Margie McCann - March 2003 - Caribbean Beach Resort

[Trip Reports]

Margie McCann - March 2003 - Caribbean Beach Resort

Time of Year: Winter
Travel Method: Personal car
Resort: CBR
Accommodations: Standard
Ages Represented in Group: Preschool, Adult
WDW Experience Represented in Group: Frequent
Comments: This was an important trip for Margie. Wither her third trip in two years, she has officially bumped herself up into the "frequent visitor" category. This was a trip planned simply because a year seemed too long to be away from Disney World. So, with the permission of her daughter's prinicpal, they were off.

Margie McCann -- March 2003 -- Walt Disney World (CBR)

Margie has written two previous trip reports:

November 2000
December 2001

WHO:

Me – 34, Lead Developer, 9th trip
Chuck – 36, Tax Adjuster, 5th trip
Allie – 5 (but will be 6 over vacation!) 3rd trip
OK, I know. No one was expecting to hear from me again so soon. What can I tell you? It’s like some sort of sickness!! In early August, my husband and I were talking about how weird it’s going to feel not going to WDW in December. We were reminiscing about all the things we love and I was telling him about some of the new things that they are starting, etc. Long story short, we decide to squeeze in a short trip, similar to what we did last year. However, this was not meant to be. My father passed away after a long battle with emphysema about two weeks before we were scheduled to leave. We decided to reschedule our vacation for March. This way, some time will have passed and we’ll be able to celebrate DD’s 6th birthday at the World!

So I can get this out of way early - My DD is in kindergarten. We are bad parents and are taking her out of parochial school for vacation. However, this is with our principal’s blessing! Her quote on back to school night was “Family vacations are very important. If you can take them off-season, it’s cheaper. Besides, all my kids need to go to Disney World.” Yeah! Our tentative itinerary is:

03/04 – Drive from Philadelphia to Kingsland, GA. Stay the night
03/05 – Drive from Kingsland to Orlando. Check into the Caribbean Beach. Dinner at Chef Mickey’s.
03/06 – Allie’s 6th Birthday. Dinner at 1900 Park Faire-Cinderella’s Gala Feast
03/07 – Epcot Storybook breakfast
03/08 - Le Cellier Dinner
03/09 – Nothing booked for today
03/10 – Whispering Canyon Café Dinner
03/11 – Check out and drive to Virginia. Stay the night
03/12 - Drive from Virginia to Philadelphia

We originally had reservations in December for the Wilderness Lodge. When we rescheduled, the prices for the WL had gone way, way up. So, we decided on the Caribbean Beach. We talked about staying here before, but something else always seemed to come up! We still have all of the Plus options left on passes from our first trip in 2000, so there’s no sense in getting the Hopper Plus tickets for us. We purchased 5 day Park Hopper Passes in October. We want to go back to Chef Mickey’s and Le Cellier. I am anxious to try the new Storybook breakfast at Epcot and the new Princess dinner at the Grand Floridian. We would also like to see Illuminations and Spectromagic and try out one of the nine pools at the hotel. The characters we are looking to get pictures/autographs are Mulan, Jasmine, Lilo and Stitch. Will we be able to achieve all of these things? Who knows? But that is where the adventure lies!

The Real World

As I am out surfing the net, I find out that there are now discount codes available for the time period for our trip. I call up and am able to get a Disney Club discount rate. They cancel my original reservation and then rebook everything at the new rate. Yeah! I saved about $200! When I get the new reservation confirmation, it says at the bottom “Allison 6th birthday stay. Extra pixie dust please…” I can’t wait to see what that brings, if anything! I also made a point of mentioning it when I booked the Gala Feast dinner on her birthday.

I thought a fun activity to do would be make an autograph book while we wait for our trip. Allie and I find all sorts of clipart, stickers, and pictures and she decorates her book.

3/4/03 - We are all packed and ready to go. We reminded Allie’s teacher a week before our trip to let her know what our plans were and to ask for any homework for her to work on in the car on the way down (Kindergarten only gets homework once per week). She put together a packet for us and asks us to send in pictures of our trip. No problem! We have books on CD, music CD’s (and Allie now has her own CD Discman so we don’t have to listen to Mambo No. 5 over and over again, unless we want to!), coloring books and colored pencils, GameBoy, travel games, BrainQuest cards, and a few surprises. We load up the van the night before with everything but the cooler and my backpack. We get up around 130am and are on the road by 2am. Allie wakes up before we can carry her out to the car, so it’s one last bathroom stop and we load her into the van. I packed a small cooler with juice, soda, and water and a bag with some snacks, breakfast foods, etc. Our ride down was uneventful. We played categories, Game Boy, and listened to CD’s and books on CD. We started with a full tank of gas and stopped once in North Carolina for a refill ($25). We had lunch at Cracker Barrel ($23). We arrived in Kingsland, GA around 4:30pm. We debated just continuing onto the World, but it had started raining, so we decided to stay the night so that we could relax. We stayed at the same Best Western as last year and got the last room (AAA discount, please) in the place ($76). We walked to the Chik-Fil-A and had dinner ($12). Allie played in the indoor playground for awhile. We went back to the hotel and she did all of her homework. We watched TV and then went to bed nice and early.

3/5/03 – We are up and at breakfast by 7:30am. The hotel offers several kinds of cereal, fruit, muffins, bagels and juice. We are refueled and ready to go. We top off on the gas since it has been the cheapest in Georgia and we are on our way by 8:30am. Allie has been very good in the car. We put on our Disney CD’s to get us in the mood. It isn’t until we are about 2 hours away that she asked for the first time “Are we there yet?” I think that was pretty good! We told her we would be there shortly and talked about all the things we wanted to do until we got there. As soon as we started to see signs, we were all getting excited. We got to the CBR about 11:15am. A great CM named Christophe checked us in. He pulled us up in the computer and was reading it over for what seemed like a few minutes. He asked where Allison was. She raised her hand and stood in front of him. He told her she had a phone call. He handed her the phone and she heard Goofy singing Happy Birthday to her! Pixie Dust! She was so excited, she didn’t know what to say. At that point, another CM named Josh came out from behind the desk and told her he heard it was her birthday. He gave her a small coloring book and a pack of crayons. He also gave her his CBR pin from his lanyard. More Pixie Dust! He asked her if she wanted any other pins he had, but she just shook her head no. She was in utter shock! I was almost ready to cry. She said thank you and then turned to show me everything. Christophe said that he was going to give us a great room that was close to the bus stop and the pool. He put us in Trinidad South and the room was ready for us to check into right away. I thanked them for everything and we were off to Trinidad South. Wow! He wasn’t kidding when he said he would give us a good room. We were in 3625, which was a corner room on the first floor. You could see the quiet pool and the lake from our front door. We were right around the corner from the vending area and maybe 30 seconds from the bus stop. We unpacked and decided to hit the big pool since it was a beautiful 80 degrees (a huge change from Philly!). We drove to Old Port Royale (OPR) and bought three refillable mugs and ordered a pizza for lunch ($50). After our lunch, we check out the pool. It is very nice and very big! It’s also pretty crowded . We search out a chair and finally find one in one of the corners near the water cannons. We swam for awhile and then went back to the room to get ready to go to Chef Mickey’s for dinner. This has become something of a tradition for us. We drove over to the Contemporary and checked in about 20 minutes before our PS. It didn’t seem too crowded to us. We got our picture taken and we were heading to a seat when our pager went off. We had a nice server who was from New Jersey. She asked where we were from and when we told her Philly, she told us that she could tell from our accents. What accents ?? She said that it sounded good to hear and that she was moving back in a few months after 14 years in Orlando. I tried to tell her that might not be such a good idea since we’ve gotten 3 feet of snow this winter, but I couldn’t convince her! Dinner was good, as always. We had prime rib, chicken, beef in bourbon, salad, shrimp, and of course, mashed potatoes. Allie had macaroni and cheese, pizza, prime rib, and mashed potatoes. I told our server that it was her birthday tomorrow and she brought out a cupcake with a candle. Goofy came over with a big hug and kiss for her during the napkin wave. Mickey, Minnie, Chip, and Dale came to the table for autographs and pictures. Most of the characters wrote “Happy Birthday” in the autograph book. We did not buy our pictures this time because Chuck and Allie were both looking the wrong way! Dinner was ($73). After dinner, Chuck realizes that it is 7pm, so we head out to the observation deck to watch the fireworks. I always like watching them here. After the fireworks, we went over to browse at the shops. I just love the shops at the Contemporary! We bought a mug that my mom wanted and bundles of lollipops for Allie’s classmates. ($27). We took the monorail to the Grand Floridan and did a little shopping. We found earrings, necklaces, and pins ($61). We headed back to the Contemporary and then back to CBR. We drove to OPR and refilled our mugs and then checked out the giftshop. They had a nice selection of things. I bought some postcards and stamps ($11) to write out tonight. Walking through the store was one of the managers with bunch of hula hoops in her hands. She was telling everyone that she was going to have a hula hoop contest, so anyone who wanted to play, follow her to the front of the gift shop. I asked Allie if she wanted to try and she said yes. The manager asked the kids to pick a hula hoop and to try a practice round. There were about 7 kids, all different ages. Allie started with the hula hoop and never stopped! She must have been going at least 5 minutes. People were standing around, watching her go. A woman was trying to enter the store, so Allie moved up and then moved back to where she was and never broke a rhythm! The manager laughed and said that she guessed that they had a winner. She asked her name and gave her a certificate that said this was a Magical Moment. She also gave her a Pluto pin! We were just laughing and couldn’t believe it. We went back to our room and wrote out the postcards. We also gave Allie her birthday presents (since we were going to be up very early tomorrow) an Ariel nightgown, a plush Ari Pop Dreamer doll, an I Spy book, and Ella Pop Dreamer doll. She was so excited! I didn’t think she would be able to sleep. I set the wake up call for 628am so we could go for the extra magic hour at the Magic Kingdom tomorrow.

