone around (it’s great getting here before everyone else). We stopped to get a picture but Cole wasn’t really interested so we continued back down Main Steey to the bakery where we were once again the only people in the place.
We gathered our purchases and continued down Main Street to the train station where we took a table overlooking Main Steet. As we were enjoying our food we heard the opening announcement and watched as all the people came rushing into the park. I can’t even describe how great this morning was, we had the park to our selves for a while, took our time selecting our morning snacks and then enjoyed a peaceful breakfast while everyone else was rushing around, including D&T who joined us at the train station and told us they were going to get a bit to eat at the Main Street Bakery. After we finished our breakfast and cleaned ourselves up we met up with D&T who were sitting at a little table outside the bakery. We discussed our plans for the day and decided that we would head over to Tomorrowland once they finished their snacks (which didn’t take too long, Alec and Jenna were itching to get going).
When we finally got to Tomorrowland our first stop was the Indy raceway. With Becca’s bad back we’ve never been on this ride before (we’re always afraid some kid is going to ram the back of our car). This time Jenna and Tracy were behind us so we felt pretty safe. This will not be the last time we go on this ride, Cole loved it. Every time we bumped into the center rail Cole laughed hysterically. From Indy we went to Buzz where Dave outgunned me by about 100,000 points and he let me know about it most of the day. D&T wanted to go on Astro Orbiter so we split up and went on the TTA while they were in line. Just as we were coming down the TTA ramp they were about to go up the ramp to ride the TTA. To help pass the time while we waited we let Cole run around and burn off a little energy.
When Dave came back down he told me the Space Mountain didn’t have a line so I joined him and Jenna while the girls went to Fantasyland with the boys. I don’t know what Dave saw but there was a line that reached about halfway down the super long entry you get to fly through with fastpass. When we finally got off SM we walked down to Fantasyland and met up with the girls just outside of Pooh, we decided as long as we are here we may as well get FP for this. From Pooh we went to Small World and took a well-deserved break from the heat. All too soon the ride was over and we were forced to walk back out into the blistering sun. From Small World we walked across the street to Pan which claimed to be a 20 min wait but actually turned out to be only 10 minutes. By the time we got off of Pan our Pooh FP were up so we headed that way and all piled into our honey pots. After Pooh we walked back into the heart of Fantasyland and Becca and I took Cole on the carousel while D&T took Jena and Alec over to visit Ariel (Alec loves Ariel). As we walked off the carousel D&T were waiting for us. They decided to pass on the visit to Ariel’s Grotto because the line was super long.
At this point we had finished off everything we wanted to do in Fantasyland so we hoped across the park to Adventureland where we made our first stop at Aladdin’s Magic Carpets. I really like this ride and the fact that it’s been a walk-on every time I’ve been on it makes it that much better. It was now the middle of the afternoon and even hotter than it was earlier so we decided to cool off with a relaxing ride on Pirates of the Caribbean. The ride was almost as great as the air conditioning they pump into this attraction. Just outside of the PoC exit Hook and Smee were signing autographs (I don’t know how they can wear those costumes in this heat). After a visit with Hook and Smee we continued down to Frontierland where Dave and I tried to get FP for Splash Mountain. For some reason the FP dispenser was down so we decided to skip it and instead go over to Tom Sawyer's Island. While waiting for the raft we found out that strollers weren’t allowed on the island so Becca and I decided to part ways with D&T for now and meet up with them later.
We were starting to get hungry; those huge cinnamon rolls can only keep you full for so long, so we decided to stop off at Pecos Bill’s for a little snack. I watched Cole while Becca stood in a super long line for a hot dog for him. When she got back I set out on a search for some nachos that we saw people eating in the restaurant. I ended up finding them next door at El Pirate y el Perico. The nachos weren’t your run of the mill nachos; they had a ton of fixins on them, definitely something to look for next time we’re here. On our way out of the park we deliberately walked through Adventureland so we could make a stop for a Dole Whip, another great snack.
With our Dole Whip in hand we stopped off in the baby center for a quick change and a little cool down. We were still in a junk food buying mood so we picked up some cookies for later tonight. Since this was our last time in MK this trip we decided to do our traditional last lap on the train. The ride was great and almost put Cole to sleep. As the train departed at the Main Street Station we kind of waited for the crowds to thin out before we walked down the ramps and put Cole in his stroller, he ended up falling asleep before we were at the monorail. Since Cole was sleeping we decided to take a walk around the Polynesian resort and get a preview for our February trip. Becca checked at the front desk to see if any rooms were available for us to take a peek into but we were told they were none. Since we couldn’t check any out we decided to take a walk around the grounds. We walked toward the Tokelau building and decided this is where we wanted to stay, great location near the quiet pool and not to far from the GCH plus a possibility we could see some water from our balcony. After our little Polynesian tour we walked back to the monorail and took it to GF where I ran ahead and got the car. Man do these cars bake in this summer heat. Every afternoon I’d have to put a towel over the steering wheel so I didn’t burn my hands while I drove. By the time I pulled up to the Porte cache Cole had woken up. We loaded up him and our gear into the car and within a few minutes of driving Cole was asleep again.
When we got back to ASMoR Becca took a sleeping Cole to the room while I gathered up some of our gear. When I got back to the room I opened the door to find Cole standing up in his crib. At least he had a little bit of a nap today. We decided to give Cole a little room time so we started to get together our stuff for check out tomorrow. Half of our stuff was still packed from our AKL check out so cleaning up didn’t take to long. We still had a couple of hours before we were scheduled to meet up with D&T again so we decided to take advantage of the pool. We pretty much hovered around the kiddie pool which was very fun, even with all the mothers complaining about how the fake icebergs block the view from most of the seats and the have to sit right there. Cole really enjoyed the pool this time. He wasn’t to keen on the pool at AKL, maybe because he was sick, but here he had a good time. There was a ball floating around in the pool that he enjoyed chasing around the pool. After a sufficient cool down we went back to our room and got ourselves ready for Epcot tonight.
We arrived at the beach club at 5:45 and were in Epcot at 6:00. We were to meet D&T in Mexico at 6:30 so we had enough time that we could enjoy a little bit of the England and Canadian pavilions. On our way through Off Kilter was just starting up so we were able to finally catch part of their show. Becca and I both enjoyed it, they kind of reminded me of a hipper version of the Wiggles. We made it to Mexico by about 6:20 and a short while later Dave and Tracy met up with us. None of us had eaten so we decided to have a bite to eat at the Cantina de San Angel. We all had the plato combinacion, except Becca, she decided she would hold off and grab something at the Moroccan pavilion. Dinner was great, of course, and we able to enjoy Tapestry of Dreams while we ate which was an added bonus.
