Articles | Disneyland | Walt Disney World
Results 1 to 1 of 1

Thread: Michael Landsittel - June 1999 - Port Orleans

  1. #1

    Michael Landsittel - June 1999 - Port Orleans

    Cast:
    Michael - author (31) Disney freak about 10 trips-tries to attend trade shows in Orlando just to get a paid trip to WDW
    Heather (30) Rookie, never been to any Disney park. A "doubter" as to whether adults can have a good time at a theme park.
    Dates: Monday June 14th-Sat June 19
    Resort: Port Orleans
    Travel: Air, Rental Car(National)
    Preface

    I had wanted to go to WDW for our honeymoon since we got engaged. Heather was a bit leery of WDW and not sure. We decided to take a 2-week honeymoon. The 1st 8 days were at the Biras Creek Resort on Virgin Gorda, BVI. While not at all related to Disney let me tell you all that this resort is absolutely wonderful. It is accessible only by boat, is very romantic, and has some of the best food I have ever eaten. The service was unmatched. We spent 8 days swimming, snorkeling, boating and most importantly relaxing and enjoying each other. If you are at all interested please e-mail me and I will tell you more, you can check out the resort at www.biras.com

    The last 5 days of our honeymoon were at -of course WDW. Our plan had called for touring parks in the am, resting at the pool/water parks in the early afternoon and parks and great dinners in the evening. For anyone who was in FL for that week you know that it was not great weather. It rained a lot!! We did not let the rain stop us from doing anything we wanted to do. I think the rain led to a "busier" week for us because we did not go back to the resort and spend time at the pool.

    The most important thing for me was for Heather to have a good time. If Disney turned out to be "just OK" I don't think we would plan many future trips there. Luckily we had lots of Disney magic to cast its spell.

    Monday, June 14th -- Arrival

    Arrived at MCO around 8:45. Picked up our rental car from National(113.00 for the 5 days). By 9:30 we were on the road. I had been at a conference at the Whyndam Palace in April and had been kind enough to give up my room because of overbooking and had a free night in the hotel. We checked in and went directly over to the Marketplace. We found a hidden Mickey on the marketplace map, I am sure it is documented but we did not know about it. There was still a wait at the Rainforest Caf so we gave our names and began to walk around. We got a margarita at Capt. Jacks and relaxed. Back to the Rainforest and were seated. Had some appetizers and frozen ice cream drinks(VERY GOOD). We went to bed around 1:00.

    Day 1 -- Tuesday June 15th -- Animal Kingdom and E-ticket

    Up very early(6:30), we checked out of the Palace and made our way to Port Orleans by 7:45. Check in was a breeze-Cast Member Paul was very nice and drew a "Hidden Mickey" on our PO map. We also bought our tickets for E-Ticket night.

    We had decided to go to the Animal Kingdom 1st, I had never been there so it would be new for both of us. We LOVED this park. We got to the park around 8:45 and walked right on CTX. Very good ride! We sat and had a muffin, then had thought we would do "Its tough to be a bug" but back at the Tree of Life cast members were suggesting to catch the 1st showing of Legend of the Lion King. So we walked clear across the park waited about 5 min and sat right down. This was beautiful, incredible, awesome, etc. The music started and I got goose bumps, Heather the rookie got a little tear in her eye and I knew I had her hooked! HA! After the show we went to Its Tough to be a Bug, about 25-min wait. Good show but 8 min.-come on-could have been longer. We then walked into ASIA. The wait for Kali River Rapids was about 35 min. When we were sitting down in our raft a woman did not want to sit in her seat because it was all wet and she did not to get wet on the ride. The cast member had to explain 2-3 times that the boat is round and the seat that gets wet one time may not be the seat that gets wet the next. Needless to say the woman got off the ride very dry, Heather and I however took the full wave and were totally wet. Poor Heather's shirt went a little see through and she got plenty of looks. We took the Maharaja Jungle trek, saw the tigers but that was about all.