3/6/03 – It’s Allie’s 6th birthday today and Aaron Carter singing “I Just Can’t Wait to be King” wakes us up. Where’s Mickey? We are up and ready to go. We brought breakfast foods to eat in the room before heading out to the parks. We are at the bus stop by 705am. We waited a few minutes and made it to MK by 740am. I was able to go through the line search bag before they opened the turnstiles. We push through the gates and head over to City Hall to get Allie a “Today’s My Birthday” button. There are characters all over the place. We go to see Baloo, Rafiki, Robin Hood (a first!) and Friar Tuck. Mickey, Minnie, Daisy, and Radcliffe were also out. We head toward Fantasyland and there is already a line for Dumbo. Yuck! We do Pooh, the Carousel, and Peter Pan’s Flight for the first time. Allie just loves it! She wants to know if we can go back on it. Why not? It’s her birthday. We go on it again. She wants to know if we can go again. I tell her OK, but we’ll do other rides first. I get fastpasses, which tell us to come back in an hour and a half. We ride the teacups, and then over to Buzz. We use our fastpass and ride Peter Pan again. We ride Small World and get fast passes for Pooh. We wait in line to see Ariel, who is Allie’s favorite (they both have long, red hair). We meet Ariel and on our way out stop to see some more characters. The Sherriff of Nottingham, Queen of Hearts, and Jafar. Jafar seems particularly grumpy today. His handler notices Allie’s birthday button and asks how old she is. She stands in front of everyone and says “Can I have your attention please? This is Allison and she is celebrating her 6th birthday today. Let’s give her a big hand! Everyone in line applauded. Jafar, on the other hand, decides to make the “whoopee” sign by twirling his finger behind her. We are cracking up and I actually caught it on video. We go over to Adventureland to ride the flying carpets. We stop and see the Genie. I ask one of the CM’s if Jasmine was going to be around and she told me in about ½ hour. We ride the flying carpets, and Allie tripped getting out of the carpet. She fell and scraped her knee. I took her into the bathroom and cleaned off her knee. We went into the marketplace and bought a couple pens and pins ($17). As we were checking out, we saw that Aladdin and Jasmine were riding the carpets. After their ride, they headed over to the little clearing between the carpets and treehouse. Allie finally got to meet Jasmine and got her picture taken with Aladdin, Jasmine (a first!) and the Genie, all together . We decide to grab an early lunch, so we head back to Fantasyland to eat at Pinocchio’s. Hot Dogs, hambuger, fries and soda were good. They also had a nice fixings bar with mushrooms, onions, and hot cheese sauce. Lunch was ($20). After lunch, we got a fast pass for Peter Pan and used our fast passes to go on Pooh. We headed back to the teacups and stopped for pictures with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. One of them was tickling Allie while the other was signing her autograph book. We rode the teacups again and decided to head up toward the Main Street Railroad. In all of my trips here, I have never ridden the train. We rode the train all around, and then got off at Toontown. We walked through Mickey’s house and Minnie’s house. We went into the tent waited in line to see Tigger, Pooh, and Eeyore. We headed back to use our fastpasses for Peter Pan. Why are all these people standing in a line that would take at least 30 minutes? They should be using fastpass! We also stopped and saw Cruella Devil (another 1st). Allie said that Cruella poked her in the back and told her “turn around for the picture, dear”. Cruella also hollered at me to “hurry up and take the picture, dear”. Oh my! Back to Tomorrowland, we run into Jim Hawkins (cute!) and BEN from Treasure Planet. Both were very nice. We rode Buzz (I won!) and then we did the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. Allie and I were riding backwards, and I don’t think she liked that too much. She also told us it was too dark in there and that she was scared. By now it was getting late in the day. We grab some Mickey bars and a Chipwich ($8) and take them to eat inside Cosmic Ray’s to get out of the heat. The afternoon parade was going on, and we wanted no parts of it. One of the CM’s was walking around straightening chairs and wiping down tables. She walked over to our table and handed Allie two Mickey stickers since she noticed it was her birthday. How sweet! We took another ride on Buzz (I won again!) and then decided to walk toward Main Street because we have a PS for Cinderella’s Gala Feast at the Grand Floridian. We hop the monorail and ride over to 1900 Park Faire. Our PS was for 6pm, and it is only a little after 5pm. We asked if we could be taken early and were told it’s no problem. She also asked me if we wanted a birthday cupcake that was free or a cake that would be $15. I told her the cupcake would be fine. We were seated in just a few minutes. We loved the variety of items on the buffet. We liked the turkey, prime rib, chicken piccata, the mashed potatoes, salad bar, stuffing, and the cold strawberry soup. The kids menu seemed a little nicer too. The desserts were also very good. Cinderella and Prince Charming came over together. They were OK. Nice enough, but we’ve had better. Suzy and Perla the mice, were adorable. They made a big fuss over Allie’s birthday pin and we got a picture of them together with her. They never brought out Allie’s cupcake, but we were all stuffed anyway. Dinner was ($73). After we rolled out of the restaurant we looked for the fairy godmother. We were told she just stepped out, but we could wait for her. I think we waited about 10 minutes and then she came through the veranda doors. We got her picture and autograph and we hopped back on the monorail to the Magic Kingdom to catch our bus back to the CBR. When we got back to our room, Mousekeeping had tucked all of Allie’s dolls under her blanket. There was also an autographed picture of Mickey Mouse on the table. He was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and it said “Happy Birthday Allison. Love Your Pal, Mickey Mouse”. How cute! So much pixie dust here! We hopped in the car and drove to OPR (it was too far to go and boy, were we tired). We filled our mugs and relaxed for awhile. We refilled again and headed back to the room. We decided to take a night swim. There was another family in the pool taking advantage of the beautiful weather. It was a great way to end the day. Allie told us this was the best birthday she ever had! We watched some stories on TV and then hit the bed. We are heading to Epcot in the morning for the Princess Storybook Breakfast.