After our meal we continued through the WS making our way to Morocco so Becca could have a little bite to eat. Along the way we stopped at Germany where Dave and I picked up a little refreshment. Dave ordered the plain Beck’s while I had the Beck’s Octoberfest, which was a little darker and heavier but very good. We caught up with Becca in Morocco who had just sat down in the little seating area just outside the cafe. She was just about to start eating so I took over the Cole watching duties while she ate. Alec and Jenna enjoyed the little break and took the time to explore and run around. Now that everyone had eaten their dinner it was time for dessert, and look at us right next door to France and their little pastry shop. We wanted to see Impressions de France, which started in about 15 minutes, just enough time to get our goodies. Cole really enjoyed the freedom we gave him as we waited, and everyone around was very amused seeing a grown man chase his son all over France. By the time everyone had finished our snack it was just about time for the film so we shuffled next door and took a seat in the front row. We figured Cole wouldn’t sit for too long and if we were in the front we could kinda let him walk around, not like there was anyone to disturb, the theater only had about 20 people in it. The show was very good, despite being way too close to the screen, and it was nice to see the show again.
After the show let out we walked down t the American Pavilion and looked at the flag they had on display from ground zero. From America we walked down toward England until we got to the Rose and Crown Pub. Dave decided to get himself a black and tan and I picked up a milk for Cole. With our drinks in our hands we made our way back to the international gateway to watch Illuminations. We ended up getting a good viewing spot right on the bridge, which wasn’t crowded at all. As the show began Cole was a little cranky and very tired so I ended up carrying him throughout the performance to help him fall asleep. He never did fall asleep during the show but he did stop fussing so mission accomplished. I was disappointed to see that the ending of the show was a little different. They didn’t open up the giant globe and shoot the fireworks out of it at the end. After the show ended we were in perfect position to make our exit to the Y&B club and grab our car.
Cole finally fell asleep on the way to the car so as we made our way trough the Beach Club we said our goodbyes in the solarium. After running out to the car I picked up Becca and Cole who were still in the solarium and we made our way back to our hotel. Once back at ASMo Becca carried Cole back to the room and laid him in the travel crib, he never woke up. Since Cole was out cold we were able to finish packing our stuff and load up the car for our trip home tomorrow.
9/10/02
Cole woke up before our wake up call today so the two of us ran down to the food court to get us some milk and snacks for this morning. Unfortunately we took a little too long and we just missed Mickey’s wake up call. There were a few little odds and ends that still needed straightening up so after everything was in order we walked down to the lobby for the character caravan. We apparently need to read the sheet a little better; the caravan wasn’t scheduled to visit ASMoR today. We said our goodbyes to Buzz and Woody grabbed the few bags that we still had in our room and made our way to the airport. We got to the airport with plenty of time and other than Cole being a little cranky on the flight home, he was fine once he fell asleep, the flight was uneventful.
Michael Banks
Time of Year: Fall
Travel Method: Plane, Rental Car
Resort: AKL, ASMoR
Accommodations: Standard Room
Ages Represented in Group: Infant, Elementary, Adult
WDW Experience Represented in Group: Veteran, Frequent, Infrequent, Rookie, DVC Member
Comments: Mike and Becca had intended to experience Walt Disney World without ever going into a park, but it's all about knowing the right people and that planned changed. They take a easy approach to things in this trip report and have a great time.
Michael Banks -- September 2002 -- Walt Disney World (AKL, ASMoR)
Cast Members
The Banks Family:
Mike (31) - your tour guide
Becca (30) - my wife
Cole (13 mo.) - our little guy
The Iacono Family:
Tracy (34) - my cousin
Dave (35) - Tracy’s husband
Jenna (9) - my cousin, Tracy’s niece
Alec (4) - Dave and Tracy’s (D&T) son
Pre-Planning
4/6/2002
Simple phone calls to see how family members are doing. That’s all it takes for us to get the thought of a trip down to WDW into our head. Becca called my cousin Tracy to see how the were doing. Through the course of the conversation Tracy mentioned to Becca that they bought super cheap airfare from Southwest with their friends fly free promotion. No sooner was Becca off the phone than we were online with Southwest checking airfare. We were given a price of $224 for 2 round trip non-stop tickets from Buffalo to Orlando. We made note of the price and decided to call WDW the next morning.
4/7/2002
Bright and early today we called Disney Club and booked a room at All Star Movies for Aug 30 - Sept 3 in hopes that we could go before school starts up and be able to convince John and Jen to join us. The next weekend we talked to J&J and tried our best but still couldn’t convince them to join us (looking back now it’s better they didn’t, John will be starting a new job and have to be away for training during our vacation).
4/14/2002
Since J&J wouldn’t be joining us we decided to push back our vacation one week so we could avoid Labor Day and, more importantly, be able to join Dave and Tracy for a couple of days.
5/12/2002
After reading about a few discount codes on mousesavers.com, I checked Sunday's travel section and saw the codes that were mentioned. I called Disney Club and booked Animal Kingdom Lodge at $129/night for a standard room for the first two nights of our trip, September 6 and 7. I then canceled the first two nights of our ASMoR reservation giving us four days at WDW, the first two at AKL and the last two at ASMoR. We decided that this trip down was going to be a first for us, a no-park trip. We always want to be able to spend more time at the pool and Downtown Disney so we decided this trip we would do just that. To help with all our resort hopping that we planned on doing, we decided to rent a car while we are down there. I joined National’s Emerald Club and using the Disney Club free day coupon and my contract ID number got a good deal on a full size car for our stay.
7/27/02
After talking it over for a while we decided on our itinerary for a park-free vacation. I called and made priority-seating arrangements for two meals, Boma on the first night and dinner at Chef Mickey’s the next night. All our other meals are going to be spur of the moment decisions.
8/19/02
It seems that our park free vacation is no longer park free. My mother told us that a family friend who works at WDW said that if anyone was ever going down there to call her and she’d hook us up. My mother called on our behalf and our friend said that she would get us into the parks for free every day we were down there if we wanted. Becca and I reexamined our itinerary and decided on going to the parks three of the four days we are down there. Since this was suppose to be relaxing WDW visit we made our visits to the park short (only one of the three days at the park we plan on being there for over three hours) so we can still enjoy the hotels and other out of park attractions.
