Trip Reports
02-20-2007, 09:08 PM
Katie Proctor – November 2002 - All Star Movies
Time of Year: Fall
Travel Method: Personal car
Resort: ASMoR
Accommodations: Standard Room
Ages Represented in Group: Adult
WDW Experience Represented in Group: Rookie
Comments: After five years without a vacation as long as a week, Katie and her husband were in definite need of some R&R. Her husband wasn't too keen on the idea of using their time on a trip to Disney World, but eventually she won him over. And eventually the resort did the same.
Katie Proctor -- November 2002 -- Walt Disney World (ASMoR)
Who
Katie, 26, Resident Disney fan, one previous visit (Dec. 1995) plus one evening at Epcot as part of a conference (Jan. 1998)
Lee, 35, Resident Grumpy
When
November 3-7, 2002
Where
All-Star Movies Resort
Why
Lee and I took a week for our honeymoon five years ago. We haven’t taken an entire week off since, and at this point, a vacation is desperately needed. We started talking about going somewhere last fall, and I was finally able to talk him into going, with the promise that I could plan a trip for less than $2500, and that it wouldn’t be crowded or hot. The International Food & Wine Festival helped to seal the deal, and we made definite plans to visit the Mouse earlier this year.
How
Driving from northeastern NC, with two stops on the way down. We’re leaving after work on Friday, Nov. 1, and driving to Pawleys Island, SC, which is about a six-hour drive. Lee’s parents have a beach house there, so it’s a free bed along the way. On Saturday, Nov. 2, we’ll get up semi-early and drive to Jacksonville, FL, to visit a specific store, and then we’ll push on to Daytona Beach that evening. The plan is to get up mid-morning on Nov. 3 and then have a relatively short drive to WDW.
The Details
Friday, November 1
Lee had a very rough time at work for just about the entire month of October, so our mantra became “vacation is coming soon.” The simple knowledge that we would be away for an entire week saved both of us several times, and by the time our departure day rolled around, my head was already gone. To add insult to injury, I was the only person left in my department by 4:45, even though I couldn’t leave until 5. As soon as the clock rolled around, though, I was out of the office to meet Lee (we work for the same place). We’d packed everything in the car that morning, so we able to get on the highway right away. As usual for us, Lee drove and I navigated. One quick stop for gas and we were Florida bound.
The trip to Pawleys was pretty uneventful; it’s one we’ve made many times, so we know the road pretty well. We stopped in the same place we usually do for supper, where I had a calzone and Lee had a sandwich; we saved the leftovers for the next day’s lunch. At 11:30 or so, we arrived at his folks’ house and went to bed almost immediately.
Saturday, November 2
We got up around 7, which is when we usually do, and repacked the few things we’d brought in. We were on the road at 8:20, and stopped in Georgetown to fill up (I drove the first shift) before heading south. I drove until we got to Darien, GA, where we stopped for lunch at a Dairy Queen. After a freak blizzard, we got back on I95. The drive to Jacksonville was boring until we got to downtown, where the traffic was really bad. But we managed to find the store we were looking for (Sidebar: Lee and I are both foodies, and we order our spices over the internet. The supplier has a store in Jacksonville, so that’s where we stopped and bought way too many good-smelling spices) and get back to the interstate without any trouble. After Jacksonville it was a quick jaunt to Daytona Beach. I’d made reservations for the La Quinta Inn that was near the interstate via the AAA website; what they failed to mention was that the hotel was within earshot of the speedway, where there were motorcycles racing. Oops. We checked in around 4 p.m. and went straight to the room to unwind for a bit.
Around 6:30, we were getting kind of hungry, so I hopped online (free local phone calls were one reason I picked this hotel) and found directions to a couple of restaurants that sounded good. It turned out that our first choice was inaccessible due to some road construction, so we stopped at a little Indian place that I saw along the way. What a good “mistake” that turned out to be, as we had one of the best Indian meals we’ve ever tasted. Everything was delicious, and if we’re ever in the area again, we certainly plan to stop there for a meal. Afterwards, I had thought of a few things we were missing, so we drove next door to the restaurant to a K-Mart and picked up the items we needed. We were back in the room by 8 or so, where we went to bed early.
Sunday, November 3
We woke up around 7 and got ready to leave. Our express checkout was under the door, so I signed that (the room ended up being $65 for a king; not bad, all things considered). We loaded up the car and headed west to Orlando, listening to a Disney CD to prepare ourselves. The directions that I had from AAA were very good, and we were pulling into the All-Star Movies Resort in just under an hour, arriving around 9 a.m. Check-in went very smoothly, and we found out we’d be in Building 7, Love Bug. Not exactly where I would have preferred, but it worked out fine. We moved the car around to a spot near the building (since our room wasn’t ready yet) and got ready for the parks. After a brief walk to the bus stop and a wait for a bus, we were on our way to the Magic Kingdom.
The first thing we noticed when we got there was the crowd - there were a lot more people there than I was expecting. I knew it wouldn’t be deserted, but I wasn’t anticipating quite so many people. There were several tables set up for bag check, and I of course got into the slowest moving line. Lee, with no bags, went straight through and got impatient waiting for me. I had gotten into line behind a large group of people, all wearing bright yellow shirts that read, “I’m with them,” with arrows pointing in either direction. The CM doing bag check got a round of applause for making one of the group put his shirt on - he’d been carrying it in his bag. Finally, we headed for the entrance and got in with no problem.
We went straight over to Tomorrowland via the Plaza Pavillion, and went looking for Space Mountain (I neglected to pick up a map at first; I got one at some point while we were in that area, though). We passed Buzz on the way and I decided to go ahead and get Fastpasses with a return time of about 45 minutes later. Space Mountain had a standby wait of about 10-15 minutes, so we went ahead and got in line. It moved pretty quickly, and we both enjoyed it. Later on, Lee would say that it was one of his favorite rides of the trip.
We walked over to Buzz and, after waiting for a minute to make sure we were in the right place for Fastpass entrance, got right into a car. It was at that moment that I became a Fastpass convert. I had read that they were handy, but oh, man, it’s another thing altogether to see it in person. Our ride was fine; I apparently have lousy aim, but since my husband shoots things online every night, he did just fine.
After Buzz, we went over to Alien Encounter and waited through one complete pre-show cycle. I was a bit apprehensive, having absolutely hated this when I visited with my family in 95 (I don’t like the dark very much). It wasn’t much better this time, although Lee didn’t think it was very scary. He kept leaning over and trying to get me to jump even more than the show itself. But I handled it a bit better this time overall. I was disappointed that both the Timekeeper and Carousel of Progress were closed, since those were both things that my family enjoyed on the previous trip. We soldiered on, though, and rode the TTA to get off our feet for a little while.
After our relaxing spin around Tomorrowland, we struggled through the crowds to the “secret” path between Space Mountain and Mickey’s Toontown Fair. Lee was amazed at how few people were on the path and said he wished the whole park was like that. We walked right onto the train and rode over to Frontierland. We immediately got FPs for Splash Mountain, with a return time about an hour away, and got into the standby line for Big Thunder. I think the wait was posted at 20 minutes or so, and it wasn’t even that long before we rode.
It was close to noon by now, so I called to see if our room was ready. It was not, and we still had a little while before our FPs for Splash, so we walked over to Adventureland and got in line for the Tiki Room. Again, we just missed a show, so we waited and rested a bit. I considered calling my sister, who had absolutely detested the Tiki Room, but decided against it. Besides, I have the song on CD so I can torture her at any time. We got in and saw the show, and I think I like the previous version better. I can’t say why, exactly, but I think it had more charm.
Our FP window was now open, so we went over to Splash and were almost immediately seated in a log - in the front row. Where the seats were already wet. We looked at each other a bit nervously, but enjoyed the ride. We didn’t get wet on the drop; every time the log went into the water off the track, a little water would splash over the sides and onto the seat. The drop itself was a lot less intense than I thought it would be, and I didn’t know how extensive the animatronics are. We both really enjoyed it.
Afterwards, we maneuvered our way over to Liberty Square and got in line for the Haunted Mansion. There was a bit of a wait, but it was pretty manageable. I did see the eyes on the headstone for Madame Leota open and look around; it’s a very cool effect, but I don’t think many people noticed. While we were in the stretching room, Lee asked me if the ceiling was going up or if the floor was going down, and I told him which it was. Overall, he was very impressed; he later declared that it was probably the best ride on property.
We then walked over to the Hall of Presidents and waited about 20 minutes for the next show. We were able to sit down, which helped our sore feet, and I checked the map for the things we (okay, I) wanted to see before we left. I noticed that the narrator wasn’t Maya Angelou anymore, but I don’t know who it was. Lee is a big history buff, and he liked the show, but he was a little disappointed in how the Civil War was portrayed. Although, to be honest, he’s almost always disappointed in that area of history and how it’s portrayed.
We then walked back over to Adventureland and got in line for the Jungle Cruise. The wait wasn’t too bad, and we were on our way in no time. Our guide was punny, but there were several times when Lee and I were the only ones laughing. Pirates of the Caribbean was next, and one that Lee wasn’t looking forward to. I have the WDW Racing game, and have spent many hours trying to get all the trophies on the Pirates course; therefore, Lee has heard “A Pirate’s Life for Me” way more times than he would like. The ride itself was fine, but he’s sick of the song.
We called again to check on the room, and it was ready, so we headed out of the park just ahead of the parade. We could see it in the distance, but we didn’t stay to watch. We waited a few minutes for a bus, and then got the first load of stuff into the room. We moved the car to a spot closer to the room, and then brought up everything else. I unpacked and we were settled in by 4:15. Lee checked out the TV (he was disappointed that they don’t carry Fox News Channel) and I made some notes. We both just sort of relaxed and decompressed after our first day in the park. It was pretty hot - over 80 degrees - and sticky, which we’re used to, but not in November. Lee was also pretty frustrated with strollers that seemed to appear out of nowhere and block exactly where we wanted to go.
At 6, we left the room for our 7:10 PS at Ohana. Lee thought I was nuts, but I knew it would take a while to get there via Disney transportation and neither of us wanted to drive. So we took a bus to Epcot (the MK closed at 6) and then hopped on the monorail to the TTC. We then attempted to follow the signs for the path to the Polynesian, but got turned around a bit and actually walked over to the ferry. I tried to get a picture of the castle from across the lake, but I haven’t mastered the art of taking digital pictures at night yet.
We made it over to the Great Ceremonial House and got checked in a few minutes early, so we sat in the lounge and tried to watch a bit of the football game that was on. Our pager went off at 7:10 and we enjoyed a lovely meal, although it was a bit lacking in vegetables. We both loved the shrimp, and our server kept counting 2 or 3 shrimp as one when putting them on our plate (Lee asked for 3 and got about 6). There was plenty of entertainment, too; the kids with the hula hoops in front of us never figured out that they needed to stand farther apart, so they kept knocking into each other. Lee nearly got clocked with a broom during one of the coconut races - he moved away just in time.