3/7/03 – Mickey wakes us up bright and early. We have an 830 PS at Norway for the Princess Storybook breakfast. This is the only character breakfast I planned for this trip. Allie is hoping to see Mulan there. We are out at the bus stop by 730 and are at Epcot by 8am. There were already two families waiting there. There was a sign marking where you needed to be if you were going to a character breakfast. The guards searched through the bags and told us that they would be letting us in at 8:20. By now a line had formed behind us and people were getting upset that they weren’t getting in yet. Some guy was yelling to the guards that he had and 820 reservation and he wasn’t going to miss it. Someone needed to calm down! I whispered to Chuck that I didn’t think the restaurant was open until 830. They let us in and we headed toward Norway. We stopped to rent a stroller because Epcot is absolutely huge. We also had our picture taken. Everything was roped off and there were signs out, so there was no problem getting there. We got to Norway in no time at all. I gave our name at the front and the gentleman asked who was having a birthday and I told him it was Allie’s. The manager had just come out to start the “door opening ceremony”. See, that mad guy had nothing to worry about. (Thank goodness he was seated on the other side of the restaurant. We were taken in and seated on the right side of the restaurant. We had never been here before and thought it was quite nice. Our server, Beate brought out juices, fruit, and muffins right away and explained how everything worked. She brought out our skillet a few minutes later. Eggs, bacon, sausage, and potatoes were all very good. We had a refill on the sausage and potatoes. Only 5 minutes went by before Princesses started coming out. We were seated on the left hand side of the restaurant (looking in from outside) and that’s where the Princesses come out from. Belle was first, then Aurora and Mary Poppins. Mulan came out last. I thought Allie was going to fly out of her seat. She was so thrilled. We told Mulan that Allie dressed as her for Halloween and Mulan was very impressed. We got autographs and pictures with everyone. All of the princesses were quite friendly. However, the friendliest person in Norway was Beate. She saw that it was Allie’s birthday and brought her out a certificate that said Happy Birthday. On the back side, all of the servers signed their names and wrote “Happy Birthday” in Norwegian! She also brought out a troll cookie for Allie to paint with icing, along with a to go box. We got a great picture of Allie with Beate. Pixie Dust seems to be everywhere this trip! Breakfast was $70, with a great tip. We walked over to Journey into Imagination to see Figment. This was Allie’s first time on this ride and she loved it (especially the stink bomb part)! It had been years since we rode it, and Chuck and I thought it was cute. We went to the photo lab and emailed some pictures to family and friends at home. Then we went and rode it again. Allie decided to use some of her spending money to buy a Figment T-Shirt and washcloth. We wandered over to Ice Station Cool to try out the sodas. Chuck and I both tried the Beverly again, but Allie refused to drink “the yucky soda”. We headed over toward Spaceship Earth, but Allie decided that she did not want to go on it. Instead, the Character Bus was headed our way. We stopped and saw Pluto, Mushu, Baloo and King Louie together, and Donald. The highlight was Meeko. Chuck and Allie had walked up to Meeko with her autograph book. I was on camera duty. He signed her book and posed for still and video pictures. As they were walking away, Meeko saw Allie walk toward our stroller. Guess who decided to go for a ride? I stood there laughing (and taping) as Chuck pushed a 5 foot tall raccoon in a purple Epcot stroller! The ladies who were waiting in line (without kids) were complaining behind me. “I hope that thing gets off that stroller soon. There won’t be enough time for the rest of us!” Meeko finished his ride and off he went for more pictures. We walked over and saw Food Rocks. Yikes! That was different! Allie thought it was cute. Chuck and I were just kind of waiting for it to be over. There were maybe 10 people in it! We walked around some more and decided to hit the pool at the hotel. We swam for a few hours at the Trinidad pool and just relaxed. After swimming, we decided to head back to Epcot for more rides and Illuminations. We stopped at Ice Station Cool again and rode Journey into Imagination again. We headed over to see Cranium Command. Just as the preshow ended, Allie started crying that she didn’t want to see it. A very nice CM (whose name I never got) asked if she could take Allie aside and tell her a secret. They moved a few feet away and in no time Allie was giggling. The CM came back over and told us to sit in the back row (the wheelchair sitting area) and that if she didn’t like it, to just get up and leave. I asked Allie what the CM told her and she said that there’s a food fight in the movie and a kiss! She really enjoyed it. No one, including me, felt like riding Test Track, but we wandered over to check it out. Maybe next time. It had started to spit so we decided to grab some dinner. We went to the Electric Umbrella, cheeseburger, pizza , chicken Caesar salad, 2 sodas and,milk $25. It had started to rain again so we ran into Mousegears for a little shopping. 2 hats, 2 pens, and some pins ($52). It was still raining hard, so we decided that we were not going to hang around for Illuminations. We were just wiped out. We headed back to the hotel to relax and get to bed early.

3/8/03 – Today will be our day at MGM. We have cereal and juice in the room and we are out at the bus stop early. We are there when the gate opens. We stopped and got our picture taken with the giant hat in the background (bought it later for $18) and there are CM’s out there handing out fastpasses for the first Little Mermaid show. We grab three and we head back to Muppet Vision 3D. This will be Allie’s first time in a 3D movie. She only knows a couple of the Muppets, but she liked the movie. She liked when the water came squirting out at you. We wandered around to some of the stores and bought two pins ($9). We headed over to the Voyage of the Little Mermaid. Everything was fine until the huge Ursula came out. Allie got so scared and was crying. We asked her if she wanted to leave and she said no. She liked the bubbles flying all around. We stopped at In Character and picked up a set of Princess pens ($11). We went and saw Millionaire. That was a lot of fun. We got seated pretty far up in the arena. All of us enjoyed answering the questions. I actually made it onto the board at number 10, but never got any higher. We headed over to the animation tour. We hadn’t been there since before Allie was born. I liked that they added a demonstration from an artist. I think the parents were as interested as the kids. We all liked the montage at the end of the tour. We went over and did the One Man’s Dream exhibit. We loved looking at all the displays. One of the posters I had as a kid on a jigsaw puzzle. I’m getting old! We sat and enjoyed the movie too. Allie liked the whole exhibit. We had lunch at Hollywood and Vine. It happened to be a character lunch. I understand they don’t have it now, and that’s a shame. We had Minnie, Goofy, Chip and Dale in very Hollywood costumes. At one point during lunch, they grabbed all the kids to come up and do a dance with them. Goofy was spinning and flipping Minnie. (Pretty brave!). Allie didn’t want to go up with them. She was too busy eating her lunch! Lunch was good. We had turkey, salad, barbeque meatballs, brownie cake and make your own sundaes. Lunch was $57. Right after lunch, we decided to stake out a spot for our favorite parade, the Stars and Motor Cars. As we are walking, we hit a rain storm. I pulled out the ponchos and we just kept on walking. Fifteen minutes later, the rain had stopped and it was starting to get hot. Off with the ponchos! I discovered I had lost Allie’s sunglasses, so I went and picked up a pair of Minnie sunglasses ($9). We got a spot directly across from the restrooms and the soda/ice cream stand. Perfect location! The parade was great as always. No Atlantis car this time. I guess it was replaced with Lilo and Stitch. After the parade, we headed over to see the Toy Story gang. We saw Buzz, Woody, and Bullseye (another first). After pictures, we did a little shopping and picked up a Little Mermaid lithograph for Allie’s room and she bought herself a princess poster and crayon set ($22) and had those delivered back to the room. One more character sighting on our way out the door, it’s the Green Army Man (another first). I love their feet! All that extra plastic under their boots, just like the toys!

We decide to brave MK so we can go see Spectromagic. We haven’t seen this parade in years (long before Allie was born). We staked out our spots in the circle in front of the castle. This turned out to be a pretty good spot. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed this parade. I also had forgotten how ugly people can be when they have to save seats. Once the parade started, everyone behaved. Allie liked it until the demon from Fantasia appeared. And of course, he had to open his bat-like wings right in front of us. That was not fun! She got over that pretty quick. Even Ursula didn’t scare her too much. She just said that she was too big! Towards the end of the parade, Peter Pan was walking past us and told Allie how much he loved her hair. Mr. Smee stopped and shook her hand. Even getting out wasn’t too bad. We only waited a few minutes before the bus came. We got back to the hotel and found little rabbit washcloth animals all over. We went to OPR for a late dinner -2 turkey sandwiches, 1 grilled cheese, and 2 slices of chocolate cake ($25). Allie said that she like the parade, but didn’t like the bat guy. We were glad to finally see it.