THE TRIP
9/6/02
After a rough start to our last trip (Cole would sleep the night before our flight, Jan ’02), I am very happy to say that our boy gave us a full-night sleep, just like he normally does. We put Cole to sleep about 9:00 the night before and were able to get all our packing done so that all we had to do was grab the bags as we walked out the door. We set our alarms for 5:30, for our 8:00 flight, and before we knew it the alarm was going off and we were loading up the truck. Everything was packed and ready to go by 5:45 so Becca went upstairs and picked Cole up from a sound sleep.
He was surprisingly happy for being up 2 hours before he normal wake up time. He kept grinning the whole car ride, like he was getting away with something he shouldn’t be doing. Becca’s father was waiting outside his house for us at 6:00 to take us to the airport. We checked into our flight and were informed that the flight wasn’t full so we would be able to seat Cole in his car seat for the flight. Once checked in we changed Cole out of his pajamas and let him play at the Fisher Price play area they have set up in the airport.
The direct flight from Buffalo to Orlando left on time and actually arrived in Orlando 20 minutes early. The flight was great and seemed incredibly short. I was very worried about the flight, but Cole sleeping through half of it and having a direct flight made this a very enjoyable flight. We lugged all of our carry-ons down to baggage claim and before to long had our luggage. It seems our big suitcase didn’t have quite as good of a flight as we did. The corner of it was ripped apart. You couldn’t see any clothes but it was pretty bad. We had already started walking toward the rental car and didn’t feel like turning around so we decided we would talk to someone about it on our return flight.
The walk to the rental car was horrible. For some reason we decided not to rent one of those luggage trolleys and just carry our luggage. This was too tough (you have to bring a lot of luggage when you have a 1-year-old) and by the time I got down to the bus pickup area a couple things had slipped out of my hands. I was starting to reorganize my load when a bus driver who was sitting to the side came up to us with a trolley. This was a godsend. We were able to pile all of our luggage on there and Becca could push Cole in the stroller without worrying about the luggage. We took the elevator up to the national car rental area and to the Emerald Aisle where we had our choice of cars. We eventually decided on a Dodge Intrepid and after loading all of our luggage car seat and stroller into the car we were on our way.
Since we weren’t going to the parks this afternoon we didn’t have to rush to the hotel. We took the Greenway about halfway there before we exited for our grocery store stop. We ended up in Williamsburg and stopped at the same Publix we have been to on two previous trips. I told Becca as we were pulling in that I have been to this Publix in the middle of Orlando as many times as I have been to the convenient store at the end of our street. We both thought that was pretty funny.
After picking up some pop and breakfast-type foods for or hotel room we bought a couple of hot dogs they were selling outside the store, we figured this would hold us over until we could grab a bite for dinner at MGM tonight. We continued to the I-4, which we took to the 192 with plans to find AmeriHost resort (somehow we were offered free Universal tickets and we were told we could pick them up there). After getting sidetracked (the map they gave us was wrong) we finally arrived at Amerihost. Becca ran in while I waited in the car. It was then that I had my first experience with off-property tourists. While I was sitting in the car I noticed a bunch of people sitting outside the front entrance looking through WDW park maps. I thought to myself why would you put yourself through the torture of not staying on property and having to shuttle back and forth to the parks on a courtesy shuttle that doesn’t run every 20 minutes. It just seems to me that it would be worth it to pay the extra costs and stay at the All-Stars. But I could be biased because I’ve only stayed on property and don’t feel the need to visit anywhere else off property, except the local Waffle House of course.
After what seemed like forever Becca finally reemerged from the hotel and we were on our way. She told me how they tried to talk her into buying these other passes for different parks and she basically told them she wanted her tickets because she had to go. We weren’t too far from the 192 so in a matter of minutes we were on WDW property and ended up pulling into AKL at 12:20. We pulled up into the porte cache where I unloaded all our bags and groceries onto the bell man’s cart and let Becca and Cole get out of the heat and into the hotel lobby while I parked the car.
Being such a huge fan of Disney’s Wilderness Lodge I was very excited to see what kind of atmosphere Peter Dominick (the architect who’s firm designed WL) created here. The impressive glass wall overlooking the savanna is the most powerful and unique feature of the lobby. From there the lobby seems to go downhill and is missing something that makes the WL such an awesome place to be in. The lobby seemed much more chaotic than the one at WL, it didn’t seem as wide or as high and there was a lot of furniture that made the lobby seem very cluttered. Although I was overall impressed with the hotel I still missed WL and would rather stay there on future trips.
After I was done examining the lobby, I joined Becca in line at the check-in to help with the Cole-watching duties. The poor kid had been sitting since almost 8:00 this morning so I let him loose on the lobby. Becca was the next guest to be called over so I tried to keep him in the check-in area. Unfortunately every sitting area had a telephone at it and Cole just couldn’t keep his hands off of them. Laura greeted us at the check-in counter and she couldn’t have been nicer. We asked her about transferring the money from our ASMoR stay and staying here the final two nights, she said it would be no problem but we would have to pay an additional $150. We told her we would think about it and then asked her about being upgraded from our standard room to a savanna view. She told us that the savanna views were booked for that night but we could have a pool view with a slight view of a savanna, which we gladly accepted.
After a lengthy check-in process we were finally on our way up to our room, number 4032, which is on the giraffe trail. The room was very nice, same thing as at WL and had a great view of the pool and the savanna just as we were told. While we waited for our luggage to be brought up we settled into our room. Cole was happy to finally be able to walk wherever he wanted. It took a couple trips for our luggage to be brought up to us, they forgot our milk in the fridge and then forgot they were suppose to bring it back up to us but eventually we had everything and where ready to cool off with a dip in the pool.
On the way down to the pool we stopped at the phones off of the lobby and called our friend, who was at work, about meeting us at MGM tonight. She offered to meet us at the gate at 4:30; I think she was happy for an excuse to leave early today, instead of the 5:00 we had talked about a few weeks ago. With our plans all set for tonight we walked down to the pool. It was very hot out today, about 90 with very high humidity, so the pool was so refreshing. We all loved the zero entry depth; it was nice to only have to worry about Cole tripping in a few inches of water instead of having to stand between him and the pool while he walked around. The pool was so great, and huge it felt like you had the whole pool to yourself even though at one point I counted about 60 people in the pool. As we were swimming, actually walking in the water while we took turns holding Cole, we noticed that Cole’s nose was running a little and he had sneezed a few times. This concerned us a little, but not enough to change our plans for the rest of the day. We all stayed down by the pool a little while longer before Becca took Cole upstairs to put him down for a nap.