After the very yummy pineapple and caramel sauce, we charged the meal to the room and took the monorail back over to the TTC. We saw what looked like a private party on the beach next to the Grand Floridian, and a private fireworks show as well. It must be nice to have that kind of money, because we certainly don’t. At the TTC we changed monorails and went back over to Epcot, enjoying the glimpse we got of the park from above. We waited just a few minutes for a bus (it was just before 9, so there was hardly anyone else waiting) and rode back to the resort with just one other family. We saw some of the fireworks from Illuminations along the way, but we didn’t really try overly hard to see them. We were in the room at 9:30, so we turned on the Sunday night game (Giants vs. Jaguars; we usually root against Kerry Collins since we’re Carolina fans) and got the day’s scores before falling asleep early.
Monday, November 4, 2002
We woke up around 7am, like we usually do, although neither of us got up right away. Mickey called at 7:13am (I’d set the wake-up for an odd time to increase the odds of actually getting Mickey, and July 13 is my birthday), although Lee wasn’t particularly happy about it. Since Lee usually takes the first shower at home, I got up first and got into the shower. It didn’t seem very hot to me, and the towels weren’t very impressive, either. Later on I discovered that I hadn’t turned the water up as high as it could go, and my showers were much pleasanter the rest of the week.
Once we finally got out of the room and to the bus stop, we were just in time to catch the Epcot bus that had just pulled up. We didn’t have any trouble with bag check and were into the park by 8:45am. We walked through Innoventions and stood over by left side of the rope with the goal of heading to Test Track first thing. About five minutes before the park’s official opening, a cast member rolled up on a Segway Human Transporter, but we were too far back to really hear his spiel about it. We didn’t hear an official opening announcement, but the rope dropped right at 9 and we joined the very large crowd rushing towards Test Track. We didn’t run, but we did walk quickly, and the line was already very long by the time we got there. We got Fastpasses right away, and the return time was about 45 minutes away.
We walked over to Wonders of Life next, and were really the only people in the area. We were second in line for the first Body Wars of the day, and the shuttle ended up being only about half full. We played a bit in the Sensory area and went straight into Cranium Command, which even Lee thought was cute. By then it was just about time for our Fastpasses, so we walked back over to Test Track and were in a car in no time. We enjoyed the ride, but neither of us thought it would be worth a very long wait. Fastpass suited us just fine. Lee remarked that if he wanted to experience that, he could go back out onto the highway.
After Test Track, we meandered over to Imagination and into Honey I Shrunk the Audience. We saw some, but not all of the True Colors pre-show, and headed into a mostly empty theater. We went all the way across our row, but there wasn’t any real reason to do so. Lee was startled by the mice effect, but wasn’t terribly impressed overall. We then walked over to Journey into Your Imagination and got right on. It was cute, but certainly not worth a long wait. I don’t really remember the original Journey into Imagination, so I can’t make a coherent comparison. We played for a bit in Imageworks, taking a digital picture of ourselves and sending it to our families.
We then headed over to The Land, and saw there was a 20 minute wait for Living with the Land. We would have gotten Fastpasses, but the return time was after our PS for lunch, so we sucked it up and got into line. It did keep moving, so it wasn’t too bad. The problem came when it was time to get into the boat.
We were behind a family of six: mom and dad and four kids. The CM seating people told them to take the last two rows, but waited a bit to see how they would arrange themselves. When they split into a group of four and a group of two, she told us to take the next to last row. In the time between her giving us those instructions and us walking to the boat, they reorganized into two groups of three. Since there were people right behind us getting into the row they had been instructed to get into, we ended up sitting in two different rows. Not exactly what we had in mind. Lee was mad and talking very loudly about how stupid the family was and how it sucked that we were split up, but I got him to hush and not make a scene. I don’t think they realized at all how irritated we were. The ride itself was pretty cool; we got some good ideas for our own garden, which is traditionally kind of big. We just wished we could have spoken to each other about it as we went past the interesting bits.
By the time we finished, it was just about time for our PS at Restaurant Marrakesh, so we walked over to World Showcase, checking out a couple of the booths for the Food and Wine Festival along the way. We were seated right away and were one of three occupied tables in the restaurant, so PS probably weren’t really necessary. Since we were planning to eat at Boma that night, Lee decided to eat lightly, and ordered the Harira soup and beef Brewat rolls for lunch. I had the chicken couscous; it was all delicious and we both left not feeling overly full. The belly dancer came out just at the end of our meal, which was a good thing; I think Lee might have been too preoccupied to eat, otherwise. We ended up getting a copy of the cookbook and charged the meal to the room.
We then left the park and caught a bus to Animal Kingdom. We had to wait for a little while, but no longer than about fifteen minutes, I think. Mostly it was hot. Very hot: over 80 degrees again today and sticky, but it never actually rained. Once we got into AK, we walked straight into It’s Tough to Be a Bug. There were two men who nearly got into a fistfight a few rows ahead of us, but I have no idea what they were so pissed about. We really enjoyed the show; I knew what to expect with regards to the effects and they still startled me. There were a few small children who weren’t as charmed as we were, though.
Afterwards, we walked back through Africa and went straight to Kilimanjaro Safari, where there was about a fifteen-minute wait. I took a ton of pictures, but alas, I can’t tell what all of them are supposed to be now (one month after the trip as of this writing). We both agreed, though, that the poacher storyline was pretty cheesy and felt the ride could be improved by simply omitting it. Once we got back, we walked over to the Pangani Trail; lots of animals were out and about, and I took even more pictures. It was pretty hot, though, so we didn’t stay long.
We then left Africa and walked over to Dinoland USA and into Dinosaur, where we got on almost immediately. We both really liked it, but I kind of felt it was a bit disjointed and hard to follow the plotline. It probably would have improved with a second ride, but that was something we never got around to doing.
By this point, the heat and the amount of walking we’d been doing had caught up with us, and we were pretty pooped. Since there was no line at Primeval Whirl as we walked past, we decided to give it a spin. Both of us got off, looked at each other, and said, “Eh.” We did think that it was incredibly garish and jarring when compared to the rest of the park.
After Primeval Whirl, we were ready to leave, so we made our way to the park exit. This might have been a bit easier if the parade hadn’t been scheduled to start in about five minutes, but we managed. I went the wrong way out of the park, initially (I took a left when we should have taken a right to get to the Disney buses), so we had to backtrack and get going the correct direction. Two buses showed up very shortly after we got to the stop, but it was still very crowded. We were back in the room by 4:15.
At that point, we decided to chill out for a bit (literally, too - Lee set the thermostat to a balmy 62 degrees so it would be plenty cold when we got back to the room), so we watched some TV, had a drink, and got online to check our email. Well, Lee checked his, and then he got in the shower and I tried to check mine. The connection quit working, though, and I didn’t feel like spending another 75 cents to check mine, so I just worked on my notes for a while before taking my own shower.
We had 7:10 PS for Boma, and since the two resorts were so close to each other, I thought it would be easiest for us to just drive over there. It probably would have been, too, if we hadn’t taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way. Oops. We still got to the restaurant in plenty of time to get checked in and wait for our table.
It was at this point that we noticed the tremendous number of children also waiting to eat at Boma, which surprised me. I wouldn’t have thought that many children would like eating African food, but then again, there were chicken fingers and French fries, so I guess they’d still be happy. But not all of the kids were well-behaved while waiting; in fact, none of the ones that I could see were. They were running around, climbing on anything that stood still, and staring at people - like me. I was very uncomfortable when a girl around 4 just sat next to me and stared at me, so I turned away and kept facing Lee. The other thing I noticed was how many children had shoes that lit up when they walked, which gave me a bit of a headache as I’m a little sensitive to flashing lights.
Finally, after what felt like forever but was really only about fifteen minutes, we were seated and promptly ordered large adult beverages. I had the Victoria Falls Mist, which was really good - and a lovely shade of neon green, to boot - and Lee had the margarita since the server told him it was the strongest. We headed for the buffet right away, partly to get the lay of the land and partly to start getting filled up.
It was all very good; I ended up trying a little bit of almost everything and wasn’t disappointed. It surprised me how much of the food was sweet - not overly sweet, for the most part, but I could tell that almost everything had a little bit of sugar in it. Even the vegetables and the meat dishes had a bit of sweetness to them, which helped, in some cases. And of course, the dessert buffet really was all that I had read it would be. I was pretty full even before I started on dessert, but I just had to try several things: the zebra domes were fabulous, as was everything. Even Lee enjoyed the desserts, and he usually doesn’t go for sweets as much as I do.
After dinner, we walked around the resort a bit, making it outside to one of observation decks. We saw the bonfire, but we didn’t walk over there. We stood outside for a few minutes, taking in the atmosphere, and just generally enjoying the night and each other. On the way back to the car, we talked a bit about the hotel, and Lee mentioned possibly staying there on our next trip. His parents stayed there a couple of years ago, but our finances are a bit more limited, so we’ll have to see if we make it there or not.
We had talked about possibly going over to Downtown Disney that evening, but we ended up being too full and sore to do anything other than drive back to All Star Movies, walking back to our room, and going to bed early since we were planning to go to MGM in the morning for Extra Magic Hour.
Tuesday, November 5, 2002
We were up at 7am again, although it was getting harder to wake up at that time. We caught a bus to MGM that arrived at the stop just as we did, so we were there by 7:40. Since we were there for Early Entry, the lines were pretty long, especially for bag check. I tried to pick the line that seemed the shortest, but I’m never very good at things like that. Actually, where I was in line, there was another table to the right that did not have a security person: it was supposed to be for people who didn’t have any bags, but since there were quite a few people with bags going through, they ended up turning the table so that no one could get through.
We then waited another ten minutes or so to be let into the park. Everyone seemed fairly spread out across the front, and I don’t think we got in any sooner or later than anyone else. We headed to the Tower of Terror right away, and the wait was non-existent. We walked straight into the lobby and waited about five minutes to be let into the library. When we got to the elevators, they were only running the right side, and we ended up in back row on the left. After surviving, I wanted to do it again, so we exited and went right back around. I noticed Cruella De Ville and the Evil Queen from Snow White taking pictures in the courtyard just outside the exit as we went around. The second time we actually had even less of a wait, and this time, we were in the front row on the right. The villains were still standing outside, and it was about this point that Lee said he was very impressed with the visual effects, but he hates being dropped. I wished I’d known that earlier, since I wouldn’t have requested a second go-round, but hindsight is 20/20.
Since it was still only about 8:30, we walked over to the Rock ‘N Roller Coaster, where a line had built up a bit, but it still moved pretty quickly. We've both ridden induction coasters before, so we sort of knew what to expect during the take-off, but it was still a bit of a shock. We both really enjoyed the ride, and when we were done, we walked through the shop to pick out gifts for some friends. We ended up getting some T-shirts, and had them sent back to the resort.