3/9/03 – Today was our Animal Kingdom Day. We were there when the park opened. Chuck went over to rent a stroller while Allie and I visited with Minnie, Turk, and King Louie. We headed back to the Kilamanjaro Safari. We were seated toward the front of the truck. Last time, Allie didn’t like the bridge collapse, but this year, our driver didn’t make too big a deal of it. We saw lots of animals, but the giraffes were literally next to us! Very cool! We went and walked the Pangani Trail. I loved seeing the gorillas. They are beautiful! We enjoyed walking all around. You definitely feel like you are exploring in the jungle. After that, we headed over to Camp Minnie-Mickey to catch the Festival of the Lion King. This was our first time seeing the show. Allie and I really enjoyed it, but Chuck said it was just OK. We had never made it to Asia before, so off we went. We did the Maharjah Jungle Trek. We loved seeing the komodo dragon and the tigers. None of us went into the bat exhibit though. Allie wanted no parts of that.

We headed over to Pizzafari for our usual lunch. They were offering you the meal vouchers, so we got them. We had a kids pizza, 2 hot Italian deli sandwiches, and 3 drinks. We ended up using the remainder of our vouchers for Mickey bars while we waited for the parade. We went on the Triceratops Spin (Prehistoric Dumbo!). Cute, but short. It was something new to try. I was debating whether I would have time to try Primeval Whirl before the Tarzan show started, but decided I would wait until the next time.

We headed over to Tarzan Rocks! Cute show, good skating, but I don’t know if I need to see it again.

We decided to stay for the Jamming Jungle parade. It was really cute. Donald Duck was squirting water at us from his jeep. That just cracked Allie up to no end! I can’t believe we stayed here all day. As we are leaving, we saw Pocohantas (another first!). We stopped and got pictures and autographs. I’m not sure who like Pocohantas more, Allie or Chuck! We grab a bus back to the hotel and take a quick dip in the pool. We were just too tired and didn’t feel like a big,sit down meal at a park, so I cancelled our PS for Le Cellier. We decided to go to Downtown Disney for shopping and dinner. This is when having a car really comes in handy. We didn’t want a fancy meal, but not McDonalds either. We had dinner at Wolfgang Puck Express. We had a 4 cheese pizza, pepperoni pizza, mac and cheese, and 3 sodas. Dinner was $29. It wasn’t bad, but I don’t know if I would go back either. It’s kind of an odd setup. We went to the Pin Traders (a dangerous store) and spent $43. All of a sudden, a horrendous rain started falling. We were trapped inside the Once Upon a Toy store (Darn!) Card games, puzzle, etc and I was $45 lighter. At the Mr. Potato Head station, some kids (and adults) needed to learn how to take turns. There was a father and son each playing on their own make a Mr. Potato Head computer. There had to be at least 7 kids waiting. I stopped counting after they each made 5 pictures. Finally, I turned to Chuck and said quite loudly “I hope there’s going to be enough paper left so that all of the other kids can get a turn”! They got the hint. Allie made 2 pictures and then gave someone else a turn. In between the blowing sheets of rain, we were able to run over to World of Disney where I once again took advantage of the Disney Club card, as well as resort delivery. Mugs, pens, picture frames, t-shirts, and a Mickey umbrella (a steal at $9) were purchased. The total was $210.

When we got back to our room, Allie’s stuffed Minnie was in a hammock in the window of our room. It looked like she was just hanging out, waiting for us to get back. I made sure to take some pictures before it got taken apart! We went to OPR and grabbed a snack and milk for tomorrow’s breakfast. 3 brownies, juice, 2 milks were $14.

3/10/03 – Our last full day ?. We asked Allie where she wanted to go to, and no surprise, she chose MK! Once again, we had breakfast in the room and were there when the park opened. Off to Fantasyland we go again. We did Peter Pan (3 more times), Pooh, Dumbo, Teacups, and Small World. We did Buzz Lightyear and then went to Adventureland. I wanted to ride the Pirates, but Allie said that she was still afraid. Allie and Chuck went to the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse and Aladdin’s Flying Carpets while I went on Pirates. I got to sit in the last seat in the boat by myself. I really do like this ride! It would have been better, if the kids in the boat behind me would not have been acting like idiots. They starting screaming as soon as the stepped in the boat! I met up with Chuck and Allie and we did a little shopping in the stores outside the Pirates. Chuck found me a villains shirt, a Caribbean Soul shirt for him and a couple more pins ($44). I had told Allie for her birthday, she could have a hair wrap. We got it done right next to the store. One strand with some beads and four colors of thread was $30, including a tip. (It was in almost 6 weeks and Allie asked me to take it out. It never frayed!). We saw Captain Hook and Mr. Smee together. As we were heading over toward Frontierland, we ran into Peter Pan and Wendy (another first). They were adorable. We decided to ride the Riverboat. Allie told me that that was too boring. We rode the Carousel again and did Peter Pan one last time before we left the park. We spent the afternoon at the hotel pool and relaxed (and packed a little).

We drove to the Wilderness Lodge for our PS at the Whispering Canyon for dinner. What a beautiful hotel! We definitely want to try a stay here. We walked around the lobby and gift shop for a few minutes before checking in at the front. We were seated right away. Our server was very polite, but not into any of the funny stuff. It didn’t matter. The servers all around us were entertaining everyone! Allie had to ask for ketchup, and boy, did we get it. She just loved taking it over to the other tables too! The table next to us had a birthday. Everyone sang and clapped and carried on. The birthday girl (her 40th!) looked suitably embarrassed. There was also an older gentleman at the table behind us. He made the mistake of asking for a large glass of water with lemon. He then proceeded to get up and leave the table. When he came back and saw the almost bucket sized glass of water that was put at his place, he was in hysterics. The server very kindly brought him a huge straw to go with it! It was time for the pony express ride. Allie wasn’t too sure at first, so I walked up with her and then she was fine. They raced around the restaurant as the parents waved their napkins. All of the kids were asked to take an oath “I, state your name…). You know they all repeated it. The guy running things told everyone not to laugh “these are your kids, after all”. They also had to promise not to go to Universal! Too funny! Everyone got a certificate that said they participated in the Pony Express. Dinner was very good. We had a child’s chicken finger meal and 2 skillets – 70 w/tip. Back to the hotel we went. We had one last night swim and packed up the rest of our stuff.

3/11/03 – Departure day ?. We are up early and on the road by 6am. We don’t leave anything behind like we did last time and we are on our way. We stopped at the Cracker Barrel for lunch in South Carolina ($24). We refuel and keep on going. We stopped and had dinner at the Cracker Barrel in Virginia ($28) and we drove straight through. No flat tire this time and we finally got home around 11pm!

We had a great trip. It was definitely needed after the rough winter we had (seasonally and emotionally). Allie loved celebrating her birthday in her favorite place. She told us it was the best birthday in her whole life and the best vacation in her whole life too! Wow! Since she was a little older this trip, we did a few more things than we had the previous trip – Peter Pan, Muppet Vision 3D, Millionaire, Voyage of Little Mermaid, Journey into Imagination, Cranium Command, Tarzan, Spectromagic and the Jamming Jungle Parade. There were still some rides that she said she wanted to go on, but then decided not to at the last minute. That’s what the next trip is for, I guess. I saw too many parents forcing crying kids on rides. That is not a vacation! We had some really good characters this trip and there wasn’t anyplace you didn’t run into one. The CM’s all seemed to go out of their way and the ones who were extra special I made sure I thanked by name in all my survey responses, as well as to their managers. I did tip Mousekeeping everyday and I think we got something different from them everyday. In the past, we have gone in December. This time, the weather was a little warmer and the crowds were a little bigger than we are used to, but it was manageable. Our first choice is always December (we are suckers for Christmas decorations!), but this turned out quite well. The drive down is a little long, but Chuck is not a good flyer, and it’s fairly cheap to do. Making up school was no problem. All of the work was done and turned in without a problem (and we sent in pictures for everyone to see when we got back). The next trip is tentatively scheduled for December, 2004. We want to go with friends of ours, with their two kids. A day in Universal will need to be fit into that trip. So, until I get to go again, I’ll just keep reading everyone else’s trip reports. Thanks for reading!