I stayed in the pool enjoying the surroundings until about 3:30 before I headed back up to the room to get ready for MGM. When I got up to the room Becca was organizing the room while Cole was sleeping. Becca told me that Cole put up a fight falling asleep (a sign of things to come). Cole was nice enough to wake up for us right around 4:00 though, giving us just enough time to get to MGM by 4:30. Cole was looking pretty pathetic, he was obviously feeling worse, and he just sat there looking lifeless in his stroller. We decided to go to the park anyways and if we had to leave the park right away it would be no big deal, we weren’t paying to get in the park anyway.
We pulled into MGM just before 4:30 and I started to get panicky because as soon as I pulled in I saw a ton of cars but my wife reminded me that they had changed the parking around and this wasn’t the overflow area. She was right on about the parking and we were given a spot right up front. We unpacked our gear and arrived at the gait only a couple minutes before our friend did. We talked briefly after she let us in before we parted ways. She was going home for the night and we had to stop in at the baby care center to look for tissues for Cole. There were no tissues to be found so we continued down Hollywood Blvd and took a seat on a shady bench behind the tip board. We gave Cole a little snack while we waited for the Stars and Motorcars parade. We just finished up Cole’s snack as the parade started. Even though we were a few people deep we were still able to enjoy the parade. Even Cole started to seem a little livelier.
We still haven’t eaten dinner so after the parade we headed down Sunset Boulevard to Rosie’s All American Café where we ordered a couple of burgers and a chicken finger meal for Cole. We found a perfect corner table and we were able to, with the help of a few planters, arrange the benches so that Cole had a little play area that he couldn’t escape and we could enjoy our meal without chasing him all around. As we were finishing our burgers, which were delicious, Beauty and the Beast was just starting across the street so we headed over to catch part of the show. We made it through about one song before Cole had had enough of being held and wanted to walk around.
We left the show and walked over to the Rock-n-Roller coaster gift shop where I wanted to pick up a pressed quarter I didn’t get a chance to get last trip. When we got into the shop there was a pressed penny machine where the quarter machine use to be. At least I thought it was a quarter machine, maybe it could have been a penny machine, oh well. I took a peek at the limos that were pulling up and saw that only about half of the seats were filled. I thought about going on real fast but opted not to.
We thought that Cole might enjoy Little Mermaid so we made our way there via the shops along Sunset Boulevard, not really to shop but just to get out of the heat. After a quick diaper change we walked into Mermaid and took a seat toward the back with no one to the exit side of us in case we had to make a quick exit. And of course we had too, not because Cole was too rambunctious, this time he threw up all over his shirt just after the show started. The fact that the show started made it a little difficult to clean him up so we decided to take him outside to clean him up. We gave Cole a sippy cup of milk before Mermaid, he must have drank it too fast because that’s what we where wiping off of him.
Since we where missing Mermaid we walked toward the Backlot area thinking that Cole might like the Backlot Tour. Along the way we were detoured by Mike and Sulley who were out meeting guests. As Cole was walking up to M&S we were told that he has to have his shirt on, we took it off because it was drenched from his milk incident at mermaid, so we put his dirty shirt back on him for a quick picture. After the meet and greet we let Cole take a lazy walk down New York Ave. We made it about halfway down the street when Cole got distracted by a leaky fire hydrant. He must have played for about 5 minutes sticking his hands in the water and getting sprayed all over, he would laugh every time the water would spray him in the face.
We still were hoping to get onto Backlot Tour so we had to tear Cole away from his water fun, despite his protests. When we finally got over to BT we realized that we had just missed the last showing. We weren’t too upset; we just figured that Cole might enjoy this ride. As much as we enjoy this park, we quickly realized that MGM doesn’t have too much for a kid his age. Next time we come his attention span should be a little better and he should have more fun. Becca thought that Cole might enjoy the playground so after a couple of pictures with the Flik figurine we stopped in.
The playground was once again an attraction that Cole was still a little to young for. In theory he should have enjoyed it but when we got in there it was full of kids twice his size running around. It was a little too dangerous to let him play in here, next year. By now it was about 7:15 and Fantasmic was starting in just over an hour. Cole seemed to be a little healthier so we figured we would putz around until Fantasmic. The time spent walking around waiting for the show was great. With everything in the back of the park closed for the night it was practically empty so it seemed like we had the park to ourselves. We stopped in the Stage 1 Company Store and then onto The Writers Stop where we bought a few snacks. We still had a little bit of time so we stopped in One Man’s Dream which was just as vacant as the back of the park was.
OMD was a great stop. It was nice to be able to see this attraction again; you never know when they are going to close something out of nowhere (Hunchback). We were running short on time so we didn’t stay for the movie, which I love but we did have to get over to Fantasmic. Once we finally got up to the Hollywood Amphitheatre we pulled a little trickery, even though everyone was being directed to the left we cut over to the right. We’ve never done this before but we figured with Cole not feeling well we wanted to duck out of the show as soon as it was over and not have to wait with a huge crowd. As it turned out we ended up only watching half of the show, it was too hard having Cole stay still.
We found our stroller in the huge stroller parking and took a casual walk back to Sunset Blvd. By the time we got down to Sunset, Cole had fallen asleep. This gave a chance to look through the shops on the way out without anyone, and I mean no one, in them. After grabbing a snack for later we made our way out to the car. As we were pulling away we saw the hordes of people leaving the park, perfect timing.
After a quick ride back to AKL we took Cole up to the room and put him to sleep. With Cole tucked into bed Becca and I had a little relaxation time on our balcony watching everyone unwind in the pool while we unwound over our sweets we brought back from MGM. We ate about half of the chocolaty marshmallow thing before we decided to call it a night. Actually I should say before we decided to lie down and TRY to go to bed. We were in bed no more than 10 minutes before sick boy woke up crying. We tried everything over the next 45 minutes to calm him down but nothing worked. It’s not like we were at home where we could walk him all around, we were really confined to a narrow little walking strip between the beds and the armoire. I really felt bad for our neighbor, luckily we were on and end unit so we only had people on one side of us, who knows maybe they were young people who were still at Pleasure Island, and it was only 11:30 so maybe.