We then walked across the park, passing on The Great Movie Ride due to a 40 minute wait time, picked up FPs for Star Tours, and headed to the Muppets, which was something I was really looking forward to. I have a big ol' soft spot for the Muppets, and Lee has long claimed that he's like Statler and Waldorf, so we had high hopes. The pre-show had already started, so we saw most of that and then the show. It didn't disappoint, although I had to tell Lee to turn around so as not to miss some of the effects in the back. I also saw the screens for the reflective captioning, though it took me a minute to realize what it was. My sister is also a big Muppet fan, so we did some more souvenir shopping and had another package sent back to the room. I admit, I bought some socks for myself here, too, but only because I'd realized that I hadn’t brought enough to make it through the week.
By this time, our window for Star Tours was open, so we meandered back up the hill to do that. We both enjoyed the ride, although we thought the film is definitely showing its age. My brother-in-law is a big Star Wars fan, so of course, there was more shopping to do (this turned out to be the theme for the day, in case you hadn't noticed). I picked out a mug for him, and I have to admit that it wasn't until much later that I realized I'd gotten him the Empire mug. Luckily, he didn't mind. It was also at this point that we met the most enthusiastic cast member of our vacation, by far. I just wanted to buy the mug and have it send to the resort, but the CM wanted to be my "mug buddy." He was probably irritated that I wasn't playing along, but that's not really my thing. I worked in retail long enough that I have low tolerance for goofing around: please just ring up my merchandise and let me go about my business. Lee ended up having to walk away, because there was no way he could deal with it.
We left Tatooine Traders and went back to The Great Movie Ride. The line didn't look too bad, so we went in, but alas, the inside of the theatre was a lot more crowded than we had expected. We ended up seeing the film loop twice, although the line did keep moving steadily. We finally got in our car, and got the cowboy side. I really enjoyed the film montage at the end, although even Lee leaned over and said "When did Armageddon become a classic?"
Afterwards, we walked straight into Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Now, I'm a trivia junkie. I love the stuff, so I was really looking forward to this. Again, it didn't disappoint. At one point, I was 5th on the leaderboard, but didn't get any higher than that. Actually, if Lee hadn't dragged me away, I could have happily spent a whole day just playing Millionaire.
We walked over to the Backlot tour and waited for a few minutes for that to begin. By this point, the long days and amount of walking had really started to get to us, plus it was very hot the whole week. The tour was good, and we both liked it, but we were starting to get cranky, so we left. We stopped to get some drinks and then left the park to go back to the resort. There was a bus waiting for us when we got there, which was a godsend.
Lee had set the thermostat for some inhumanly cold temperature, so it was nice and cool when we got back to the room. We ended up just watching TV and relaxing for about 45 minutes. We left for Epcot around 2, ready for an afternoon of eating and drinking around the World.
Our focus was mostly trying new foods, so we headed straight for the Ireland booth. Lee had received some mead a couple of years ago as a gift, and had been trying to find some ever since, so we got a glass of that and the root vegetable cake. The cake was okay, and so was the mead - we weren't expecting the herbal flavor and didn't like it very much. We then wandered over to Norway and rode the Maelstrom. We skipped the film at the end and browsed through the shops. Lee really liked one of the sweaters and considered buying one for his mom. Then he saw the price tag and nearly had a heart attack. He decided he didn't like it that much.
Next we headed over to China's booth to get an order of chicken sha cha and cold sesame noodles. We walked over to a bench and enjoyed them and then walked into some of the shops. We ended up getting several things for gifts and had them shipped back to the resort. Then we got a glass of the mead at the Poland booth to go with our kielbasa - this mead was much better. We started to continue our walk around the Showcase, but they closed the bridge just as we got there to let the IllumiNations barges through. We waited patiently and as soon as we could, headed over to the South Africa booth to get some sugar cane chicken. We then sat down at one of the picnic tables, under an umbrella - which turned out to be pretty fortuitous, since the skies opened up while we tried to finish eating.
Luckily, I had some cheap ponchos in my bag that I'd bought before we left home. Since I'm quite possibly the most uncoordinated person on the planet, I had to get Lee's help to get it on and oriented correctly - I was originally trying to put it on backwards, and we won't discuss the problems I had with the sleeves. Anyway, thus armed, we walked over to Germany and started browsing through the shops there. Somehow I managed to miss the train setup, which was one of the things I was looking forward to, but Lee found a glass stein that he liked, so we bought that and had it shipped to the room. By this point, the rain had slowed down to a sprinkle, so we started to continue our culinary tour. We got to the Germany booth only to realize that they didn't have brats, which Lee was really hungry for, so we walked back over to Sommerfest to get one, along with a couple of drinks. We sat and relaxed for a few minutes while we ate, and then kept going, under clear skies by now.
We got to the Specialty Beer Garden just as the concert started; Lee got one of the Sam Adams seasonal brews and I got the raspberry Irish cider. We agreed that mine was definitely the better of the two. We especially enjoyed the Sam Adams beermaking exhibit, since we had bottled our very first batch of homebrewed beer right before we left; it was interesting to see the differences between home and industrial production of beer. We kind of wanted to hear one of the history lectures, but the timing just didn't work out, especially since we wanted to see American Adventure more. We both really enjoyed it; I sort of looked around for the World Trade Center Flag, but we never found it. I don't remember much about the concert other than it was very loud.
Next we walked over to Japan and spent some time in the shops looking around. Nothing really jumped out at us, so we headed over to Morocco and did some browsing there. We still didn't see anything that we really wanted to get, so we went over to France. We were still hungry for something more substantial than a nibble, so we stopped at the Boulangerie Patisserie and got a ham and cheese croissant and a chocolate éclair. We sat outside at one of the little tables and just soaked up some atmosphere. It was here that I noticed that the one store I really wanted to visit - the kitchen store, Le Casserole - was closed. I was disappointed, especially since I love looking at cooking supplies, but I survived. We did a good bit of browsing in the shops, looking for some Christmas gifts, but we didn't see anything, so we walked over to England.
We made sure to go into the Tea Caddy, since my mother adores hot tea, and I spent a good bit of time picking out a couple of kinds of Twinings tea that I was pretty sure she can't get at home. I also picked up a couple of different British snacks for myself, so I stuck that particular set of purchases into my bag - it's not wise to get between me and chocolate. My sister is a big Pooh fan, so I got something for her in the toy shop, as well as some gifts for my nieces. I was still looking for something for my dad, too, who is always difficult to buy for. Fortunately, I spotted the St. Andrew's golf balls packed in an egg carton, which was perfect. By this point, my bag was stuffed full, although the same could not be said for our bellies. We got some fish and chips and a beer, and sat on a bench, listening to the British Invasion who were just out of sight.
We wandered over to Canada and shared a bowl of cheddar cheese soup and some fudge. By this time, it was starting to get dark and people were starting to stake out places for IllumiNations. We both still wanted a snack, so Lee got a meat pie from the Australia booth and I got a beaver tail. We then started retracing our earlier route through World Showcase looking for a spot to wait for IllumiNations. We got all the way around to Germany before we saw an empty bench, so we claimed it. We also wanted to get a couple bottles of the mead from the Poland booth, so I walked over there since Lee's feet were really bothering him. Two bottles were less than $16, which was nice, although I did have a bit of wait while one of the Cast Members went in search of wine box to pack it up. After about ten minutes, I took the bag back over to where Lee was waiting. Even with the delay, it was still only about 8:15 or so, but we were both pretty tired and worn out, so we just sat on the bench and talked and people watched to pass the time. We were both thirsty, so I walked over and picked up a pretzel and a couple bottles of water a few minutes before showtime. Finally, IllumiNations started, and we both enjoyed the show.
Once it was over, I told Lee we should hang back a bit to let some of the crowd disperse a little. We finally made our way out of the park and to the bus stop (and Epcot was the one park where we really had a long hike back to the All-Star bus stop) and were back in the room by 10 o'clock. Lee turned on the TV to watch election results - he's much more of a political junkie than I am - while I decided to soak in a hot bath for a while to ease some of my aches. I was so relaxed I dozed off for a bit; I only woke up when Lee called out, concerned that he hadn't heard any splashing in a while. We were both sound asleep by 11.
Wednesday, November 6, 2002
We got up around 7, though it was definitely getting harder to get going in the mornings. Lee was also having trouble because he generally doesn't sleep well away from home, and the noise from the many families at the resort didn't help. He's a very light sleeper, so anything other than silent pitch black surroundings tend to wake him up. We took our time getting ready, watching the news and having some cereal bars in the room for breakfast. Once we finally did walk down to the bus stops, there was an Animal Kingdom bus waiting for us, so we didn't spend any time waiting.
We got to the park shortly after the official opening, and walked straight over to It's Tough to be a Bug. I didn't enjoy it quite so much this time, partly because I was bracing myself for the sting - although when the sting finally happened, I was even more surprised, since I'd managed to misremember where it occurred.
We had kind of planned on just walking around and seeing the shows today, along with anything else that caught our fancy - nothing really set in stone. So after we left the Tree of Life, we walked over to Camp Minnie-Mickey to get in line for the 9:50 Festival of the Lion King. I was really looking forward to this, since The Lion King is one of my favorite movies. It was blasted hot waiting in line, and the fans helped a little, but not a whole lot. We finally got into the theatre around 9:30, and I was seated next to a very enthusiastic small child who was bound and determined to sit in my lap - or at least, it seemed that way. Not long after we got into the theatre, we saw that the sky had opened up and it was absolutely pouring. We kept waiting for them to make a decision, and at 9:50 they announced the show had been cancelled due to wet equipment.
We made our way out of the theatre and walked over to the Maharajah Jungle Trek. The rain had helped a little with the heat, but it was still pretty hot and sticky. We could tell that it definitely wouldn't be the end of the bad weather for the day. We spent a good bit of time on the Jungle Trek; a lot of people were breezing through, but we stopped several times to get good looks at the animals. I was amused by all the signs around the bat area, but then I've never been particularly squeamish. I really ought to build a house for the bats that live in our neighborhood, since they help keep the mosquito population down.
Anyway, we took our time and spoke to the excellent guide about the bats and their habits. We also particularly enjoyed the aviary, since we have two pet birds and my dad is an avid birder. We were the only people in the aviary for a while, so the cast member walked around with us, pointing out different birds and showing us how they feed them. It was really cool, and something I'm glad we took the time to do.
By this time, we were ready to head over to Flights of Wonder for the 11 o'clock show and stand directly under the huge fan there. Unfortunately, that put us in the back when they brought out the owl, but we did our best to see and hear the cast member. We got into to the theatre and sat down around 10:45, again just in time to see the sky open up again. It didn't rain for long, but the intensity certainly made up for the short duration.
At 11 o'clock, one of the cast members came out and announced that since the stage - not to mention the birds - were wet, the show would be cancelled. However, they would bring out some of the birds and walk around with them. Most people got up and left at this news, but we stayed put. We got to see several beautiful birds that I took pictures of, but I can't remember their names. I'm pretty sure there was a peregrine falcon, an owl, and another raptor, but I'll be hornswaggled if I can remember exactly what they were now.