Margie McCann

Mccannme@tuhs.temple.edu

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Margie McCann -- March 2003 -- Walt Disney World (CBR)

Margie has written two previous trip reports:

November 2000
December 2001
WHO:

Me – 34, Lead Developer, 9th trip
Chuck – 36, Tax Adjuster, 5th trip
Allie – 5 (but will be 6 over vacation!) 3rd trip
OK, I know. No one was expecting to hear from me again so soon. What can I tell you? It’s like some sort of sickness!! In early August, my husband and I were talking about how weird it’s going to feel not going to WDW in December. We were reminiscing about all the things we love and I was telling him about some of the new things that they are starting, etc. Long story short, we decide to squeeze in a short trip, similar to what we did last year. However, this was not meant to be. My father passed away after a long battle with emphysema about two weeks before we were scheduled to leave. We decided to reschedule our vacation for March. This way, some time will have passed and we’ll be able to celebrate DD’s 6th birthday at the World!

So I can get this out of way early - My DD is in kindergarten. We are bad parents and are taking her out of parochial school for vacation. However, this is with our principal’s blessing! Her quote on back to school night was “Family vacations are very important. If you can take them off-season, it’s cheaper. Besides, all my kids need to go to Disney World.” Yeah! Our tentative itinerary is:

03/04 – Drive from Philadelphia to Kingsland, GA. Stay the night
03/05 – Drive from Kingsland to Orlando. Check into the Caribbean Beach. Dinner at Chef Mickey’s.
03/06 – Allie’s 6th Birthday. Dinner at 1900 Park Faire-Cinderella’s Gala Feast
03/07 – Epcot Storybook breakfast
03/08 - Le Cellier Dinner
03/09 – Nothing booked for today
03/10 – Whispering Canyon Café Dinner
03/11 – Check out and drive to Virginia. Stay the night
03/12 - Drive from Virginia to Philadelphia

We originally had reservations in December for the Wilderness Lodge. When we rescheduled, the prices for the WL had gone way, way up. So, we decided on the Caribbean Beach. We talked about staying here before, but something else always seemed to come up! We still have all of the Plus options left on passes from our first trip in 2000, so there’s no sense in getting the Hopper Plus tickets for us. We purchased 5 day Park Hopper Passes in October. We want to go back to Chef Mickey’s and Le Cellier. I am anxious to try the new Storybook breakfast at Epcot and the new Princess dinner at the Grand Floridian. We would also like to see Illuminations and Spectromagic and try out one of the nine pools at the hotel. The characters we are looking to get pictures/autographs are Mulan, Jasmine, Lilo and Stitch. Will we be able to achieve all of these things? Who knows? But that is where the adventure lies!

The Real World

As I am out surfing the net, I find out that there are now discount codes available for the time period for our trip. I call up and am able to get a Disney Club discount rate. They cancel my original reservation and then rebook everything at the new rate. Yeah! I saved about $200! When I get the new reservation confirmation, it says at the bottom “Allison 6th birthday stay. Extra pixie dust please…” I can’t wait to see what that brings, if anything! I also made a point of mentioning it when I booked the Gala Feast dinner on her birthday.

I thought a fun activity to do would be make an autograph book while we wait for our trip. Allie and I find all sorts of clipart, stickers, and pictures and she decorates her book.

3/4/03 - We are all packed and ready to go. We reminded Allie’s teacher a week before our trip to let her know what our plans were and to ask for any homework for her to work on in the car on the way down (Kindergarten only gets homework once per week). She put together a packet for us and asks us to send in pictures of our trip. No problem! We have books on CD, music CD’s (and Allie now has her own CD Discman so we don’t have to listen to Mambo No. 5 over and over again, unless we want to!), coloring books and colored pencils, GameBoy, travel games, BrainQuest cards, and a few surprises. We load up the van the night before with everything but the cooler and my backpack. We get up around 130am and are on the road by 2am. Allie wakes up before we can carry her out to the car, so it’s one last bathroom stop and we load her into the van. I packed a small cooler with juice, soda, and water and a bag with some snacks, breakfast foods, etc. Our ride down was uneventful. We played categories, Game Boy, and listened to CD’s and books on CD. We started with a full tank of gas and stopped once in North Carolina for a refill ($25). We had lunch at Cracker Barrel ($23). We arrived in Kingsland, GA around 4:30pm. We debated just continuing onto the World, but it had started raining, so we decided to stay the night so that we could relax. We stayed at the same Best Western as last year and got the last room (AAA discount, please) in the place ($76). We walked to the Chik-Fil-A and had dinner ($12). Allie played in the indoor playground for awhile. We went back to the hotel and she did all of her homework. We watched TV and then went to bed nice and early.

3/5/03 – We are up and at breakfast by 7:30am. The hotel offers several kinds of cereal, fruit, muffins, bagels and juice. We are refueled and ready to go. We top off on the gas since it has been the cheapest in Georgia and we are on our way by 8:30am. Allie has been very good in the car. We put on our Disney CD’s to get us in the mood. It isn’t until we are about 2 hours away that she asked for the first time “Are we there yet?” I think that was pretty good! We told her we would be there shortly and talked about all the things we wanted to do until we got there. As soon as we started to see signs, we were all getting excited. We got to the CBR about 11:15am. A great CM named Christophe checked us in. He pulled us up in the computer and was reading it over for what seemed like a few minutes. He asked where Allison was. She raised her hand and stood in front of him. He told her she had a phone call. He handed her the phone and she heard Goofy singing Happy Birthday to her! Pixie Dust! She was so excited, she didn’t know what to say. At that point, another CM named Josh came out from behind the desk and told her he heard it was her birthday. He gave her a small coloring book and a pack of crayons. He also gave her his CBR pin from his lanyard. More Pixie Dust! He asked her if she wanted any other pins he had, but she just shook her head no. She was in utter shock! I was almost ready to cry. She said thank you and then turned to show me everything. Christophe said that he was going to give us a great room that was close to the bus stop and the pool. He put us in Trinidad South and the room was ready for us to check into right away. I thanked them for everything and we were off to Trinidad South. Wow! He wasn’t kidding when he said he would give us a good room. We were in 3625, which was a corner room on the first floor. You could see the quiet pool and the lake from our front door. We were right around the corner from the vending area and maybe 30 seconds from the bus stop. We unpacked and decided to hit the big pool since it was a beautiful 80 degrees (a huge change from Philly!). We drove to Old Port Royale (OPR) and bought three refillable mugs and ordered a pizza for lunch ($50). After our lunch, we check out the pool. It is very nice and very big! It’s also pretty crowded . We search out a chair and finally find one in one of the corners near the water cannons. We swam for awhile and then went back to the room to get ready to go to Chef Mickey’s for dinner. This has become something of a tradition for us. We drove over to the Contemporary and checked in about 20 minutes before our PS. It didn’t seem too crowded to us. We got our picture taken and we were heading to a seat when our pager went off. We had a nice server who was from New Jersey. She asked where we were from and when we told her Philly, she told us that she could tell from our accents. What accents ?? She said that it sounded good to hear and that she was moving back in a few months after 14 years in Orlando. I tried to tell her that might not be such a good idea since we’ve gotten 3 feet of snow this winter, but I couldn’t convince her! Dinner was good, as always. We had prime rib, chicken, beef in bourbon, salad, shrimp, and of course, mashed potatoes. Allie had macaroni and cheese, pizza, prime rib, and mashed potatoes. I told our server that it was her birthday tomorrow and she brought out a cupcake with a candle. Goofy came over with a big hug and kiss for her during the napkin wave. Mickey, Minnie, Chip, and Dale came to the table for autographs and pictures. Most of the characters wrote “Happy Birthday” in the autograph book. We did not buy our pictures this time because Chuck and Allie were both looking the wrong way! Dinner was ($73). After dinner, Chuck realizes that it is 7pm, so we head out to the observation deck to watch the fireworks. I always like watching them here. After the fireworks, we went over to browse at the shops. I just love the shops at the Contemporary! We bought a mug that my mom wanted and bundles of lollipops for Allie’s classmates. ($27). We took the monorail to the Grand Floridan and did a little shopping. We found earrings, necklaces, and pins ($61). We headed back to the Contemporary and then back to CBR. We drove to OPR and refilled our mugs and then checked out the giftshop. They had a nice selection of things. I bought some postcards and stamps ($11) to write out tonight. Walking through the store was one of the managers with bunch of hula hoops in her hands. She was telling everyone that she was going to have a hula hoop contest, so anyone who wanted to play, follow her to the front of the gift shop. I asked Allie if she wanted to try and she said yes. The manager asked the kids to pick a hula hoop and to try a practice round. There were about 7 kids, all different ages. Allie started with the hula hoop and never stopped! She must have been going at least 5 minutes. People were standing around, watching her go. A woman was trying to enter the store, so Allie moved up and then moved back to where she was and never broke a rhythm! The manager laughed and said that she guessed that they had a winner. She asked her name and gave her a certificate that said this was a Magical Moment. She also gave her a Pluto pin! We were just laughing and couldn’t believe it. We went back to our room and wrote out the postcards. We also gave Allie her birthday presents (since we were going to be up very early tomorrow) an Ariel nightgown, a plush Ari Pop Dreamer doll, an I Spy book, and Ella Pop Dreamer doll. She was so excited! I didn’t think she would be able to sleep. I set the wake up call for 628am so we could go for the extra magic hour at the Magic Kingdom tomorrow.