We finally put Cole in his stroller and wheeled him back and forth in those 15 feet in front of the beds. For some reason this did the trick. We didn’t want to press our luck so we tucked the stroller between our beds and let Cole sleep there for the night. He woke up a couple times throughout the night but we were able to put him right back to sleep by nudging the stroller from the bed
9/7/02
Before the trip I had planned on waking up at sunrise to go out and take some pictures around the property but in the middle of walking Cole last night I decided not to set the alarm and see what happened. I didn’t wake up but for some reason Becca was awake early and peaked out our balcony. This woke me up so I decided to quietly grab my stuff and head out. I walked down to the main overlook but I didn’t see any animals. As I later found out they were doing grounds work and didn’t bring the animals out for their safety. I was thinking that if I had paid for a savanna room for our two-day stay here and the animals weren’t even out I would be pretty mad. Luckily we were upgraded to our pool view room and the only thing I was missing was a little bit of sleep.
I ended up taking a few pictures of the hotel before I found a lounge chair near the pool and caught up on my trip report notes. I situated myself so that while I was writing I could keep an eye on our room and wait for Becca wake up. It was about an hour before Becca and Cole walked onto the balcony. When I got up to the room I found out that Cole wasn’t too happy about being awake. Becca tried to put him back to sleep but he wanted to be grumpy so she started off his day. Part of his crabbiness may be due to the fact that he was now even sicker than he was yesterday. We poked around the room a little bit before we were finally ready to start our day. Cole picked a good trip to get sick on. Since we only going to the parks a few days, and not paying to get in the parks when we did go, it wasn’t a major inconvenience to work around his schedule.
This morning was an off property morning for us so our first stop was the Walgreens we saw yesterday on the 192. We kinda missed our turn and ended up driving through Celebration. I have always wanted to go through here so we did just that. The town was very beautiful but a little freaky in the way that everything was perfect, no dirt, graffiti, garbage or overcrowding. As we drove through the town’s business district we drove by a cruise night, I know it’s the middle of the morning, and the only car’s I saw were Jaguars, Mercedes and Lexus’. Needless to say this is a pretty affluent community. We eventually found our way out of Celebration and back onto the 192.
We were going to buy some medicine for Cole but after talking to the pharmacist he told us that we already had the medicine that he needed, we just weren’t giving him enough, the container said to consult a physician for children 2 and under, a bit much to do at midnight on vacation. Of course we left the medicine back in our room so we went back to AKL where I ran up to our room and picked up the medicine. After drugging up Cole we were back on the road. I jumped onto the interstate to get some breakfast. We wanted to go to Waffle House just off property but I missed the exit. Of course the next exit was like 10 miles away, a little too far to double back. We were planning on gong to the Belz outlet so I figured if we take the next exit to International Drive and just take that all the way to the outlet mall we were bound to run across another WH. Well we didn’t and holy cow is that International Drive long. We probably passed by everything else in the world though, including countless t-shirt and souvenir stores, very cheesy.
On our way to Belz, Cole was falling asleep and waking up about every mile, he was very cranky. When we pulled into the mall Cole was sleeping so I had Becca go inside while I waited for her. She didn’t make it to far before Cole woke himself up again so we went inside to join her. Once inside I let Cole down so he could walk around a little bit, he loved this. We really didn’t find anything at the store or the other one so we made our way back to the interstate and this time didn’t miss the Waffle House exit. Of course on the way there Cole fell asleep, this time he was out cold. We debated about what to do but decided we wanted to eat so Cole had to get up. The food was great, a little pricey but still worth it.
Cole fell asleep again on the way back to AKL so I dropped the two of them off in the Porte cache while I parked the car. Becca was waiting in the lobby for me when I walked in so we walked up to our room to drop off some stuff so we could take a walk around the hotel while Cole was sleeping in his stroller. We finally saw some giraffes and an animal that looked kinda like an ox. After our quick little AKL tour we went back up to our room where we enjoyed a little relaxation time on our balcony while Cole was still sleeping. This was truly relaxing, after dealing with a VERY fussy kid the past 24 hours this little down time was exactly what we needed. We even saw a few giraffes grazing on the savanna.
Around 3:30 Cole finally woke up so we got him changed and went down to the pool. Once again the pool wasn’t too crowded but that still didn’t make it enjoyable for the little guy. He was still in a daze from the medicine and his cold and just wasn’t into the pool today. Becca ended up taking him back up to the room to give him some playtime while I stayed down at the pool. A short while later I made my way back up to the room and started to get ready for dinner.
Tonight’s meal was Boma. Becca and I were both pretty excited for dinner. The atmosphere was great; it is a seamless transition from the hotel itself into the restaurant. The food, however, wasn’t to my liking. I’m more of a basic meat and potatoes kind of guy. I did enjoy the spare ribs and prime rib and I tried the more exotic offerings they had, but I kept going back to the ribs. The desserts were unbelievable, definitely the highlight of the meal. The meal was mostly enjoyable, I probably would have had a better experience if Cole wasn’t so sick and crabby, he’s normally pretty good at restaurants but not this time.
After dinner we hopped in the car and drove over to Downtown Disney where we were corralled into the West Side parking lot. This just didn’t work out for us so we jumped back out and over to the Marketplace which was very crowded but we managed to find a spot right near the World of Disney store. Since we were in front of WoD we decided to start here where we picked up a few things for Cole and me, once again poor Becca walked away with nothing. Our next stop was Team Mickey and then on to Once Upon a Toy which was great. It was super crowded with kids running around playing with all the toys out on display. I really look forward to bringing Cole here when he gets a little older. >From Once Upon a Toy we stopped at Disney Home, Days of Christmas and the art store but didn’t pick up anything from these places. It was now 8:30 and sick boy was starting to get really tired so we decided to call it an evening and head back to AKL.
Once back at the hotel I dropped off Becca and Cole at the entrance and drove back out to get a few pictures of the illuminated AKL sign. We both really liked the way it looked. After parking the car I walked back up to the room and helped Becca pack up our stuff for our move to ASMoR tomorrow while Cole was sleeping. After most of our stuff was packed up I convinced Becca to go downstairs and enjoy the hot tub before we check out of AKL and no longer have one. She finally decided that it was a good idea and scooted out of the room. After about 20 minutes, which I spent enjoying our balcony, it was my turn. I snuck by the crib, which was in front of the door and escaped down to the pool. Once I got down there the hot tub near our balcony was closed, don’t know why, Becca was just in it a few minutes ago, so I went over to the other one. After a quick dip in the pool and a lengthy stay in the hot tub I went back up to the room. The smart thing would have been to go to sleep but I just couldn’t turn in without a little more downtime on the balcony. After about 30 minutes I called it a night and went back inside.