    All day long we had heard that the safari was not running, but when we came out of ASIA there was a 45-min wait posted so we waited. Our safari was definitely worth it. Saw lions, leopard, and all the others. A giraffe decided to eat in front of our bus so we had to wait about 5-6 min for it to leave. After the safari we did the walk through Africa to see the Gorillas. The cast member told us they were sleeping and we would not see them but then the "Mother" moved and she had a little baby, we then saw an 18 month old, 4 year old and the Silver Back. Across the way we saw the 2 bachelors. Very Lucky and Very COOL!.

    We made our way out of AK, left the grounds to get film and went to PO. We had asked for a non-smoking, king room but did not pay the extra for water view. I had faxed a letter asking for building 5, 3rd floor. The room controller gave us exactly what we wanted but w/ a water view. How about a little Disney magic! We walked around the resort, bought our mugs and went back to the room to relax/unpack. By the time we got back to our rooms, the Disney florist had been there, my sister sent us a fruit basket and bottle of wine!!!(we knew it was coming-I did the same thing for her on her honeymoon-but it was so much fun). We also knew that she had arraigned for us to go out to dinner but there was no note of this in the card. Heather called the front desk to ask if there was any note of this and the cast member said our account had been credited for 100.00 from my sister. If we had not asked we would not of known, not to swift.

    Anyway we showered/changed made some Preferred Seating reservations. Made a dinner reservation for Palios(Tues night), a breakfast reservation for Spoodles and a dinner reservation for San Angel Inn(both Wed). We drove over to the Swan walked around and went into Palios, we did not need a reservation-the place was empty. Our dinner was very good. After dinner we drove to the Wilderness Lodge-We really liked this resort but I am glad we did not stay there-lots of construction. While we were there we noticed the weather making a very bad change it got really dark and windy. We drove over to the Contemporary to catch the Monorail. We made it 3/4 of the way to the Magic Kingdom it started to rain. By the time we got off the Monorail it was pouring. The MSEP was cancelled-and we fought the crowed to get our wristbands, a quick run over to the Emporium and bought our Mickey ponchos-the best purchase we made on the honeymoon. I was not feeling too happy with the nasty weather but we hit the park. First up, the Haunted Mansion-walked right in, I love it so much, Heather expected to be scared so she was surprised. After that we walked on It's A Small World. Peter Pan and Snow White were around a 30-min wait; the new Pooh ride was 25 so we went for the new one. Cute but they should have left Toad in. After Pooh we waited about 20 min for extraterrorstrial Encounter, this one scared Heather. We got a coffee, and went on Carousel of Progress knowing E-ticket would be in full effect when we were done. Still humming "it's a great big....." we had to wait about 20 min for space mountain(right side). Two thumbs up, heather wanted a return trip but I wanted to try out Buzz Lightyear. I loved Buzz. We rode it 2 times and then back to Space Mountain(left Side). By now the rains had stopped so we walked across to Splash Mountain, walked right into a log and off we went. On our way to Big Thunder Mountain, Mickey and Pluto were out for pictures with no line! Heather really liked this one we finished up the night with a ride on Haunted Mansion, PoC was closed this night. It was 1:30 so we called it a night. It was a very long but an incredible 1st day at Disney.

    Day 2 -- Wednesday June 16 - Relax and Enjoy Epcot

    We need to rest some after a day of travel and then being out late so we slept till around 9:00. We headed over to Spoodles for a 10:15 breakfast. Thank you to all that have suggested Spoodles for breakfast. We had eaten dinner early and make pigs of ourselves!

    After breakfast we wanted to play mini-golf. I had already played fantasia gardens so we went off to try Winter-Summer land(We played the summer side). This course is really cool looking but way toooooo easy. We both shot about 10 under par (I actually won!). After golf we drove to the Yacht and Beach Club and walked around. We then entered Epcot through the International Gateway. Our goal was to just stroll the park and enjoy what ever we wanted to do.