By this point, we were ready to leave, so we walked out of the park to go over to MGM. We waited several minutes for a bus, during which I managed to convince myself that we could get to MGM as quickly from the TTC. When a TTC bus showed up, we took it, although an MGM bus showed up right as we left. It wasn't until we got to the TTC that I realized my mistake, so we ended up waiting about 10 more minutes for a bus to MGM. Not my best move.
I had made a PS for the Fantasmic! dinner package that night, and I had been told to pick up our Fantasmic! tickets at Guest Relations. So, once we got into MGM, we stopped there first, only to be told that we'd get the tickets at our meal. We stepped over to Sid Cahuenga's and did some browsing, but one of the Streetmsophere characters came in and started speaking in a loud NY accent, so we left. Lee can handle many things, but a NY accent is not one of them, even if it's not directed at him.
We got Fastpasses for Voyage of the Little Mermaid, and then walked over to the Magic of Animation tour. There weren't any artists working, but we had a good time walking through and seeing everything anyway. By then it was time for our Fastpasses - and our worst experience of the day. The Fastpasses didn't seem to gain us anything other than giving us more time standing waiting to be let into the theatre, and there were lots of small, unhappy children waiting along with us. Then, once we got into the show, neither of us was particularly impressed by it. Granted, Lee's never seen the movie, so for him, much of what was going on didn't make any sense. I just didn't particularly enjoy the show.
Afterwards, we walked over to Who Wants to be a Millionaire and waited about fifteen minutes for the next show. I managed to get to 2nd on the leaderboard at one point, which was exciting. Some of people sitting around us were impressed by my geekiness, but not Lee, since he sees it all the time. The other notable thing was the phone a complete stranger - when the phone rang outside, the young ladies who answered it immediately starting saying hello to their family members who were sitting in the audience. Unfortunately, they didn't even get through all the answers to either question that they were called about, so they weren't exactly helpful. We got Fastpasses as soon as we came out of the show, but immediately realized they wouldn't be any good, since we'd be eating when that show started.
We next walked through One Man's Dream, spending a good bit of time wandering around and looking at everything. I really liked the movie at the end, and I hope that they keep this exhibit around for a while. At this point, we had seen just about everything we really wanted to see, and we had a while yet before our PS at 4:40, so we decided to take another ride on the Rock N' Roller Coaster. We had only a very minimal wait before being strapped in for another tour of the LA area.
I really wanted to do the Tower of Terror again, but Lee decided to sit this one out, so he waited on one of the benches outside while I went through. It was a walk-on, so in no time flat, I was waiting to be loaded into an elevator. I was about ten people back from the front of the line when the bellhop asked if there were any single riders. I was the first one, so I went up to the front and stood on my assigned spot. As the elevator got there, I realized I was in the seat belt seat. Gulp. A very nice man offered to switch with me, but I decided to be brave and just go with the flow.
All I have to say is that it's a very different ride when there's no lap bar to hold on to. It was fun, but not something I'd intentionally do again (of course, as I'm writing this now, all the seats have seat belts. I'm going to have to not tell Lee that if I ever expect to get him to ride again).
We then crossed the park to get to Mama Melrose's in time for our 4:40 PS (which was the latest time I could get for the day). We entered right before a family who did not have PSes and took a while to comprehend that the restaurant was so busy that they weren't taking any walk-ups. We only waited about five minutes for a table once we got checked in, and had a lovely (if a bit small) table to ourselves. We split the grilled chicken flatbread and the family salad, both of which were very good. Our waiter brought our Fantasmic! voucher over right after he brought the salad, which turned out to be a blessing, since we didn't see very much of him after that.
I don't remember what we had for entrees, but I do recall that neither of us was terribly impressed. It was as we finished our meal and waited for our tiramasu that we struck up a conversation with the mom and son sitting next to us. They were the ones who explained that one of the reasons the parks were more crowded than I was initially expecting was that it was NJ "Teachers Week," and a lot of parents decide to take their kids to Disney World for the week. It certainly explained to us why virtually every single person who had been asked where they were from had said New Jersey. I just sighed and filed that bit of information away for our next trip.
Since we were so close, we walked over to the Muppets. We got to see the pre-show from the start, but as we stood there, I realized that the length of the show meant that we wouldn't make it to Oscar's before our 6:30 cutoff time. So, we waited until we got to the point in the pre-show that we'd already seen, and started to make our way to the front of the park.
We got into the theatre and sat down around 6:10; we at the far-right hand side of the third section from the right, about halfway down or so. By this point, the sun had just set and the temperature started going down quickly. It was actually pretty cool sitting there, but we just enjoyed a chance to chat with each other about the trip so far and do some people watching. One of the salesmen was wearing pink light-up Minnie-eared deelyboppers; Lee said there wasn't enough money in the world to get him to wear something like that.
The show was supposed to start at 7, but instead, we got another of the announcements that we'd learned to despise over the course of the day - due to weather conditions, they had a technical delay. There was actually some doubt about whether or not it was going to go on, but at 7:15 the lights dimmed and the show began.
Now, Lee enjoyed IllumiNations, but he raved about Fantasmic! He even thought the hour-long wait had been worth it - which he had not said about the wait for IllumiNations. We made our way out of the park with a couple thousand of our closest friends, and got onto a waiting bus back to the resort. I was cold enough that I wanted to change into jeans, so I did that and then we went right back out to catch a bus to Downtown Disney.
Unfortunately, Downtown Disney was pretty crowded. We went into the Gourmet Pantry first, since I'm always looking for kitchen stuff, but there wasn't really anything that caught our eye. Next we went into Ghirardelli's, where I got a couple of things, including a white chocolate truffle for Lee, and then wandered into World of Disney.
I was looking for a watch, so we walked around until we found that room, but after looking at all the watches they had on display, there weren't any that met my criteria: not pink, not Pooh, with a date and a metal band. I actually spent a good bit of time looking at all the watches, but I just didn't see anything I liked. I did find some other things, though, so after I bought those, we walked over to Pleasure Island.
It was about 10 o'clock by now, and all either of us was really interested in was the Comedy Warehouse, but their next show wasn't for another half an hour. Since it was still pretty chilly, and the music was very loud, we ducked into the Adventurer's Club to pass some time. Lee was getting tired and grumpy at this point, and he's never overly sociable when in a crowd, so we just sat and watched what was going on for a while. We got in line around 10:20, and were seated at the very back of the club. Lee got a drink right away to soothe his nerves, and we settled in to watch the show. It was pretty funny - there was a created musical about Gerri the churro stand owner in Alaska who falls in love with Gern the asparagus farmer from New York.
Once the show let out, we'd pretty much had our fill of humanity for the day, so we headed over to the bus stop. Or rather, we actually took a mini-tour of the West End since I got us lost, but we eventually made it to the bus stop. We were in bed by 12:30, exhausted.
Thursday, November 7, 2002
We woke up at 7, as usual, but we stayed in bed until 7:30 just watching the news. I got us packed up while Lee took a shower, and checked our Express Checkout statement, which seemed to be in order. After my shower, we finished packing up and took everything out to the car, which took two trips. Luckily (sort of), the weather had finally cooled down - this was by far the nicest weather day of our trip, and we were leaving by midafternoon.
We drove over to Cinema Hall so that Lee could get some mouse ears for one of his co-workers, so while he did that, I picked up all our purchases. Once we got all that straight, we added all that stuff to the trunk and carefully drove over to the TTC. We took the tram and then the monorail into the Magic Kingdom.
Unfortunately, this was an Early Entry day for the MK, so it was packed. I had originally sort of planned for us to be there at rope drop, but we were both just too tired to get going that early. We hadn't seen anything on Fantasyland on Sunday, so we went into that area of the park and were confronted by what felt like hordes of small children and their strollers. We picked up Fastpasses for Pooh right away, and then tried to find something to do while we waited. Snow White was mobbed, and Peter Pan wasn't running, so we went over to it's a small world, which had no wait.
Lee actually didn't mind small world, although he did comment that Walt must have been on acid to approve some of the color schemes in the ride. We still had time before Pooh, and Peter Pan was still down, so we went into Liberty Square for another spin on the Haunted Mansion. Lee declared HM to be the best ride he'd been on all week.
It was finally time for Pooh, so we braved the crowds in Fantasyland. We got into a honey pot almost right away, but unfortunately, there was a small child seated right in the row behind us who wanted no part of the ride. He started screaming almost as soon as we started moving, so the ride was pretty much ruined for us. We got to feel the motion of the car, and we got to see the sets, but we heard absolutely none of the narration. We tried to get back into the standby line, since the sign said the wait was about 15 minutes, but as we stood there it changed to a wait of 90 minutes, so we left.
We walked through Toontown Fair to get to the path to Tomorrowland, hoping for a ride on Space Mountain, but both the standby line and the Fastpass return time were later than we planned to be in the park, so we ended up just leaving the park. I had made a PS for Concourse Steakhouse, but Lee decided he didn't want that, so we took the monorail over to Epcot.
We walked straight back to Canada, past the Innoventions fountain which was in the middle of a show (and I'm sorry that we never got a chance to see it fully, since that remains one of my family's best memories from our trip in '95), and straight into Le Cellier. The restaurant was fairly empty, since it was still a little early for lunch, so we had a lovely, relaxed, cool meal. We both had the cheddar cheese soup, and then we both had sandwiches (I think I had the French dip and he had the chicken sandwich, but I might have our orders backwards).
We left Le Cellier and headed straight back out the park and onto the monorail, back to the TTC and a waiting tram. We found the car with no trouble and headed towards home; I drove for about the first hour before I got really sleepy, so Lee drove the rest of the way home. We left the TTC between 1:30 and 2, and with a few stops for gas but nothing else, we were home by 12:30. We went straight to bed and were thankful that we still had a three-day weekend before we had to be back at work.
FINAL SUMMARY
Lee agreed to go to Disney World for our vacation if I could plan it for less than $2500. We ended up spending just under $1700 total, so I met that goal and then some. However, I should have sprung for nicer rooms: the All-Stars was adequate, but we were pretty far away from the bus stop, and the whole room was just small. Lee really liked the Animal Kingdom Lodge, but I'm not entirely sure we can really afford to stay there just yet.
We did pretty well with meals: we tried to have one big sit-down meal per day and just rely on snacks and our granola bars when we got hungry otherwise. We did two buffets and three regular restaurants, and we didn't have a bad meal in the bunch. The Food and Wine Festival was great for us - we wish we'd spent more than one day eating and shopping around the World Showcase.
The big drawback for us was that we were in no way really physically ready for the amount of walking we did. I attribute that partly to us being out of shape (which didn't help us in any way), and partly to me going into commando mode as soon as we set foot on property. I regret that now, and when we go back, we will definitely take things at a more leisurely pace instead of rocketing from attraction to attraction.
Overall, though, it was a good trip, and it gave us the break from work that we both so desperately needed. Next time, we'll only take one day to drive down, rather than two, but we'll still make sure to leave at least one day for us to recover at home before we have to go back to work. For someone who really had to be talked into going to Disney World, Lee really had a good time and started talking about our next trip right away. Unfortunately, we still don't know when that will be.