9/8/02
8:00 was here before I knew it, now I was regretting not going right to bed last night, and we got our wake up call from Mickey, not Lilo and Stitch as some people have been receiving. Today was our day for the Character Caravan so we took Cole down in his P.J.’s to meet some of the characters. We saw Goofy, Rafiki and Pumba and got pictures with each of them, Cole really could have cared less. After the meet and greet we went back up to the room where Cole and I took a few bags and Cole down to the car with hopes of checking into ASMoR while Becca finished up the room. By the time I got to ASMoR it was already 9:00, and we had 9:45 seating at Chef Mickey’s.
When I got to ASMoR I saw that it was pretty crowded so I decided not to check in and instead go back to AKL to pick up Becca and the rest of our luggage. Becca was ready when I got there and at 9:30 we were on our way to the Contemporary. My big concern now was parking. We planned on going to MK after breakfast and weren’t sure if we could park at Contemporary long enough without getting into trouble so that was out. I figured it would take way too long to do the whole TTA thing between the parking and the resort loop all the way around the lake so we settled on parking at Wilderness Lodge and taking the boat to the Contemporary. Although this was probably the best solution we still didn’t get over to breakfast until 10:10. They didn’t even care we were late and we were seated promptly right near the buffet line. I’ve read mixed reviews about Chef Mickey’s but we both thought the food was really good. And the character interaction was great; Cole really enjoyed everyone coming around now that he was more awake. As we were finishing up I called our friend and arranged for her to meet us at MK at a11:00.
By the time we finished breakfast and got ourselves together it was getting close to 11:00. I thought it would be faster to walk over to MK from the Contemporary rather than taking the monorail and risk missing our connection at MK. As it turns out we made to MK well before our friend did and regretted not taking the air-conditioned monorail as I wiped the sweat off of my forehead. We were finally in the park and walking down Main St by 11:45 and made a beeline to the Emporium to get out o the heat for a few minutes. We meandered our way through the shops and headed over to Tomorrowland where we rode Buzz and the TTA, both of which Cole loved. That was about all the rides Cole could do here so we walked over to Fantasyland where we picked up a fastpass for Pooh. Along the way Cole passed out in his stroller so we decided to get out of the heat and sit down a little while we decided what to do. As soon as we stepped into Pinocchio’s Village Haus the skies opened up and the restaurant became very crowded. Luckily we grabbed a bench off to the side just before it started to get filled up with people trying to escape the rain. After about 15 minutes the rain let up so we decided to take a walk to city hall to see if we could find out if my cousins have checked in yet. As it turned out they had checked in but they weren’t in their room at the time so I left them a voice mail.
Cole was still sleeping so we decided to head back to the car and check into ASMoR as we waited to hear back from Dave and Tracy. After a very enjoyable boat ride back to WL, which Cole was still sleeping through, we piled in the car and were on our way to our next room. Once we were at ASMoR I ran inside to check-in since Cole was still sleeping. We were given room 0707, exactly what I requested, a ground floor room in the Buzz building in the Toy Story section. At the check-in desk I called back over to BCV and Dave was in the room this time. He told me Alec was sleeping and Tracy was at the pool with Jenna. When I got back to the car Cole was finally awake so we decided to get ourselves situated in our room before we met up with D&T.
The room was nice, nothing special, no animals grazing out your window or a nice balcony to enjoy on the warm evenings, but that’s what you get when you spend about $50 less a night. Since we were leaving to go home in a couple of days we didn’t unpack too much stuff. We really just pulled out our swim gear and some clothes for tonight, what we were wearing was pretty damp from all our walking around (September is a pretty gross time to come down here) and drove over to the Beach Club Villas, where Dave and Tracy were staying. We parked the car and walked over to the BCV quiet pool and called up to Dave’s room. Dave said everyone was resting in the room and he would come down to the pool and meet us. It was so hot I couldn’t wait any longer; Cole and I just had to get into the pool. This was my first time at this hotel and the surroundings were beautiful. I love the style and color they use for the Yacht and Beach Clubs.
After a few minutes in the pool Dave met up with us. They had just gotten in a short while ago so we caught up on how their flight was and what they had done this afternoon. I was content with relaxing in the quiet pool for a while but Dave brought down an extra room key and walked us over to Stormalong Bay. It was about 2:00 now so we made plans to meet them up at in their room at 5:00. The pool was great, I especially liked the slide, although it took me a couple of times going down it before I was able to make it out without any water up my nose. Although we really enjoyed the pool, after a while I found it a pain to walk through the thick sand. I also almost got caught going into the really deep part of the pool. I was carrying Cole trying to get over to the kiddie area so he could play in the sand and before I knew it the water was up to mine and Cole's chin. I tried to turn around but of course I was in the lazy river part and was trying to go upstream. After quite a struggle I finally made it to a decent depth and we jumped out of the pool to bypass the deep stuff. And after all my hard work wouldn’t you know Cole didn’t even like playing in the sand.
We spent the rest of our time just relaxing and before too long it was time to get changed and head up to D&T's room. Their room was beautiful, your standard studio vacation club accommodations with a nice view of Spaceship Earth. When we got up to the room they were ready to go, so we made our way to the lobby. Our dinner plans for tonight were to eat at the ESPN Club so I told them to head over there and I would meet them after I dropped off our swim gear in the car. When I got to ESPN I was shocked to see the restaurant only about half full on opening weekend for the NFL. I joined the rest of my party when I realized I didn’t know where my wallet was. Normally it doesn’t bother me when it’s lost but this time I had most of our vacation money in it. I know, not too smart but halfway through ordering dinner I realized it was in the camcorder bag in the stroller. Besides me ordering my chicken fingers way too hot the meal was great, a perfect place to bring young kids too.