3/6/03 – It’s Allie’s 6th birthday today and Aaron Carter singing “I Just Can’t Wait to be King” wakes us up. Where’s Mickey? We are up and ready to go. We brought breakfast foods to eat in the room before heading out to the parks. We are at the bus stop by 705am. We waited a few minutes and made it to MK by 740am. I was able to go through the line search bag before they opened the turnstiles. We push through the gates and head over to City Hall to get Allie a “Today’s My Birthday” button. There are characters all over the place. We go to see Baloo, Rafiki, Robin Hood (a first!) and Friar Tuck. Mickey, Minnie, Daisy, and Radcliffe were also out. We head toward Fantasyland and there is already a line for Dumbo. Yuck! We do Pooh, the Carousel, and Peter Pan’s Flight for the first time. Allie just loves it! She wants to know if we can go back on it. Why not? It’s her birthday. We go on it again. She wants to know if we can go again. I tell her OK, but we’ll do other rides first. I get fastpasses, which tell us to come back in an hour and a half. We ride the teacups, and then over to Buzz. We use our fastpass and ride Peter Pan again. We ride Small World and get fast passes for Pooh. We wait in line to see Ariel, who is Allie’s favorite (they both have long, red hair). We meet Ariel and on our way out stop to see some more characters. The Sherriff of Nottingham, Queen of Hearts, and Jafar. Jafar seems particularly grumpy today. His handler notices Allie’s birthday button and asks how old she is. She stands in front of everyone and says “Can I have your attention please? This is Allison and she is celebrating her 6th birthday today. Let’s give her a big hand! Everyone in line applauded. Jafar, on the other hand, decides to make the “whoopee” sign by twirling his finger behind her. We are cracking up and I actually caught it on video. We go over to Adventureland to ride the flying carpets. We stop and see the Genie. I ask one of the CM’s if Jasmine was going to be around and she told me in about ½ hour. We ride the flying carpets, and Allie tripped getting out of the carpet. She fell and scraped her knee. I took her into the bathroom and cleaned off her knee. We went into the marketplace and bought a couple pens and pins ($17). As we were checking out, we saw that Aladdin and Jasmine were riding the carpets. After their ride, they headed over to the little clearing between the carpets and treehouse. Allie finally got to meet Jasmine and got her picture taken with Aladdin, Jasmine (a first!) and the Genie, all together . We decide to grab an early lunch, so we head back to Fantasyland to eat at Pinocchio’s. Hot Dogs, hambuger, fries and soda were good. They also had a nice fixings bar with mushrooms, onions, and hot cheese sauce. Lunch was ($20). After lunch, we got a fast pass for Peter Pan and used our fast passes to go on Pooh. We headed back to the teacups and stopped for pictures with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. One of them was tickling Allie while the other was signing her autograph book. We rode the teacups again and decided to head up toward the Main Street Railroad. In all of my trips here, I have never ridden the train. We rode the train all around, and then got off at Toontown. We walked through Mickey’s house and Minnie’s house. We went into the tent waited in line to see Tigger, Pooh, and Eeyore. We headed back to use our fastpasses for Peter Pan. Why are all these people standing in a line that would take at least 30 minutes? They should be using fastpass! We also stopped and saw Cruella Devil (another 1st). Allie said that Cruella poked her in the back and told her “turn around for the picture, dear”. Cruella also hollered at me to “hurry up and take the picture, dear”. Oh my! Back to Tomorrowland, we run into Jim Hawkins (cute!) and BEN from Treasure Planet. Both were very nice. We rode Buzz (I won!) and then we did the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. Allie and I were riding backwards, and I don’t think she liked that too much. She also told us it was too dark in there and that she was scared. By now it was getting late in the day. We grab some Mickey bars and a Chipwich ($8) and take them to eat inside Cosmic Ray’s to get out of the heat. The afternoon parade was going on, and we wanted no parts of it. One of the CM’s was walking around straightening chairs and wiping down tables. She walked over to our table and handed Allie two Mickey stickers since she noticed it was her birthday. How sweet! We took another ride on Buzz (I won again!) and then decided to walk toward Main Street because we have a PS for Cinderella’s Gala Feast at the Grand Floridian. We hop the monorail and ride over to 1900 Park Faire. Our PS was for 6pm, and it is only a little after 5pm. We asked if we could be taken early and were told it’s no problem. She also asked me if we wanted a birthday cupcake that was free or a cake that would be $15. I told her the cupcake would be fine. We were seated in just a few minutes. We loved the variety of items on the buffet. We liked the turkey, prime rib, chicken piccata, the mashed potatoes, salad bar, stuffing, and the cold strawberry soup. The kids menu seemed a little nicer too. The desserts were also very good. Cinderella and Prince Charming came over together. They were OK. Nice enough, but we’ve had better. Suzy and Perla the mice, were adorable. They made a big fuss over Allie’s birthday pin and we got a picture of them together with her. They never brought out Allie’s cupcake, but we were all stuffed anyway. Dinner was ($73). After we rolled out of the restaurant we looked for the fairy godmother. We were told she just stepped out, but we could wait for her. I think we waited about 10 minutes and then she came through the veranda doors. We got her picture and autograph and we hopped back on the monorail to the Magic Kingdom to catch our bus back to the CBR. When we got back to our room, Mousekeeping had tucked all of Allie’s dolls under her blanket. There was also an autographed picture of Mickey Mouse on the table. He was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and it said “Happy Birthday Allison. Love Your Pal, Mickey Mouse”. How cute! So much pixie dust here! We hopped in the car and drove to OPR (it was too far to go and boy, were we tired). We filled our mugs and relaxed for awhile. We refilled again and headed back to the room. We decided to take a night swim. There was another family in the pool taking advantage of the beautiful weather. It was a great way to end the day. Allie told us this was the best birthday she ever had! We watched some stories on TV and then hit the bed. We are heading to Epcot in the morning for the Princess Storybook Breakfast.