Katie Proctor
Time of Year: Fall
Travel Method: Personal car
Resort: ASMoR
Accommodations: Standard Room
Ages Represented in Group: Adult
WDW Experience Represented in Group: Rookie
Comments: After five years without a vacation as long as a week, Katie and her husband were in definite need of some R&R. Her husband wasn't too keen on the idea of using their time on a trip to Disney World, but eventually she won him over. And eventually the resort did the same.
Katie Proctor -- November 2002 -- Walt Disney World (ASMoR)
Who
Katie, 26, Resident Disney fan, one previous visit (Dec. 1995) plus one evening at Epcot as part of a conference (Jan. 1998)
Lee, 35, Resident Grumpy
When
November 3-7, 2002
Where
All-Star Movies Resort
Why
Lee and I took a week for our honeymoon five years ago. We haven’t taken an entire week off since, and at this point, a vacation is desperately needed. We started talking about going somewhere last fall, and I was finally able to talk him into going, with the promise that I could plan a trip for less than $2500, and that it wouldn’t be crowded or hot. The International Food & Wine Festival helped to seal the deal, and we made definite plans to visit the Mouse earlier this year.
How
Driving from northeastern NC, with two stops on the way down. We’re leaving after work on Friday, Nov. 1, and driving to Pawleys Island, SC, which is about a six-hour drive. Lee’s parents have a beach house there, so it’s a free bed along the way. On Saturday, Nov. 2, we’ll get up semi-early and drive to Jacksonville, FL, to visit a specific store, and then we’ll push on to Daytona Beach that evening. The plan is to get up mid-morning on Nov. 3 and then have a relatively short drive to WDW.
The Details
Friday, November 1
Lee had a very rough time at work for just about the entire month of October, so our mantra became “vacation is coming soon.” The simple knowledge that we would be away for an entire week saved both of us several times, and by the time our departure day rolled around, my head was already gone. To add insult to injury, I was the only person left in my department by 4:45, even though I couldn’t leave until 5. As soon as the clock rolled around, though, I was out of the office to meet Lee (we work for the same place). We’d packed everything in the car that morning, so we able to get on the highway right away. As usual for us, Lee drove and I navigated. One quick stop for gas and we were Florida bound.
The trip to Pawleys was pretty uneventful; it’s one we’ve made many times, so we know the road pretty well. We stopped in the same place we usually do for supper, where I had a calzone and Lee had a sandwich; we saved the leftovers for the next day’s lunch. At 11:30 or so, we arrived at his folks’ house and went to bed almost immediately.
Saturday, November 2
We got up around 7, which is when we usually do, and repacked the few things we’d brought in. We were on the road at 8:20, and stopped in Georgetown to fill up (I drove the first shift) before heading south. I drove until we got to Darien, GA, where we stopped for lunch at a Dairy Queen. After a freak blizzard, we got back on I95. The drive to Jacksonville was boring until we got to downtown, where the traffic was really bad. But we managed to find the store we were looking for (Sidebar: Lee and I are both foodies, and we order our spices over the internet. The supplier has a store in Jacksonville, so that’s where we stopped and bought way too many good-smelling spices) and get back to the interstate without any trouble. After Jacksonville it was a quick jaunt to Daytona Beach. I’d made reservations for the La Quinta Inn that was near the interstate via the AAA website; what they failed to mention was that the hotel was within earshot of the speedway, where there were motorcycles racing. Oops. We checked in around 4 p.m. and went straight to the room to unwind for a bit.
Around 6:30, we were getting kind of hungry, so I hopped online (free local phone calls were one reason I picked this hotel) and found directions to a couple of restaurants that sounded good. It turned out that our first choice was inaccessible due to some road construction, so we stopped at a little Indian place that I saw along the way. What a good “mistake” that turned out to be, as we had one of the best Indian meals we’ve ever tasted. Everything was delicious, and if we’re ever in the area again, we certainly plan to stop there for a meal. Afterwards, I had thought of a few things we were missing, so we drove next door to the restaurant to a K-Mart and picked up the items we needed. We were back in the room by 8 or so, where we went to bed early.
Sunday, November 3
We woke up around 7 and got ready to leave. Our express checkout was under the door, so I signed that (the room ended up being $65 for a king; not bad, all things considered). We loaded up the car and headed west to Orlando, listening to a Disney CD to prepare ourselves. The directions that I had from AAA were very good, and we were pulling into the All-Star Movies Resort in just under an hour, arriving around 9 a.m. Check-in went very smoothly, and we found out we’d be in Building 7, Love Bug. Not exactly where I would have preferred, but it worked out fine. We moved the car around to a spot near the building (since our room wasn’t ready yet) and got ready for the parks. After a brief walk to the bus stop and a wait for a bus, we were on our way to the Magic Kingdom.
The first thing we noticed when we got there was the crowd - there were a lot more people there than I was expecting. I knew it wouldn’t be deserted, but I wasn’t anticipating quite so many people. There were several tables set up for bag check, and I of course got into the slowest moving line. Lee, with no bags, went straight through and got impatient waiting for me. I had gotten into line behind a large group of people, all wearing bright yellow shirts that read, “I’m with them,” with arrows pointing in either direction. The CM doing bag check got a round of applause for making one of the group put his shirt on - he’d been carrying it in his bag. Finally, we headed for the entrance and got in with no problem.
We went straight over to Tomorrowland via the Plaza Pavillion, and went looking for Space Mountain (I neglected to pick up a map at first; I got one at some point while we were in that area, though). We passed Buzz on the way and I decided to go ahead and get Fastpasses with a return time of about 45 minutes later. Space Mountain had a standby wait of about 10-15 minutes, so we went ahead and got in line. It moved pretty quickly, and we both enjoyed it. Later on, Lee would say that it was one of his favorite rides of the trip.
We walked over to Buzz and, after waiting for a minute to make sure we were in the right place for Fastpass entrance, got right into a car. It was at that moment that I became a Fastpass convert. I had read that they were handy, but oh, man, it’s another thing altogether to see it in person. Our ride was fine; I apparently have lousy aim, but since my husband shoots things online every night, he did just fine.
After Buzz, we went over to Alien Encounter and waited through one complete pre-show cycle. I was a bit apprehensive, having absolutely hated this when I visited with my family in 95 (I don’t like the dark very much). It wasn’t much better this time, although Lee didn’t think it was very scary. He kept leaning over and trying to get me to jump even more than the show itself. But I handled it a bit better this time overall. I was disappointed that both the Timekeeper and Carousel of Progress were closed, since those were both things that my family enjoyed on the previous trip. We soldiered on, though, and rode the TTA to get off our feet for a little while.
After our relaxing spin around Tomorrowland, we struggled through the crowds to the “secret” path between Space Mountain and Mickey’s Toontown Fair. Lee was amazed at how few people were on the path and said he wished the whole park was like that. We walked right onto the train and rode over to Frontierland. We immediately got FPs for Splash Mountain, with a return time about an hour away, and got into the standby line for Big Thunder. I think the wait was posted at 20 minutes or so, and it wasn’t even that long before we rode.
It was close to noon by now, so I called to see if our room was ready. It was not, and we still had a little while before our FPs for Splash, so we walked over to Adventureland and got in line for the Tiki Room. Again, we just missed a show, so we waited and rested a bit. I considered calling my sister, who had absolutely detested the Tiki Room, but decided against it. Besides, I have the song on CD so I can torture her at any time. We got in and saw the show, and I think I like the previous version better. I can’t say why, exactly, but I think it had more charm.
Our FP window was now open, so we went over to Splash and were almost immediately seated in a log - in the front row. Where the seats were already wet. We looked at each other a bit nervously, but enjoyed the ride. We didn’t get wet on the drop; every time the log went into the water off the track, a little water would splash over the sides and onto the seat. The drop itself was a lot less intense than I thought it would be, and I didn’t know how extensive the animatronics are. We both really enjoyed it.
Afterwards, we maneuvered our way over to Liberty Square and got in line for the Haunted Mansion. There was a bit of a wait, but it was pretty manageable. I did see the eyes on the headstone for Madame Leota open and look around; it’s a very cool effect, but I don’t think many people noticed. While we were in the stretching room, Lee asked me if the ceiling was going up or if the floor was going down, and I told him which it was. Overall, he was very impressed; he later declared that it was probably the best ride on property.
We then walked over to the Hall of Presidents and waited about 20 minutes for the next show. We were able to sit down, which helped our sore feet, and I checked the map for the things we (okay, I) wanted to see before we left. I noticed that the narrator wasn’t Maya Angelou anymore, but I don’t know who it was. Lee is a big history buff, and he liked the show, but he was a little disappointed in how the Civil War was portrayed. Although, to be honest, he’s almost always disappointed in that area of history and how it’s portrayed.
We then walked back over to Adventureland and got in line for the Jungle Cruise. The wait wasn’t too bad, and we were on our way in no time. Our guide was punny, but there were several times when Lee and I were the only ones laughing. Pirates of the Caribbean was next, and one that Lee wasn’t looking forward to. I have the WDW Racing game, and have spent many hours trying to get all the trophies on the Pirates course; therefore, Lee has heard “A Pirate’s Life for Me” way more times than he would like. The ride itself was fine, but he’s sick of the song.
We called again to check on the room, and it was ready, so we headed out of the park just ahead of the parade. We could see it in the distance, but we didn’t stay to watch. We waited a few minutes for a bus, and then got the first load of stuff into the room. We moved the car to a spot closer to the room, and then brought up everything else. I unpacked and we were settled in by 4:15. Lee checked out the TV (he was disappointed that they don’t carry Fox News Channel) and I made some notes. We both just sort of relaxed and decompressed after our first day in the park. It was pretty hot - over 80 degrees - and sticky, which we’re used to, but not in November. Lee was also pretty frustrated with strollers that seemed to appear out of nowhere and block exactly where we wanted to go.
At 6, we left the room for our 7:10 PS at Ohana. Lee thought I was nuts, but I knew it would take a while to get there via Disney transportation and neither of us wanted to drive. So we took a bus to Epcot (the MK closed at 6) and then hopped on the monorail to the TTC. We then attempted to follow the signs for the path to the Polynesian, but got turned around a bit and actually walked over to the ferry. I tried to get a picture of the castle from across the lake, but I haven’t mastered the art of taking digital pictures at night yet.
We made it over to the Great Ceremonial House and got checked in a few minutes early, so we sat in the lounge and tried to watch a bit of the football game that was on. Our pager went off at 7:10 and we enjoyed a lovely meal, although it was a bit lacking in vegetables. We both loved the shrimp, and our server kept counting 2 or 3 shrimp as one when putting them on our plate (Lee asked for 3 and got about 6). There was plenty of entertainment, too; the kids with the hula hoops in front of us never figured out that they needed to stand farther apart, so they kept knocking into each other. Lee nearly got clocked with a broom during one of the coconut races - he moved away just in time.
After the very yummy pineapple and caramel sauce, we charged the meal to the room and took the monorail back over to the TTC. We saw what looked like a private party on the beach next to the Grand Floridian, and a private fireworks show as well. It must be nice to have that kind of money, because we certainly don’t. At the TTC we changed monorails and went back over to Epcot, enjoying the glimpse we got of the park from above. We waited just a few minutes for a bus (it was just before 9, so there was hardly anyone else waiting) and rode back to the resort with just one other family. We saw some of the fireworks from Illuminations along the way, but we didn’t really try overly hard to see them. We were in the room at 9:30, so we turned on the Sunday night game (Giants vs. Jaguars; we usually root against Kerry Collins since we’re Carolina fans) and got the day’s scores before falling asleep early.
Monday, November 4, 2002
We woke up around 7am, like we usually do, although neither of us got up right away. Mickey called at 7:13am (I’d set the wake-up for an odd time to increase the odds of actually getting Mickey, and July 13 is my birthday), although Lee wasn’t particularly happy about it. Since Lee usually takes the first shower at home, I got up first and got into the shower. It didn’t seem very hot to me, and the towels weren’t very impressive, either. Later on I discovered that I hadn’t turned the water up as high as it could go, and my showers were much pleasanter the rest of the week.
Once we finally got out of the room and to the bus stop, we were just in time to catch the Epcot bus that had just pulled up. We didn’t have any trouble with bag check and were into the park by 8:45am. We walked through Innoventions and stood over by left side of the rope with the goal of heading to Test Track first thing. About five minutes before the park’s official opening, a cast member rolled up on a Segway Human Transporter, but we were too far back to really hear his spiel about it. We didn’t hear an official opening announcement, but the rope dropped right at 9 and we joined the very large crowd rushing towards Test Track. We didn’t run, but we did walk quickly, and the line was already very long by the time we got there. We got Fastpasses right away, and the return time was about 45 minutes away.
We walked over to Wonders of Life next, and were really the only people in the area. We were second in line for the first Body Wars of the day, and the shuttle ended up being only about half full. We played a bit in the Sensory area and went straight into Cranium Command, which even Lee thought was cute. By then it was just about time for our Fastpasses, so we walked back over to Test Track and were in a car in no time. We enjoyed the ride, but neither of us thought it would be worth a very long wait. Fastpass suited us just fine. Lee remarked that if he wanted to experience that, he could go back out onto the highway.
After Test Track, we meandered over to Imagination and into Honey I Shrunk the Audience. We saw some, but not all of the True Colors pre-show, and headed into a mostly empty theater. We went all the way across our row, but there wasn’t any real reason to do so. Lee was startled by the mice effect, but wasn’t terribly impressed overall. We then walked over to Journey into Your Imagination and got right on. It was cute, but certainly not worth a long wait. I don’t really remember the original Journey into Imagination, so I can’t make a coherent comparison. We played for a bit in Imageworks, taking a digital picture of ourselves and sending it to our families.
We then headed over to The Land, and saw there was a 20 minute wait for Living with the Land. We would have gotten Fastpasses, but the return time was after our PS for lunch, so we sucked it up and got into line. It did keep moving, so it wasn’t too bad. The problem came when it was time to get into the boat.
We were behind a family of six: mom and dad and four kids. The CM seating people told them to take the last two rows, but waited a bit to see how they would arrange themselves. When they split into a group of four and a group of two, she told us to take the next to last row. In the time between her giving us those instructions and us walking to the boat, they reorganized into two groups of three. Since there were people right behind us getting into the row they had been instructed to get into, we ended up sitting in two different rows. Not exactly what we had in mind. Lee was mad and talking very loudly about how stupid the family was and how it sucked that we were split up, but I got him to hush and not make a scene. I don’t think they realized at all how irritated we were. The ride itself was pretty cool; we got some good ideas for our own garden, which is traditionally kind of big. We just wished we could have spoken to each other about it as we went past the interesting bits.
By the time we finished, it was just about time for our PS at Restaurant Marrakesh, so we walked over to World Showcase, checking out a couple of the booths for the Food and Wine Festival along the way. We were seated right away and were one of three occupied tables in the restaurant, so PS probably weren’t really necessary. Since we were planning to eat at Boma that night, Lee decided to eat lightly, and ordered the Harira soup and beef Brewat rolls for lunch. I had the chicken couscous; it was all delicious and we both left not feeling overly full. The belly dancer came out just at the end of our meal, which was a good thing; I think Lee might have been too preoccupied to eat, otherwise. We ended up getting a copy of the cookbook and charged the meal to the room.
We then left the park and caught a bus to Animal Kingdom. We had to wait for a little while, but no longer than about fifteen minutes, I think. Mostly it was hot. Very hot: over 80 degrees again today and sticky, but it never actually rained. Once we got into AK, we walked straight into It’s Tough to Be a Bug. There were two men who nearly got into a fistfight a few rows ahead of us, but I have no idea what they were so pissed about. We really enjoyed the show; I knew what to expect with regards to the effects and they still startled me. There were a few small children who weren’t as charmed as we were, though.
Afterwards, we walked back through Africa and went straight to Kilimanjaro Safari, where there was about a fifteen-minute wait. I took a ton of pictures, but alas, I can’t tell what all of them are supposed to be now (one month after the trip as of this writing). We both agreed, though, that the poacher storyline was pretty cheesy and felt the ride could be improved by simply omitting it. Once we got back, we walked over to the Pangani Trail; lots of animals were out and about, and I took even more pictures. It was pretty hot, though, so we didn’t stay long.
We then left Africa and walked over to Dinoland USA and into Dinosaur, where we got on almost immediately. We both really liked it, but I kind of felt it was a bit disjointed and hard to follow the plotline. It probably would have improved with a second ride, but that was something we never got around to doing.
By this point, the heat and the amount of walking we’d been doing had caught up with us, and we were pretty pooped. Since there was no line at Primeval Whirl as we walked past, we decided to give it a spin. Both of us got off, looked at each other, and said, “Eh.” We did think that it was incredibly garish and jarring when compared to the rest of the park.
After Primeval Whirl, we were ready to leave, so we made our way to the park exit. This might have been a bit easier if the parade hadn’t been scheduled to start in about five minutes, but we managed. I went the wrong way out of the park, initially (I took a left when we should have taken a right to get to the Disney buses), so we had to backtrack and get going the correct direction. Two buses showed up very shortly after we got to the stop, but it was still very crowded. We were back in the room by 4:15.
At that point, we decided to chill out for a bit (literally, too - Lee set the thermostat to a balmy 62 degrees so it would be plenty cold when we got back to the room), so we watched some TV, had a drink, and got online to check our email. Well, Lee checked his, and then he got in the shower and I tried to check mine. The connection quit working, though, and I didn’t feel like spending another 75 cents to check mine, so I just worked on my notes for a while before taking my own shower.
We had 7:10 PS for Boma, and since the two resorts were so close to each other, I thought it would be easiest for us to just drive over there. It probably would have been, too, if we hadn’t taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way. Oops. We still got to the restaurant in plenty of time to get checked in and wait for our table.
It was at this point that we noticed the tremendous number of children also waiting to eat at Boma, which surprised me. I wouldn’t have thought that many children would like eating African food, but then again, there were chicken fingers and French fries, so I guess they’d still be happy. But not all of the kids were well-behaved while waiting; in fact, none of the ones that I could see were. They were running around, climbing on anything that stood still, and staring at people - like me. I was very uncomfortable when a girl around 4 just sat next to me and stared at me, so I turned away and kept facing Lee. The other thing I noticed was how many children had shoes that lit up when they walked, which gave me a bit of a headache as I’m a little sensitive to flashing lights.
Finally, after what felt like forever but was really only about fifteen minutes, we were seated and promptly ordered large adult beverages. I had the Victoria Falls Mist, which was really good - and a lovely shade of neon green, to boot - and Lee had the margarita since the server told him it was the strongest. We headed for the buffet right away, partly to get the lay of the land and partly to start getting filled up.
It was all very good; I ended up trying a little bit of almost everything and wasn’t disappointed. It surprised me how much of the food was sweet - not overly sweet, for the most part, but I could tell that almost everything had a little bit of sugar in it. Even the vegetables and the meat dishes had a bit of sweetness to them, which helped, in some cases. And of course, the dessert buffet really was all that I had read it would be. I was pretty full even before I started on dessert, but I just had to try several things: the zebra domes were fabulous, as was everything. Even Lee enjoyed the desserts, and he usually doesn’t go for sweets as much as I do.
After dinner, we walked around the resort a bit, making it outside to one of observation decks. We saw the bonfire, but we didn’t walk over there. We stood outside for a few minutes, taking in the atmosphere, and just generally enjoying the night and each other. On the way back to the car, we talked a bit about the hotel, and Lee mentioned possibly staying there on our next trip. His parents stayed there a couple of years ago, but our finances are a bit more limited, so we’ll have to see if we make it there or not.
We had talked about possibly going over to Downtown Disney that evening, but we ended up being too full and sore to do anything other than drive back to All Star Movies, walking back to our room, and going to bed early since we were planning to go to MGM in the morning for Extra Magic Hour.
Tuesday, November 5, 2002
We were up at 7am again, although it was getting harder to wake up at that time. We caught a bus to MGM that arrived at the stop just as we did, so we were there by 7:40. Since we were there for Early Entry, the lines were pretty long, especially for bag check. I tried to pick the line that seemed the shortest, but I’m never very good at things like that. Actually, where I was in line, there was another table to the right that did not have a security person: it was supposed to be for people who didn’t have any bags, but since there were quite a few people with bags going through, they ended up turning the table so that no one could get through.
We then waited another ten minutes or so to be let into the park. Everyone seemed fairly spread out across the front, and I don’t think we got in any sooner or later than anyone else. We headed to the Tower of Terror right away, and the wait was non-existent. We walked straight into the lobby and waited about five minutes to be let into the library. When we got to the elevators, they were only running the right side, and we ended up in back row on the left. After surviving, I wanted to do it again, so we exited and went right back around. I noticed Cruella De Ville and the Evil Queen from Snow White taking pictures in the courtyard just outside the exit as we went around. The second time we actually had even less of a wait, and this time, we were in the front row on the right. The villains were still standing outside, and it was about this point that Lee said he was very impressed with the visual effects, but he hates being dropped. I wished I’d known that earlier, since I wouldn’t have requested a second go-round, but hindsight is 20/20.
Since it was still only about 8:30, we walked over to the Rock ‘N Roller Coaster, where a line had built up a bit, but it still moved pretty quickly. We've both ridden induction coasters before, so we sort of knew what to expect during the take-off, but it was still a bit of a shock. We both really enjoyed the ride, and when we were done, we walked through the shop to pick out gifts for some friends. We ended up getting some T-shirts, and had them sent back to the resort.