After dinner we wanted to give the kids some more playtime so we walked over to the Boardwalk pool area and let the kids run around the playground there. I don’t know if I ever heard Cole laugh as much as he did when he was trying to walk across the little wooden bridge they have in one of the play sets. He kept trying to walk across it and would eventually fall down from the rocking motion, he loved it. After about a half hour at the playground we walked back out to the boardwalk where we visited the gift shop and watched a few of the street performers. While we were watching a performance a Friendship boat pulled up so we decided to jump on board for a little boat ride. It turned out to be a round trip to Epcot and back. On the way back we were able to grab the outside row in the back of the boat. This was a great way to enjoy a beautiful evening while the lights on the boardwalk began to light up the area. Once back at the dock we made plans for tomorrow and said our goodbyes, they were going to walk over to Fantasia Gardens for a round of mini-golf. Dave and I decided to meet up tonight at ESPN tonight at 10:30 to watch the Sunday night football game for a drink.
Becca and I grabbed the next boat over to Y&BC and started off to our car. Once at the Beach Club we decided to grab a treat to go from Beaches and Cream (we like to eat here once a trip but this was the best we could do, guess I’ll have to wait until February to have one of their yummy cheeseburgers). Becca ordered a peanut butter sundae while I had a root beer float. Both were delicious, the vanilla ice cream they use is out of this world. We took a relaxing walk through the beach club enjoying our ice cream until we got to the solarium where I left Becca and Cole and ran out to get the car. I just love the solarium with the high ceiling and all the windows; it must be a wonderful place to take a break from a busy day.
After picking up Becca we made our way back to ASMoR where were we finished the unpacking that needed to be done. Cole needed to get his bedtime milk so the two of us made our way slowly to the food court. We ended up stopping at a few places in Andy’s Room to play. Cole especially liked the remote control car. He’s starting to become very adventurous and loved climbing on it, well at least trying to climb, he’s not quite big enough to get his feet off the ground. After a little play time and a stop at the food court we were back in our room and getting ready for bedtime.
Everything was in order around 10:15 so I said goodnight to Becca and headed over to the Boardwalk to meet Dave at ESPN. Dave was already sitting down at the bar when I walked in and I was once again amazed to see that the bar was even emptier than it was earlier. We had a few drinks and hung out while we watched the second half of the game. It was a nice change to be out and not have to be entertaining a little one just like the old days. After the game we said our goodbyes and reconfirmed our plans for tomorrow morning. Originally Dave and Tracy were going to spend the day at their hotel but they decided to join us at the parks instead.
9/9/02
After such a busy day yesterday… last night… this morning … 7:00 rolled around way to fast. After going through our morning ritual we finally made it out the door at 7:45. We had plans to meet our friend at MK at 8:15 this morning so we were running a little late. Since we were tight on time I opted to park at Grand Floridian and take the monorail to the park. As we were parking the car a fear came over me that the resort monorail wasn’t running this early. The fact that as we were walking up to the resort and still hadn’t seen a monorail yet didn’t help to calm my fears. We walked to the elevator and when we got off we finally saw a monorail pull up, whew! We ended up making it to MK by 8:20, only 5 minutes late, not bad when you have a 1-year-old. Our friend was already there and once again got us into the parks. We had originally made PS at Tony’s for breakfast but she told us that CM could get their guests into the parks early without PS arrangements
We decided to skip breakfast at Tony’s, which we really weren’t planning on going to anyway, and walked down an empty Main St. to the castle. On our way back Mickey and Minnie were standing in front of the partners statue without anyone around (it’s great getting here before everyone else). We stopped to get a picture but Cole wasn’t really interested so we continued back down Main Steey to the bakery where we were once again the only people in the place.
We gathered our purchases and continued down Main Street to the train station where we took a table overlooking Main Steet. As we were enjoying our food we heard the opening announcement and watched as all the people came rushing into the park. I can’t even describe how great this morning was, we had the park to our selves for a while, took our time selecting our morning snacks and then enjoyed a peaceful breakfast while everyone else was rushing around, including D&T who joined us at the train station and told us they were going to get a bit to eat at the Main Street Bakery. After we finished our breakfast and cleaned ourselves up we met up with D&T who were sitting at a little table outside the bakery. We discussed our plans for the day and decided that we would head over to Tomorrowland once they finished their snacks (which didn’t take too long, Alec and Jenna were itching to get going).
When we finally got to Tomorrowland our first stop was the Indy raceway. With Becca’s bad back we’ve never been on this ride before (we’re always afraid some kid is going to ram the back of our car). This time Jenna and Tracy were behind us so we felt pretty safe. This will not be the last time we go on this ride, Cole loved it. Every time we bumped into the center rail Cole laughed hysterically. From Indy we went to Buzz where Dave outgunned me by about 100,000 points and he let me know about it most of the day. D&T wanted to go on Astro Orbiter so we split up and went on the TTA while they were in line. Just as we were coming down the TTA ramp they were about to go up the ramp to ride the TTA. To help pass the time while we waited we let Cole run around and burn off a little energy.
When Dave came back down he told me the Space Mountain didn’t have a line so I joined him and Jenna while the girls went to Fantasyland with the boys. I don’t know what Dave saw but there was a line that reached about halfway down the super long entry you get to fly through with fastpass. When we finally got off SM we walked down to Fantasyland and met up with the girls just outside of Pooh, we decided as long as we are here we may as well get FP for this. From Pooh we went to Small World and took a well-deserved break from the heat. All too soon the ride was over and we were forced to walk back out into the blistering sun. From Small World we walked across the street to Pan which claimed to be a 20 min wait but actually turned out to be only 10 minutes. By the time we got off of Pan our Pooh FP were up so we headed that way and all piled into our honey pots. After Pooh we walked back into the heart of Fantasyland and Becca and I took Cole on the carousel while D&T took Jena and Alec over to visit Ariel (Alec loves Ariel). As we walked off the carousel D&T were waiting for us. They decided to pass on the visit to Ariel’s Grotto because the line was super long.
At this point we had finished off everything we wanted to do in Fantasyland so we hoped across the park to Adventureland where we made our first stop at Aladdin’s Magic Carpets. I really like this ride and the fact that it’s been a walk-on every time I’ve been on it makes it that much better. It was now the middle of the afternoon and even hotter than it was earlier so we decided to cool off with a relaxing ride on Pirates of the Caribbean. The ride was almost as great as the air conditioning they pump into this attraction. Just outside of the PoC exit Hook and Smee were signing autographs (I don’t know how they can wear those costumes in this heat). After a visit with Hook and Smee we continued down to Frontierland where Dave and I tried to get FP for Splash Mountain. For some reason the FP dispenser was down so we decided to skip it and instead go over to Tom Sawyer's Island. While waiting for the raft we found out that strollers weren’t allowed on the island so Becca and I decided to part ways with D&T for now and meet up with them later.
We were starting to get hungry; those huge cinnamon rolls can only keep you full for so long, so we decided to stop off at Pecos Bill’s for a little snack. I watched Cole while Becca stood in a super long line for a hot dog for him. When she got back I set out on a search for some nachos that we saw people eating in the restaurant. I ended up finding them next door at El Pirate y el Perico. The nachos weren’t your run of the mill nachos; they had a ton of fixins on them, definitely something to look for next time we’re here. On our way out of the park we deliberately walked through Adventureland so we could make a stop for a Dole Whip, another great snack.
With our Dole Whip in hand we stopped off in the baby center for a quick change and a little cool down. We were still in a junk food buying mood so we picked up some cookies for later tonight. Since this was our last time in MK this trip we decided to do our traditional last lap on the train. The ride was great and almost put Cole to sleep. As the train departed at the Main Street Station we kind of waited for the crowds to thin out before we walked down the ramps and put Cole in his stroller, he ended up falling asleep before we were at the monorail. Since Cole was sleeping we decided to take a walk around the Polynesian resort and get a preview for our February trip. Becca checked at the front desk to see if any rooms were available for us to take a peek into but we were told they were none. Since we couldn’t check any out we decided to take a walk around the grounds. We walked toward the Tokelau building and decided this is where we wanted to stay, great location near the quiet pool and not to far from the GCH plus a possibility we could see some water from our balcony. After our little Polynesian tour we walked back to the monorail and took it to GF where I ran ahead and got the car. Man do these cars bake in this summer heat. Every afternoon I’d have to put a towel over the steering wheel so I didn’t burn my hands while I drove. By the time I pulled up to the Porte cache Cole had woken up. We loaded up him and our gear into the car and within a few minutes of driving Cole was asleep again.
When we got back to ASMoR Becca took a sleeping Cole to the room while I gathered up some of our gear. When I got back to the room I opened the door to find Cole standing up in his crib. At least he had a little bit of a nap today. We decided to give Cole a little room time so we started to get together our stuff for check out tomorrow. Half of our stuff was still packed from our AKL check out so cleaning up didn’t take to long. We still had a couple of hours before we were scheduled to meet up with D&T again so we decided to take advantage of the pool. We pretty much hovered around the kiddie pool which was very fun, even with all the mothers complaining about how the fake icebergs block the view from most of the seats and the have to sit right there. Cole really enjoyed the pool this time. He wasn’t to keen on the pool at AKL, maybe because he was sick, but here he had a good time. There was a ball floating around in the pool that he enjoyed chasing around the pool. After a sufficient cool down we went back to our room and got ourselves ready for Epcot tonight.
We arrived at the beach club at 5:45 and were in Epcot at 6:00. We were to meet D&T in Mexico at 6:30 so we had enough time that we could enjoy a little bit of the England and Canadian pavilions. On our way through Off Kilter was just starting up so we were able to finally catch part of their show. Becca and I both enjoyed it, they kind of reminded me of a hipper version of the Wiggles. We made it to Mexico by about 6:20 and a short while later Dave and Tracy met up with us. None of us had eaten so we decided to have a bite to eat at the Cantina de San Angel. We all had the plato combinacion, except Becca, she decided she would hold off and grab something at the Moroccan pavilion. Dinner was great, of course, and we able to enjoy Tapestry of Dreams while we ate which was an added bonus.
After our meal we continued through the WS making our way to Morocco so Becca could have a little bite to eat. Along the way we stopped at Germany where Dave and I picked up a little refreshment. Dave ordered the plain Beck’s while I had the Beck’s Octoberfest, which was a little darker and heavier but very good. We caught up with Becca in Morocco who had just sat down in the little seating area just outside the cafe. She was just about to start eating so I took over the Cole watching duties while she ate. Alec and Jenna enjoyed the little break and took the time to explore and run around. Now that everyone had eaten their dinner it was time for dessert, and look at us right next door to France and their little pastry shop. We wanted to see Impressions de France, which started in about 15 minutes, just enough time to get our goodies. Cole really enjoyed the freedom we gave him as we waited, and everyone around was very amused seeing a grown man chase his son all over France. By the time everyone had finished our snack it was just about time for the film so we shuffled next door and took a seat in the front row. We figured Cole wouldn’t sit for too long and if we were in the front we could kinda let him walk around, not like there was anyone to disturb, the theater only had about 20 people in it. The show was very good, despite being way too close to the screen, and it was nice to see the show again.
After the show let out we walked down t the American Pavilion and looked at the flag they had on display from ground zero. From America we walked down toward England until we got to the Rose and Crown Pub. Dave decided to get himself a black and tan and I picked up a milk for Cole. With our drinks in our hands we made our way back to the international gateway to watch Illuminations. We ended up getting a good viewing spot right on the bridge, which wasn’t crowded at all. As the show began Cole was a little cranky and very tired so I ended up carrying him throughout the performance to help him fall asleep. He never did fall asleep during the show but he did stop fussing so mission accomplished. I was disappointed to see that the ending of the show was a little different. They didn’t open up the giant globe and shoot the fireworks out of it at the end. After the show ended we were in perfect position to make our exit to the Y&B club and grab our car.
Cole finally fell asleep on the way to the car so as we made our way trough the Beach Club we said our goodbyes in the solarium. After running out to the car I picked up Becca and Cole who were still in the solarium and we made our way back to our hotel. Once back at ASMo Becca carried Cole back to the room and laid him in the travel crib, he never woke up. Since Cole was out cold we were able to finish packing our stuff and load up the car for our trip home tomorrow.
9/10/02
Cole woke up before our wake up call today so the two of us ran down to the food court to get us some milk and snacks for this morning. Unfortunately we took a little too long and we just missed Mickey’s wake up call. There were a few little odds and ends that still needed straightening up so after everything was in order we walked down to the lobby for the character caravan. We apparently need to read the sheet a little better; the caravan wasn’t scheduled to visit ASMoR today. We said our goodbyes to Buzz and Woody grabbed the few bags that we still had in our room and made our way to the airport. We got to the airport with plenty of time and other than Cole being a little cranky on the flight home, he was fine once he fell asleep, the flight was uneventful.
Michael Banks