    We walked over to HISTA and after about a 20-min wait got inside. Heather had read a trip report that suggested raising your feet when the mice run by so she tried to do this but I pushed her legs down. After HISTA I had a problem, I had been wearing TEVAs and they had worn a big sore into my foot. I had a pair of Birkenstocks in the car but I was all freaked out about walking back out to the car. Heather had to convince me that this was not such a big deal-what are we rushing for. So back to the car we headed. Passing through Great Britain we saw Pooh (Heather's absolute favorite) we waited so we could get a picture. The International Showcase players were just starting when we were passing by so we sat on the curb to enjoy the show. I had only seen the last 1/3 on a previous trip so we were excited. The cast members started the search for Sir Galahad and stopped with me. I have to say it was a hoot to participate in the skit. Heather loved it and has been calling me her "Galahad" since . So then we finally headed out for my shoes. Instead of rushing back we stopped at Beaches and Cream, Heather had the biggest Banana Split I have ever seen, I had a root-beer float and fries(great!). Back into Epcot and we walked to the front of the park for Spaceship Earth(5-min wait). I can go on this ride hundreds of times.

    We then headed to the Wonders of Life and did Cranium Command (<5 min), Making of Me (5 min) and Body Wars (walk on). We crossed the park heading for The Land and stopped in Innovations to play the Racing Cars. I would like to make a comment about all the construction that Epcot was undergoing. So many areas were boarded up-I wonder if they will all be ready by Oct? At The Land we walked on Living with the Land and had about a 10-min wait for the Lion King movie.

    It was getting close to our dinner reservation in Mexico so we headed into the World Showcase, got there early so proceeded to Norway and rode the Maelstrom-might have been the longest wait of the day almost 20 min. We found a hidden Mickey here, at the top of the "lift" in the beginning of the ride there is a little hut. On the hut there is a cross-shaped opening that is lit. Inside this opening there is a Mickey-I did not find this documented at hiddenmickeys.org!

    We entered Mexico and had a wonderful dinner; the atmosphere can not be beat! The couple next to us commented on my Sir Galahad performance-only one show and my public loves me ! The couple on the other side of us got a free dessert for being on their honeymoon-we did not- I was to stuffed anyway. We had a nice walk back to the car and went to bed.

    Day 3 - Thursday June 17th Magic Kingdom and MGM

    Thursday is early entry at Magic Kingdom so we decided to get up and go. We walked on to Peter Pan and Snow White-we had already done all the "e-ticket" rides on Tuesday night so it was kind of funny going on the dark rides but no lines at all. We walked back to Main Street and had some muffins at the pastry shop. We got to Adventure Land about 5 min before the rope drop. We followed the cast members to PoC; we must have been in the 2nd boat. Walked onto Jungle Cruise next and had a great captain, he wanted us to duck at one point, Heather and I took about 30 seconds to duck so he made fun of us-asked us if we were from New Jersey!!!

    We then walked into Tiki Room, we missed the pre-show so I don't know how that has changed but I loved the new Tiki Room-nobody left like in the old one. We walked over and caught the 10:00 show of Lion King.

    We headed out of the MK around 10:30 and here is my biggest complaint of the whole trip. From the front gate of the MK it took us over 40 minutes to get to our car. 1st they would not let people ride the express Monorail to the TTC. From the MK to the TTC it rode empty. All people leaving had to use the Resort line. That is fine however 3 Express Monorails had come and gone before the resort line arrived. Who is the stupid idiot that feels the monorail is better off traveling empty? After our 15 wait we got to the TTC just as a tram dropped off arriving people. We went to hop on and were told we could not, that the tram was going to travel empty back to the parking lot. We had to wait for the 3rd tram before we could get to our car. This put me in a real, real bad mood-I was saying very "un-mickey" like things.

    We decided to go to MGM and instead of being able to park close-there were a bunch of spaces empty we were directed to the back, oh well but in that little bit of time the rain came back and it began to pour!!!