We then walked across the park, passing on The Great Movie Ride due to a 40 minute wait time, picked up FPs for Star Tours, and headed to the Muppets, which was something I was really looking forward to. I have a big ol' soft spot for the Muppets, and Lee has long claimed that he's like Statler and Waldorf, so we had high hopes. The pre-show had already started, so we saw most of that and then the show. It didn't disappoint, although I had to tell Lee to turn around so as not to miss some of the effects in the back. I also saw the screens for the reflective captioning, though it took me a minute to realize what it was. My sister is also a big Muppet fan, so we did some more souvenir shopping and had another package sent back to the room. I admit, I bought some socks for myself here, too, but only because I'd realized that I hadn’t brought enough to make it through the week.
By this time, our window for Star Tours was open, so we meandered back up the hill to do that. We both enjoyed the ride, although we thought the film is definitely showing its age. My brother-in-law is a big Star Wars fan, so of course, there was more shopping to do (this turned out to be the theme for the day, in case you hadn't noticed). I picked out a mug for him, and I have to admit that it wasn't until much later that I realized I'd gotten him the Empire mug. Luckily, he didn't mind. It was also at this point that we met the most enthusiastic cast member of our vacation, by far. I just wanted to buy the mug and have it send to the resort, but the CM wanted to be my "mug buddy." He was probably irritated that I wasn't playing along, but that's not really my thing. I worked in retail long enough that I have low tolerance for goofing around: please just ring up my merchandise and let me go about my business. Lee ended up having to walk away, because there was no way he could deal with it.
We left Tatooine Traders and went back to The Great Movie Ride. The line didn't look too bad, so we went in, but alas, the inside of the theatre was a lot more crowded than we had expected. We ended up seeing the film loop twice, although the line did keep moving steadily. We finally got in our car, and got the cowboy side. I really enjoyed the film montage at the end, although even Lee leaned over and said "When did Armageddon become a classic?"
Afterwards, we walked straight into Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Now, I'm a trivia junkie. I love the stuff, so I was really looking forward to this. Again, it didn't disappoint. At one point, I was 5th on the leaderboard, but didn't get any higher than that. Actually, if Lee hadn't dragged me away, I could have happily spent a whole day just playing Millionaire.
We walked over to the Backlot tour and waited for a few minutes for that to begin. By this point, the long days and amount of walking had really started to get to us, plus it was very hot the whole week. The tour was good, and we both liked it, but we were starting to get cranky, so we left. We stopped to get some drinks and then left the park to go back to the resort. There was a bus waiting for us when we got there, which was a godsend.
Lee had set the thermostat for some inhumanly cold temperature, so it was nice and cool when we got back to the room. We ended up just watching TV and relaxing for about 45 minutes. We left for Epcot around 2, ready for an afternoon of eating and drinking around the World.
Our focus was mostly trying new foods, so we headed straight for the Ireland booth. Lee had received some mead a couple of years ago as a gift, and had been trying to find some ever since, so we got a glass of that and the root vegetable cake. The cake was okay, and so was the mead - we weren't expecting the herbal flavor and didn't like it very much. We then wandered over to Norway and rode the Maelstrom. We skipped the film at the end and browsed through the shops. Lee really liked one of the sweaters and considered buying one for his mom. Then he saw the price tag and nearly had a heart attack. He decided he didn't like it that much.
Next we headed over to China's booth to get an order of chicken sha cha and cold sesame noodles. We walked over to a bench and enjoyed them and then walked into some of the shops. We ended up getting several things for gifts and had them shipped back to the resort. Then we got a glass of the mead at the Poland booth to go with our kielbasa - this mead was much better. We started to continue our walk around the Showcase, but they closed the bridge just as we got there to let the IllumiNations barges through. We waited patiently and as soon as we could, headed over to the South Africa booth to get some sugar cane chicken. We then sat down at one of the picnic tables, under an umbrella - which turned out to be pretty fortuitous, since the skies opened up while we tried to finish eating.
Luckily, I had some cheap ponchos in my bag that I'd bought before we left home. Since I'm quite possibly the most uncoordinated person on the planet, I had to get Lee's help to get it on and oriented correctly - I was originally trying to put it on backwards, and we won't discuss the problems I had with the sleeves. Anyway, thus armed, we walked over to Germany and started browsing through the shops there. Somehow I managed to miss the train setup, which was one of the things I was looking forward to, but Lee found a glass stein that he liked, so we bought that and had it shipped to the room. By this point, the rain had slowed down to a sprinkle, so we started to continue our culinary tour. We got to the Germany booth only to realize that they didn't have brats, which Lee was really hungry for, so we walked back over to Sommerfest to get one, along with a couple of drinks. We sat and relaxed for a few minutes while we ate, and then kept going, under clear skies by now.
We got to the Specialty Beer Garden just as the concert started; Lee got one of the Sam Adams seasonal brews and I got the raspberry Irish cider. We agreed that mine was definitely the better of the two. We especially enjoyed the Sam Adams beermaking exhibit, since we had bottled our very first batch of homebrewed beer right before we left; it was interesting to see the differences between home and industrial production of beer. We kind of wanted to hear one of the history lectures, but the timing just didn't work out, especially since we wanted to see American Adventure more. We both really enjoyed it; I sort of looked around for the World Trade Center Flag, but we never found it. I don't remember much about the concert other than it was very loud.
Next we walked over to Japan and spent some time in the shops looking around. Nothing really jumped out at us, so we headed over to Morocco and did some browsing there. We still didn't see anything that we really wanted to get, so we went over to France. We were still hungry for something more substantial than a nibble, so we stopped at the Boulangerie Patisserie and got a ham and cheese croissant and a chocolate éclair. We sat outside at one of the little tables and just soaked up some atmosphere. It was here that I noticed that the one store I really wanted to visit - the kitchen store, Le Casserole - was closed. I was disappointed, especially since I love looking at cooking supplies, but I survived. We did a good bit of browsing in the shops, looking for some Christmas gifts, but we didn't see anything, so we walked over to England.
We made sure to go into the Tea Caddy, since my mother adores hot tea, and I spent a good bit of time picking out a couple of kinds of Twinings tea that I was pretty sure she can't get at home. I also picked up a couple of different British snacks for myself, so I stuck that particular set of purchases into my bag - it's not wise to get between me and chocolate. My sister is a big Pooh fan, so I got something for her in the toy shop, as well as some gifts for my nieces. I was still looking for something for my dad, too, who is always difficult to buy for. Fortunately, I spotted the St. Andrew's golf balls packed in an egg carton, which was perfect. By this point, my bag was stuffed full, although the same could not be said for our bellies. We got some fish and chips and a beer, and sat on a bench, listening to the British Invasion who were just out of sight.
We wandered over to Canada and shared a bowl of cheddar cheese soup and some fudge. By this time, it was starting to get dark and people were starting to stake out places for IllumiNations. We both still wanted a snack, so Lee got a meat pie from the Australia booth and I got a beaver tail. We then started retracing our earlier route through World Showcase looking for a spot to wait for IllumiNations. We got all the way around to Germany before we saw an empty bench, so we claimed it. We also wanted to get a couple bottles of the mead from the Poland booth, so I walked over there since Lee's feet were really bothering him. Two bottles were less than $16, which was nice, although I did have a bit of wait while one of the Cast Members went in search of wine box to pack it up. After about ten minutes, I took the bag back over to where Lee was waiting. Even with the delay, it was still only about 8:15 or so, but we were both pretty tired and worn out, so we just sat on the bench and talked and people watched to pass the time. We were both thirsty, so I walked over and picked up a pretzel and a couple bottles of water a few minutes before showtime. Finally, IllumiNations started, and we both enjoyed the show.
Once it was over, I told Lee we should hang back a bit to let some of the crowd disperse a little. We finally made our way out of the park and to the bus stop (and Epcot was the one park where we really had a long hike back to the All-Star bus stop) and were back in the room by 10 o'clock. Lee turned on the TV to watch election results - he's much more of a political junkie than I am - while I decided to soak in a hot bath for a while to ease some of my aches. I was so relaxed I dozed off for a bit; I only woke up when Lee called out, concerned that he hadn't heard any splashing in a while. We were both sound asleep by 11.
Wednesday, November 6, 2002
We got up around 7, though it was definitely getting harder to get going in the mornings. Lee was also having trouble because he generally doesn't sleep well away from home, and the noise from the many families at the resort didn't help. He's a very light sleeper, so anything other than silent pitch black surroundings tend to wake him up. We took our time getting ready, watching the news and having some cereal bars in the room for breakfast. Once we finally did walk down to the bus stops, there was an Animal Kingdom bus waiting for us, so we didn't spend any time waiting.
We got to the park shortly after the official opening, and walked straight over to It's Tough to be a Bug. I didn't enjoy it quite so much this time, partly because I was bracing myself for the sting - although when the sting finally happened, I was even more surprised, since I'd managed to misremember where it occurred.
We had kind of planned on just walking around and seeing the shows today, along with anything else that caught our fancy - nothing really set in stone. So after we left the Tree of Life, we walked over to Camp Minnie-Mickey to get in line for the 9:50 Festival of the Lion King. I was really looking forward to this, since The Lion King is one of my favorite movies. It was blasted hot waiting in line, and the fans helped a little, but not a whole lot. We finally got into the theatre around 9:30, and I was seated next to a very enthusiastic small child who was bound and determined to sit in my lap - or at least, it seemed that way. Not long after we got into the theatre, we saw that the sky had opened up and it was absolutely pouring. We kept waiting for them to make a decision, and at 9:50 they announced the show had been cancelled due to wet equipment.
We made our way out of the theatre and walked over to the Maharajah Jungle Trek. The rain had helped a little with the heat, but it was still pretty hot and sticky. We could tell that it definitely wouldn't be the end of the bad weather for the day. We spent a good bit of time on the Jungle Trek; a lot of people were breezing through, but we stopped several times to get good looks at the animals. I was amused by all the signs around the bat area, but then I've never been particularly squeamish. I really ought to build a house for the bats that live in our neighborhood, since they help keep the mosquito population down.
Anyway, we took our time and spoke to the excellent guide about the bats and their habits. We also particularly enjoyed the aviary, since we have two pet birds and my dad is an avid birder. We were the only people in the aviary for a while, so the cast member walked around with us, pointing out different birds and showing us how they feed them. It was really cool, and something I'm glad we took the time to do.
By this time, we were ready to head over to Flights of Wonder for the 11 o'clock show and stand directly under the huge fan there. Unfortunately, that put us in the back when they brought out the owl, but we did our best to see and hear the cast member. We got into to the theatre and sat down around 10:45, again just in time to see the sky open up again. It didn't rain for long, but the intensity certainly made up for the short duration.
At 11 o'clock, one of the cast members came out and announced that since the stage - not to mention the birds - were wet, the show would be cancelled. However, they would bring out some of the birds and walk around with them. Most people got up and left at this news, but we stayed put. We got to see several beautiful birds that I took pictures of, but I can't remember their names. I'm pretty sure there was a peregrine falcon, an owl, and another raptor, but I'll be hornswaggled if I can remember exactly what they were now.
By this point, we were ready to leave, so we walked out of the park to go over to MGM. We waited several minutes for a bus, during which I managed to convince myself that we could get to MGM as quickly from the TTC. When a TTC bus showed up, we took it, although an MGM bus showed up right as we left. It wasn't until we got to the TTC that I realized my mistake, so we ended up waiting about 10 more minutes for a bus to MGM. Not my best move.
I had made a PS for the Fantasmic! dinner package that night, and I had been told to pick up our Fantasmic! tickets at Guest Relations. So, once we got into MGM, we stopped there first, only to be told that we'd get the tickets at our meal. We stepped over to Sid Cahuenga's and did some browsing, but one of the Streetmsophere characters came in and started speaking in a loud NY accent, so we left. Lee can handle many things, but a NY accent is not one of them, even if it's not directed at him.
We got Fastpasses for Voyage of the Little Mermaid, and then walked over to the Magic of Animation tour. There weren't any artists working, but we had a good time walking through and seeing everything anyway. By then it was time for our Fastpasses - and our worst experience of the day. The Fastpasses didn't seem to gain us anything other than giving us more time standing waiting to be let into the theatre, and there were lots of small, unhappy children waiting along with us. Then, once we got into the show, neither of us was particularly impressed by it. Granted, Lee's never seen the movie, so for him, much of what was going on didn't make any sense. I just didn't particularly enjoy the show.
Afterwards, we walked over to Who Wants to be a Millionaire and waited about fifteen minutes for the next show. I managed to get to 2nd on the leaderboard at one point, which was exciting. Some of people sitting around us were impressed by my geekiness, but not Lee, since he sees it all the time. The other notable thing was the phone a complete stranger - when the phone rang outside, the young ladies who answered it immediately starting saying hello to their family members who were sitting in the audience. Unfortunately, they didn't even get through all the answers to either question that they were called about, so they weren't exactly helpful. We got Fastpasses as soon as we came out of the show, but immediately realized they wouldn't be any good, since we'd be eating when that show started.
We next walked through One Man's Dream, spending a good bit of time wandering around and looking at everything. I really liked the movie at the end, and I hope that they keep this exhibit around for a while. At this point, we had seen just about everything we really wanted to see, and we had a while yet before our PS at 4:40, so we decided to take another ride on the Rock N' Roller Coaster. We had only a very minimal wait before being strapped in for another tour of the LA area.
I really wanted to do the Tower of Terror again, but Lee decided to sit this one out, so he waited on one of the benches outside while I went through. It was a walk-on, so in no time flat, I was waiting to be loaded into an elevator. I was about ten people back from the front of the line when the bellhop asked if there were any single riders. I was the first one, so I went up to the front and stood on my assigned spot. As the elevator got there, I realized I was in the seat belt seat. Gulp. A very nice man offered to switch with me, but I decided to be brave and just go with the flow.
All I have to say is that it's a very different ride when there's no lap bar to hold on to. It was fun, but not something I'd intentionally do again (of course, as I'm writing this now, all the seats have seat belts. I'm going to have to not tell Lee that if I ever expect to get him to ride again).
We then crossed the park to get to Mama Melrose's in time for our 4:40 PS (which was the latest time I could get for the day). We entered right before a family who did not have PSes and took a while to comprehend that the restaurant was so busy that they weren't taking any walk-ups. We only waited about five minutes for a table once we got checked in, and had a lovely (if a bit small) table to ourselves. We split the grilled chicken flatbread and the family salad, both of which were very good. Our waiter brought our Fantasmic! voucher over right after he brought the salad, which turned out to be a blessing, since we didn't see very much of him after that.
I don't remember what we had for entrees, but I do recall that neither of us was terribly impressed. It was as we finished our meal and waited for our tiramasu that we struck up a conversation with the mom and son sitting next to us. They were the ones who explained that one of the reasons the parks were more crowded than I was initially expecting was that it was NJ "Teachers Week," and a lot of parents decide to take their kids to Disney World for the week. It certainly explained to us why virtually every single person who had been asked where they were from had said New Jersey. I just sighed and filed that bit of information away for our next trip.
Since we were so close, we walked over to the Muppets. We got to see the pre-show from the start, but as we stood there, I realized that the length of the show meant that we wouldn't make it to Oscar's before our 6:30 cutoff time. So, we waited until we got to the point in the pre-show that we'd already seen, and started to make our way to the front of the park.
We got into the theatre and sat down around 6:10; we at the far-right hand side of the third section from the right, about halfway down or so. By this point, the sun had just set and the temperature started going down quickly. It was actually pretty cool sitting there, but we just enjoyed a chance to chat with each other about the trip so far and do some people watching. One of the salesmen was wearing pink light-up Minnie-eared deelyboppers; Lee said there wasn't enough money in the world to get him to wear something like that.
The show was supposed to start at 7, but instead, we got another of the announcements that we'd learned to despise over the course of the day - due to weather conditions, they had a technical delay. There was actually some doubt about whether or not it was going to go on, but at 7:15 the lights dimmed and the show began.
Now, Lee enjoyed IllumiNations, but he raved about Fantasmic! He even thought the hour-long wait had been worth it - which he had not said about the wait for IllumiNations. We made our way out of the park with a couple thousand of our closest friends, and got onto a waiting bus back to the resort. I was cold enough that I wanted to change into jeans, so I did that and then we went right back out to catch a bus to Downtown Disney.
Unfortunately, Downtown Disney was pretty crowded. We went into the Gourmet Pantry first, since I'm always looking for kitchen stuff, but there wasn't really anything that caught our eye. Next we went into Ghirardelli's, where I got a couple of things, including a white chocolate truffle for Lee, and then wandered into World of Disney.
I was looking for a watch, so we walked around until we found that room, but after looking at all the watches they had on display, there weren't any that met my criteria: not pink, not Pooh, with a date and a metal band. I actually spent a good bit of time looking at all the watches, but I just didn't see anything I liked. I did find some other things, though, so after I bought those, we walked over to Pleasure Island.
It was about 10 o'clock by now, and all either of us was really interested in was the Comedy Warehouse, but their next show wasn't for another half an hour. Since it was still pretty chilly, and the music was very loud, we ducked into the Adventurer's Club to pass some time. Lee was getting tired and grumpy at this point, and he's never overly sociable when in a crowd, so we just sat and watched what was going on for a while. We got in line around 10:20, and were seated at the very back of the club. Lee got a drink right away to soothe his nerves, and we settled in to watch the show. It was pretty funny - there was a created musical about Gerri the churro stand owner in Alaska who falls in love with Gern the asparagus farmer from New York.
Once the show let out, we'd pretty much had our fill of humanity for the day, so we headed over to the bus stop. Or rather, we actually took a mini-tour of the West End since I got us lost, but we eventually made it to the bus stop. We were in bed by 12:30, exhausted.
Thursday, November 7, 2002
We woke up at 7, as usual, but we stayed in bed until 7:30 just watching the news. I got us packed up while Lee took a shower, and checked our Express Checkout statement, which seemed to be in order. After my shower, we finished packing up and took everything out to the car, which took two trips. Luckily (sort of), the weather had finally cooled down - this was by far the nicest weather day of our trip, and we were leaving by midafternoon.
We drove over to Cinema Hall so that Lee could get some mouse ears for one of his co-workers, so while he did that, I picked up all our purchases. Once we got all that straight, we added all that stuff to the trunk and carefully drove over to the TTC. We took the tram and then the monorail into the Magic Kingdom.
Unfortunately, this was an Early Entry day for the MK, so it was packed. I had originally sort of planned for us to be there at rope drop, but we were both just too tired to get going that early. We hadn't seen anything on Fantasyland on Sunday, so we went into that area of the park and were confronted by what felt like hordes of small children and their strollers. We picked up Fastpasses for Pooh right away, and then tried to find something to do while we waited. Snow White was mobbed, and Peter Pan wasn't running, so we went over to it's a small world, which had no wait.
Lee actually didn't mind small world, although he did comment that Walt must have been on acid to approve some of the color schemes in the ride. We still had time before Pooh, and Peter Pan was still down, so we went into Liberty Square for another spin on the Haunted Mansion. Lee declared HM to be the best ride he'd been on all week.
It was finally time for Pooh, so we braved the crowds in Fantasyland. We got into a honey pot almost right away, but unfortunately, there was a small child seated right in the row behind us who wanted no part of the ride. He started screaming almost as soon as we started moving, so the ride was pretty much ruined for us. We got to feel the motion of the car, and we got to see the sets, but we heard absolutely none of the narration. We tried to get back into the standby line, since the sign said the wait was about 15 minutes, but as we stood there it changed to a wait of 90 minutes, so we left.
We walked through Toontown Fair to get to the path to Tomorrowland, hoping for a ride on Space Mountain, but both the standby line and the Fastpass return time were later than we planned to be in the park, so we ended up just leaving the park. I had made a PS for Concourse Steakhouse, but Lee decided he didn't want that, so we took the monorail over to Epcot.
We walked straight back to Canada, past the Innoventions fountain which was in the middle of a show (and I'm sorry that we never got a chance to see it fully, since that remains one of my family's best memories from our trip in '95), and straight into Le Cellier. The restaurant was fairly empty, since it was still a little early for lunch, so we had a lovely, relaxed, cool meal. We both had the cheddar cheese soup, and then we both had sandwiches (I think I had the French dip and he had the chicken sandwich, but I might have our orders backwards).
We left Le Cellier and headed straight back out the park and onto the monorail, back to the TTC and a waiting tram. We found the car with no trouble and headed towards home; I drove for about the first hour before I got really sleepy, so Lee drove the rest of the way home. We left the TTC between 1:30 and 2, and with a few stops for gas but nothing else, we were home by 12:30. We went straight to bed and were thankful that we still had a three-day weekend before we had to be back at work.
FINAL SUMMARY
Lee agreed to go to Disney World for our vacation if I could plan it for less than $2500. We ended up spending just under $1700 total, so I met that goal and then some. However, I should have sprung for nicer rooms: the All-Stars was adequate, but we were pretty far away from the bus stop, and the whole room was just small. Lee really liked the Animal Kingdom Lodge, but I'm not entirely sure we can really afford to stay there just yet.
We did pretty well with meals: we tried to have one big sit-down meal per day and just rely on snacks and our granola bars when we got hungry otherwise. We did two buffets and three regular restaurants, and we didn't have a bad meal in the bunch. The Food and Wine Festival was great for us - we wish we'd spent more than one day eating and shopping around the World Showcase.
The big drawback for us was that we were in no way really physically ready for the amount of walking we did. I attribute that partly to us being out of shape (which didn't help us in any way), and partly to me going into commando mode as soon as we set foot on property. I regret that now, and when we go back, we will definitely take things at a more leisurely pace instead of rocketing from attraction to attraction.
Overall, though, it was a good trip, and it gave us the break from work that we both so desperately needed. Next time, we'll only take one day to drive down, rather than two, but we'll still make sure to leave at least one day for us to recover at home before we have to go back to work. For someone who really had to be talked into going to Disney World, Lee really had a good time and started talking about our next trip right away. Unfortunately, we still don't know when that will be.
Katie Proctor