3/7/03 – Mickey wakes us up bright and early. We have an 830 PS at Norway for the Princess Storybook breakfast. This is the only character breakfast I planned for this trip. Allie is hoping to see Mulan there. We are out at the bus stop by 730 and are at Epcot by 8am. There were already two families waiting there. There was a sign marking where you needed to be if you were going to a character breakfast. The guards searched through the bags and told us that they would be letting us in at 8:20. By now a line had formed behind us and people were getting upset that they weren’t getting in yet. Some guy was yelling to the guards that he had and 820 reservation and he wasn’t going to miss it. Someone needed to calm down! I whispered to Chuck that I didn’t think the restaurant was open until 830. They let us in and we headed toward Norway. We stopped to rent a stroller because Epcot is absolutely huge. We also had our picture taken. Everything was roped off and there were signs out, so there was no problem getting there. We got to Norway in no time at all. I gave our name at the front and the gentleman asked who was having a birthday and I told him it was Allie’s. The manager had just come out to start the “door opening ceremony”. See, that mad guy had nothing to worry about. (Thank goodness he was seated on the other side of the restaurant. We were taken in and seated on the right side of the restaurant. We had never been here before and thought it was quite nice. Our server, Beate brought out juices, fruit, and muffins right away and explained how everything worked. She brought out our skillet a few minutes later. Eggs, bacon, sausage, and potatoes were all very good. We had a refill on the sausage and potatoes. Only 5 minutes went by before Princesses started coming out. We were seated on the left hand side of the restaurant (looking in from outside) and that’s where the Princesses come out from. Belle was first, then Aurora and Mary Poppins. Mulan came out last. I thought Allie was going to fly out of her seat. She was so thrilled. We told Mulan that Allie dressed as her for Halloween and Mulan was very impressed. We got autographs and pictures with everyone. All of the princesses were quite friendly. However, the friendliest person in Norway was Beate. She saw that it was Allie’s birthday and brought her out a certificate that said Happy Birthday. On the back side, all of the servers signed their names and wrote “Happy Birthday” in Norwegian! She also brought out a troll cookie for Allie to paint with icing, along with a to go box. We got a great picture of Allie with Beate. Pixie Dust seems to be everywhere this trip! Breakfast was $70, with a great tip. We walked over to Journey into Imagination to see Figment. This was Allie’s first time on this ride and she loved it (especially the stink bomb part)! It had been years since we rode it, and Chuck and I thought it was cute. We went to the photo lab and emailed some pictures to family and friends at home. Then we went and rode it again. Allie decided to use some of her spending money to buy a Figment T-Shirt and washcloth. We wandered over to Ice Station Cool to try out the sodas. Chuck and I both tried the Beverly again, but Allie refused to drink “the yucky soda”. We headed over toward Spaceship Earth, but Allie decided that she did not want to go on it. Instead, the Character Bus was headed our way. We stopped and saw Pluto, Mushu, Baloo and King Louie together, and Donald. The highlight was Meeko. Chuck and Allie had walked up to Meeko with her autograph book. I was on camera duty. He signed her book and posed for still and video pictures. As they were walking away, Meeko saw Allie walk toward our stroller. Guess who decided to go for a ride? I stood there laughing (and taping) as Chuck pushed a 5 foot tall raccoon in a purple Epcot stroller! The ladies who were waiting in line (without kids) were complaining behind me. “I hope that thing gets off that stroller soon. There won’t be enough time for the rest of us!” Meeko finished his ride and off he went for more pictures. We walked over and saw Food Rocks. Yikes! That was different! Allie thought it was cute. Chuck and I were just kind of waiting for it to be over. There were maybe 10 people in it! We walked around some more and decided to hit the pool at the hotel. We swam for a few hours at the Trinidad pool and just relaxed. After swimming, we decided to head back to Epcot for more rides and Illuminations. We stopped at Ice Station Cool again and rode Journey into Imagination again. We headed over to see Cranium Command. Just as the preshow ended, Allie started crying that she didn’t want to see it. A very nice CM (whose name I never got) asked if she could take Allie aside and tell her a secret. They moved a few feet away and in no time Allie was giggling. The CM came back over and told us to sit in the back row (the wheelchair sitting area) and that if she didn’t like it, to just get up and leave. I asked Allie what the CM told her and she said that there’s a food fight in the movie and a kiss! She really enjoyed it. No one, including me, felt like riding Test Track, but we wandered over to check it out. Maybe next time. It had started to spit so we decided to grab some dinner. We went to the Electric Umbrella, cheeseburger, pizza , chicken Caesar salad, 2 sodas and,milk $25. It had started to rain again so we ran into Mousegears for a little shopping. 2 hats, 2 pens, and some pins ($52). It was still raining hard, so we decided that we were not going to hang around for Illuminations. We were just wiped out. We headed back to the hotel to relax and get to bed early.

3/8/03 – Today will be our day at MGM. We have cereal and juice in the room and we are out at the bus stop early. We are there when the gate opens. We stopped and got our picture taken with the giant hat in the background (bought it later for $18) and there are CM’s out there handing out fastpasses for the first Little Mermaid show. We grab three and we head back to Muppet Vision 3D. This will be Allie’s first time in a 3D movie. She only knows a couple of the Muppets, but she liked the movie. She liked when the water came squirting out at you. We wandered around to some of the stores and bought two pins ($9). We headed over to the Voyage of the Little Mermaid. Everything was fine until the huge Ursula came out. Allie got so scared and was crying. We asked her if she wanted to leave and she said no. She liked the bubbles flying all around. We stopped at In Character and picked up a set of Princess pens ($11). We went and saw Millionaire. That was a lot of fun. We got seated pretty far up in the arena. All of us enjoyed answering the questions. I actually made it onto the board at number 10, but never got any higher. We headed over to the animation tour. We hadn’t been there since before Allie was born. I liked that they added a demonstration from an artist. I think the parents were as interested as the kids. We all liked the montage at the end of the tour. We went over and did the One Man’s Dream exhibit. We loved looking at all the displays. One of the posters I had as a kid on a jigsaw puzzle. I’m getting old! We sat and enjoyed the movie too. Allie liked the whole exhibit. We had lunch at Hollywood and Vine. It happened to be a character lunch. I understand they don’t have it now, and that’s a shame. We had Minnie, Goofy, Chip and Dale in very Hollywood costumes. At one point during lunch, they grabbed all the kids to come up and do a dance with them. Goofy was spinning and flipping Minnie. (Pretty brave!). Allie didn’t want to go up with them. She was too busy eating her lunch! Lunch was good. We had turkey, salad, barbeque meatballs, brownie cake and make your own sundaes. Lunch was $57. Right after lunch, we decided to stake out a spot for our favorite parade, the Stars and Motor Cars. As we are walking, we hit a rain storm. I pulled out the ponchos and we just kept on walking. Fifteen minutes later, the rain had stopped and it was starting to get hot. Off with the ponchos! I discovered I had lost Allie’s sunglasses, so I went and picked up a pair of Minnie sunglasses ($9). We got a spot directly across from the restrooms and the soda/ice cream stand. Perfect location! The parade was great as always. No Atlantis car this time. I guess it was replaced with Lilo and Stitch. After the parade, we headed over to see the Toy Story gang. We saw Buzz, Woody, and Bullseye (another first). After pictures, we did a little shopping and picked up a Little Mermaid lithograph for Allie’s room and she bought herself a princess poster and crayon set ($22) and had those delivered back to the room. One more character sighting on our way out the door, it’s the Green Army Man (another first). I love their feet! All that extra plastic under their boots, just like the toys!

We decide to brave MK so we can go see Spectromagic. We haven’t seen this parade in years (long before Allie was born). We staked out our spots in the circle in front of the castle. This turned out to be a pretty good spot. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed this parade. I also had forgotten how ugly people can be when they have to save seats. Once the parade started, everyone behaved. Allie liked it until the demon from Fantasia appeared. And of course, he had to open his bat-like wings right in front of us. That was not fun! She got over that pretty quick. Even Ursula didn’t scare her too much. She just said that she was too big! Towards the end of the parade, Peter Pan was walking past us and told Allie how much he loved her hair. Mr. Smee stopped and shook her hand. Even getting out wasn’t too bad. We only waited a few minutes before the bus came. We got back to the hotel and found little rabbit washcloth animals all over. We went to OPR for a late dinner -2 turkey sandwiches, 1 grilled cheese, and 2 slices of chocolate cake ($25). Allie said that she like the parade, but didn’t like the bat guy. We were glad to finally see it.