    We made Fantasmic! PS reservations for the Brown Derby and went on in. Inside of MGM, the rain stopped and we got a soda and some pop-corn-to set the movie mood! TGMR was only 15 min wait so we got in the line, by the time the ride was over I was a happy mousketeer again(we had the gangster set-1st time for me). We then did the new Sounds Dangerous, this is cool but I was disappointed that a whole attraction was based on the sound booths, a little cheap if you ask me. We did the soundbooths also. ToT was on the board as a 15-min wait so we went that way; we had a pretzel on the way and noticed that the BatB show was just about to begin. It was very crowded but the cast member directed us up front-thank goodness because about 10 min into the show the rain came back, this was by far the hardest rain we had seen so far, all the people in the back left because they were getting soaked. When the show ended, nobody wanted to leave. Heather and I once again donned our ponchos and faced the rain. By that time ToT had become a complete walk on. ToT had been my favorite attraction at WDW, now it is even better! The first time we rode it we were amazed. Because of the walk on we rode it again! We then crossed over to Star Tours-took the left queue and walked right up to a "ship" we probably passed about 30 people in the right line! After ST we had about a 15-min wait for Muppet Vision-missed the pre show totally because we were right at the end of the group that got in.

    We wanted to change before dinner so we left, showered, rested (we also made 9:30 PS reservations for the California Grille for Friday night) and headed right back to MGM-again we had to park in the back-yes it started to rain again! We got the Brown Derby a little early, check in and went up to the cat walk bar for a drink. The catwalk is very cool, what a great place to get away from it all. They came up to get us for dinner about 5 min after we checked in, since we had just gotten a drink they held our table until we were ready. Our dinner here was the best meal we wad in WDW. We both had shrimp and scallops over pasta w/ a sun dried tomato sauce. GREAT!!!!!!!!! I also had the wood grilled shrimp as an appetizer. After dinner we just wandered the stores around 8:00 we headed over for Fantasmic!. The seats reserved were fine, it would have been better to see more of the pre-show-the jugglers were so funny. We both loved Fantasmic!, what an amazing show. If the one in DL is better I have to go!

    After Fantasmic! we got in line for ToT (15 min) one more time. We left and went to PI. Heather did not have ID (she is 30) and at first the cast member looked like he would giver her a hard time but he believed her-probably after seeing she was with me HA! We went into the Adventurers Club, had some Kungaloosh-very tasty! We missed the "show" by a few minutes so just sat around for a little while. We were in the mood for more something more upbeat so went the Rock and Roll Beach Club. I was amazed to see Panama-or what is left of them on stage. These guys have been there forever.

    We left the Beach Club and waited in line for the 12:20 show in the Comedy Warehouse. The cast was great. The girl they "called" in the beginning of the show was a real B**** so they ragged on her all night long. We laughed so much!

    Day 4 - Friday June 18 - Epcot and Shopping

    We did early entry at Epcot to try to ride Test Track without much wait. Nice try. The wait was over 45 min. I had heard that the queue was very good but I was not all that impressed. The ride broke down when we were about 30 people away and I was going to be bummed, but they got it running quickly! After riding TT we wished we had taken the singles line. It was a cool ride but I don't think it was worth the 4-5 years wait. Definitely not worth the over 2 hours by the time we got off. After TT we spent about 15 min in "The Sea". We walked into the World Showcase and wandered from China to Canada in about 2 1/2-3 hours. On our way our we had the Mickey pizzas

    Around 3 we went over to the marketplace to shop!! At the art store we had a Mickey and Minnie sketch done and personalized-$50. We did some major damage at the stores and need some relief so we had ice cream at Giradellis(sp?). We spent about 2+ hours at the marketplace walking from one end to the other. We left for PO and ended up taking a nap for 1.5 hours. We left early for the California Grille and wandered around the Polynesian and the Grand Floridian. We got the CG 30 minute early and asked for a window seat overlooking the MK. We were told there were people already waiting and the window seats were all taken until at least 10:00. Heather then did something we had not done all trip, she played the "honeymoon" card. She asked the cast member if it would help us get a window seat if we were on our honeymoon. We were told "NO". We had a seat in the bar and enjoyed a great glass of wine. Around 9:25 we saw a table for 2 open up right at the window on the MK side- a perfect table! We did not hold out much hope. Exactly at 9:30 our little "beeper" went off. We quickly went to the hostess who led us yep-right to the perfect table!! Woo Hoo!! We had a bottle of wine, the veggie sushi, I had the egg roll, and Heather had the asparagus. For dinner Heather had a pasta dish, I ordered the tuna and salmon dish. It says this dish is served rare-try raw it is sushi. But I amazed myself and I though it was pretty good.