3/9/03 – Today was our Animal Kingdom Day. We were there when the park opened. Chuck went over to rent a stroller while Allie and I visited with Minnie, Turk, and King Louie. We headed back to the Kilamanjaro Safari. We were seated toward the front of the truck. Last time, Allie didn’t like the bridge collapse, but this year, our driver didn’t make too big a deal of it. We saw lots of animals, but the giraffes were literally next to us! Very cool! We went and walked the Pangani Trail. I loved seeing the gorillas. They are beautiful! We enjoyed walking all around. You definitely feel like you are exploring in the jungle. After that, we headed over to Camp Minnie-Mickey to catch the Festival of the Lion King. This was our first time seeing the show. Allie and I really enjoyed it, but Chuck said it was just OK. We had never made it to Asia before, so off we went. We did the Maharjah Jungle Trek. We loved seeing the komodo dragon and the tigers. None of us went into the bat exhibit though. Allie wanted no parts of that.

We headed over to Pizzafari for our usual lunch. They were offering you the meal vouchers, so we got them. We had a kids pizza, 2 hot Italian deli sandwiches, and 3 drinks. We ended up using the remainder of our vouchers for Mickey bars while we waited for the parade. We went on the Triceratops Spin (Prehistoric Dumbo!). Cute, but short. It was something new to try. I was debating whether I would have time to try Primeval Whirl before the Tarzan show started, but decided I would wait until the next time.

We headed over to Tarzan Rocks! Cute show, good skating, but I don’t know if I need to see it again.

We decided to stay for the Jamming Jungle parade. It was really cute. Donald Duck was squirting water at us from his jeep. That just cracked Allie up to no end! I can’t believe we stayed here all day. As we are leaving, we saw Pocohantas (another first!). We stopped and got pictures and autographs. I’m not sure who like Pocohantas more, Allie or Chuck! We grab a bus back to the hotel and take a quick dip in the pool. We were just too tired and didn’t feel like a big,sit down meal at a park, so I cancelled our PS for Le Cellier. We decided to go to Downtown Disney for shopping and dinner. This is when having a car really comes in handy. We didn’t want a fancy meal, but not McDonalds either. We had dinner at Wolfgang Puck Express. We had a 4 cheese pizza, pepperoni pizza, mac and cheese, and 3 sodas. Dinner was $29. It wasn’t bad, but I don’t know if I would go back either. It’s kind of an odd setup. We went to the Pin Traders (a dangerous store) and spent $43. All of a sudden, a horrendous rain started falling. We were trapped inside the Once Upon a Toy store (Darn!) Card games, puzzle, etc and I was $45 lighter. At the Mr. Potato Head station, some kids (and adults) needed to learn how to take turns. There was a father and son each playing on their own make a Mr. Potato Head computer. There had to be at least 7 kids waiting. I stopped counting after they each made 5 pictures. Finally, I turned to Chuck and said quite loudly “I hope there’s going to be enough paper left so that all of the other kids can get a turn”! They got the hint. Allie made 2 pictures and then gave someone else a turn. In between the blowing sheets of rain, we were able to run over to World of Disney where I once again took advantage of the Disney Club card, as well as resort delivery. Mugs, pens, picture frames, t-shirts, and a Mickey umbrella (a steal at $9) were purchased. The total was $210.

When we got back to our room, Allie’s stuffed Minnie was in a hammock in the window of our room. It looked like she was just hanging out, waiting for us to get back. I made sure to take some pictures before it got taken apart! We went to OPR and grabbed a snack and milk for tomorrow’s breakfast. 3 brownies, juice, 2 milks were $14.

3/10/03 – Our last full day ?. We asked Allie where she wanted to go to, and no surprise, she chose MK! Once again, we had breakfast in the room and were there when the park opened. Off to Fantasyland we go again. We did Peter Pan (3 more times), Pooh, Dumbo, Teacups, and Small World. We did Buzz Lightyear and then went to Adventureland. I wanted to ride the Pirates, but Allie said that she was still afraid. Allie and Chuck went to the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse and Aladdin’s Flying Carpets while I went on Pirates. I got to sit in the last seat in the boat by myself. I really do like this ride! It would have been better, if the kids in the boat behind me would not have been acting like idiots. They starting screaming as soon as the stepped in the boat! I met up with Chuck and Allie and we did a little shopping in the stores outside the Pirates. Chuck found me a villains shirt, a Caribbean Soul shirt for him and a couple more pins ($44). I had told Allie for her birthday, she could have a hair wrap. We got it done right next to the store. One strand with some beads and four colors of thread was $30, including a tip. (It was in almost 6 weeks and Allie asked me to take it out. It never frayed!). We saw Captain Hook and Mr. Smee together. As we were heading over toward Frontierland, we ran into Peter Pan and Wendy (another first). They were adorable. We decided to ride the Riverboat. Allie told me that that was too boring. We rode the Carousel again and did Peter Pan one last time before we left the park. We spent the afternoon at the hotel pool and relaxed (and packed a little).

We drove to the Wilderness Lodge for our PS at the Whispering Canyon for dinner. What a beautiful hotel! We definitely want to try a stay here. We walked around the lobby and gift shop for a few minutes before checking in at the front. We were seated right away. Our server was very polite, but not into any of the funny stuff. It didn’t matter. The servers all around us were entertaining everyone! Allie had to ask for ketchup, and boy, did we get it. She just loved taking it over to the other tables too! The table next to us had a birthday. Everyone sang and clapped and carried on. The birthday girl (her 40th!) looked suitably embarrassed. There was also an older gentleman at the table behind us. He made the mistake of asking for a large glass of water with lemon. He then proceeded to get up and leave the table. When he came back and saw the almost bucket sized glass of water that was put at his place, he was in hysterics. The server very kindly brought him a huge straw to go with it! It was time for the pony express ride. Allie wasn’t too sure at first, so I walked up with her and then she was fine. They raced around the restaurant as the parents waved their napkins. All of the kids were asked to take an oath “I, state your name…). You know they all repeated it. The guy running things told everyone not to laugh “these are your kids, after all”. They also had to promise not to go to Universal! Too funny! Everyone got a certificate that said they participated in the Pony Express. Dinner was very good. We had a child’s chicken finger meal and 2 skillets – 70 w/tip. Back to the hotel we went. We had one last night swim and packed up the rest of our stuff.

3/11/03 – Departure day ?. We are up early and on the road by 6am. We don’t leave anything behind like we did last time and we are on our way. We stopped at the Cracker Barrel for lunch in South Carolina ($24). We refuel and keep on going. We stopped and had dinner at the Cracker Barrel in Virginia ($28) and we drove straight through. No flat tire this time and we finally got home around 11pm!

We had a great trip. It was definitely needed after the rough winter we had (seasonally and emotionally). Allie loved celebrating her birthday in her favorite place. She told us it was the best birthday in her whole life and the best vacation in her whole life too! Wow! Since she was a little older this trip, we did a few more things than we had the previous trip – Peter Pan, Muppet Vision 3D, Millionaire, Voyage of Little Mermaid, Journey into Imagination, Cranium Command, Tarzan, Spectromagic and the Jamming Jungle Parade. There were still some rides that she said she wanted to go on, but then decided not to at the last minute. That’s what the next trip is for, I guess. I saw too many parents forcing crying kids on rides. That is not a vacation! We had some really good characters this trip and there wasn’t anyplace you didn’t run into one. The CM’s all seemed to go out of their way and the ones who were extra special I made sure I thanked by name in all my survey responses, as well as to their managers. I did tip Mousekeeping everyday and I think we got something different from them everyday. In the past, we have gone in December. This time, the weather was a little warmer and the crowds were a little bigger than we are used to, but it was manageable. Our first choice is always December (we are suckers for Christmas decorations!), but this turned out quite well. The drive down is a little long, but Chuck is not a good flyer, and it’s fairly cheap to do. Making up school was no problem. All of the work was done and turned in without a problem (and we sent in pictures for everyone to see when we got back). The next trip is tentatively scheduled for December, 2004. We want to go with friends of ours, with their two kids. A day in Universal will need to be fit into that trip. So, until I get to go again, I’ll just keep reading everyone else’s trip reports. Thanks for reading!

Margie McCann