    The fireworks went off just before we got our veggie sushi. We went outside to the deck to watch. Just perfect. We had coffees and just sat enjoying our view. I am so glad we did this!!!!

    Day 5 - Saturday June 19 -- Last Day

    We got up at 7:00 to check out and get to the parks. My express checkout bill was wrong so I zipped down to the front desk. What a PITA. My sister had called prior to our arrival to arrange to have a $100 gift applied to our account-so we could have dinner on her (I had done the same thing for her on her honeymoon). It was not on my bill. The front desk cast member told me he sees it on the computer but that "someone" forgot to do it. My reply was no problem, credit my AMEX bill $100 and charge her card number. This seemed way too confusing and he disappeared into the back. After waiting about 20 minutes he came back and re-ran the bill. I expected to see it correct. What they had done was charge my sister the $100 then immediately credited it back to her card. They did this so it would "show up on my bill". After arguing with him for 5 more minutes I gave up. I have yet to send my letter to PO, WDW management, etc. What a screw up. My sister did not have this problem at the yacht and beach club. Somebody will apologize to me!!!

    After all that we loaded up the car and went to the Polynesian to eat some Tonga Toast. YUMYUM. We then went back to MGM. We were on a "Sorcer Mickey" and could not find a stuffed one any place but MGM. And hey while at MGM we had to ride ToT-only a 5 min wait!! Got our Mickey and bought some more souvenirs. We wandered around and took the back stage tour. This needs some updating.

    We left MGM and played Fantasia mini-golf (I won again!! Heather had a tough time). I think Fantasia is better for adults, it's just a little harder. We went over to the boardwalk, walked around and had lunch at the Big River Brewery. Played some games at the ESPN club. We now had about 2 hours to kill before leaving for the airport and were not sure what to do. I did not want to go into a park, I figured by the time we parked and got in it would be almost time to leave again. So we decided to drive out to the All Star resorts and check them out. We really liked All Star Movies. I could easily stay there-Love Bug or Toy Story.

    After walking around we decided we would leave 1/2 early for the airport and thank god we did. We experienced the WORST rain I have ever driven in on the way. Traffic was going about 25 on the highway. Rain, wind, thunder, and lightening blech. We got to the MCO and it was a mad house. Check in line took 1/2 hour, no seats at the gate, flights cancelled or delayed because of the storm. Our flight somehow left close to on time and we had an uneventful flight home.

    Summing Up

    We had an awesome time at WDW. Our honeymoon-from start to finish was perfect. Nothing could have made it better. Well maybe if the "sunshine state" had lived up to its billing. I did a count down to WDW for so long now I don't know what to do. I have been accepted to speak at a conference in San Diego in Oct. Heather is planning to come so I am thinking that a countdown do Disneyland is going to start soon!!!!

    What we liked:

    E-Ticket Night!
    Legend of the Lion King
    Fantasmic!
    The New ToT sequence
    Dinner at the Brown Derby
    Dinner at the California Grille
    Breakfast at Spoodles
    Tonga Toast
    Drink in the Catwalk
    Buzz Lightyear
    All 3 Mountains!!!!!
    What we did not like:

    40 min trip to car from the MK
    Bad check out experience
    All the rain!!!!!
    Michael Landsittel

    mikel@hometeam.org

    You just read a trip report that was originally published in our MousePlanet Trip Reports column.

    Reader-submitted trip reports have always been an extremely popular feature here at MousePlanet. In order to improve the search functionality and shorten the time from when you submit a trip report and the report gets published, you can now post your trip reports directly to our Trip Report forums. The forums are moderated, but reports should become available for reading very quickly.

  2. # ADS

    Join Date
    Location
    Posts
     

Bookmarks

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •