Elizabeth Awerbuch - July 1998 - All Star Sports

[Trip Reports]

Intro

Our trip consisted of three teenagers – me (Elizabeth), 17; Kelly, 18; and Rachel, 18. We stayed at the All-Stars Sports Resort from July 2 to July 6 1998. I am a frequent visitor to WDW. This was my third trip here (1989, 1996, and now 1998) and I had been to DisneyLand in 1997. Rachel had been there once before, but when she was young. This was Kelly’s first time visiting WDW.

Thursday July 2 1998

Our flight left Newark airport at 8:15 and we landed about 11:20 or so. We got our luggage and took a Mears shuttle to our hotel, the All-Stars Sports. The wait for the shuttle was short, but just getting to our hotel was a pain. We had to wait for all the other hotel stops because ours was the last. When we checked in I requested a room at the Touchdown! building and we gave our luggage to the luggage service and left for Animal Kingdom. We got there at around 2:00 or so, so it was really hot. We walked around the park and went to the Lion King show and tried to see It’s Tough To Be a Bug, but they were having technical difficulties and we didn’t want to wait around for it to reopen.

We decided since it was so hot to go back to the hotel. I went to the front desk, got our room number and our baggage was already at the room. Our room was on the first floor of building number 7. We were close to the main building, but it wasn’t noisy from the pool. Since we were right by the football field, kids were up playing soccer till real late. But it wasn’t too noisy and we were able to sleep through it with no problems at all. We unpacked and headed off to Epcot to watch the IllumiNations show. It was a great show! Different than what I remember from two years ago. We then went back to the hotel and went to sleep.

Friday July 3 1998

I can’t remember what time we left the hotel, but we got to MGM Studios before 8:40 because we had to wait around for the park to open at 9:00. We actually got ready pretty fast and finished earlier than we had expected. We ate breakfast at the hotel. It was a decent enough breakfast and held us over.

When we got to the park, we first went on Star Tours and had no line. We walked right up to it. Afterwards we walked over to the Indiana Jones Stunt show and walked right in. It was about 10-15 minutes before show time and we had third row seats on the left hand side, but end seats so we were practically in the center aisle. It worked out very nicely! After the show we went to the Muppets 3-D show and had no wait there. We walked in right as they opened the doors for the next show.

We then went to Tower of Terror. My two friends wanted to go on that, but that wasn’t a ride for me at all. So I got off line right when they went into the elevator and I met them downstairs when they got off. The wait for the ride was probably around 15-20 minutes or so.

We then went to have some lunch and ate at the 50’s Prime Time Cafe. That had to be the cutest thing I had ever seen! The waiting area was like a living room and the eating area was like a kitchen. Your waiter/waitress was a family member (mother, aunt, father, etc.). Our waitress told the people eating next to us that we had gotten so big since she last saw us and that she wished we would come back more often! It was so cute! They yelled at you if you had your elbows on the table. If you didn’t eat your food, they would spoon feed it to you like an airplane. Overall, I was very impressed. Everyone stayed in great character!

After that we went on the Backlot Tour. It was nice and relaxing. But my friend Kelly got a bad seat in the tram. We got the last row in one of the buses and she got the right corner seat and all the water dripped off onto her in Catastrophe Canyon. But it dried pretty quickly! After that we decided it was getting really hot and we would come back to do the Making of Armageddon before we view the fireworks. But when we got to the hotel bus, we saw a huge line of tour groups and decided not to wait for the bus and went back to see the Armageddon show.

The show was not very exciting. All it had was a walk through of editing equipment and offices and then a short movie of how they did special effects (like something on HBO). But it was air conditioned!

By the time we got back to the bus port, there was virtually no line and we got right on and back to the hotel. When we got there we had a message saying that until further notice, all fireworks would be cancelled that night and the fourth of July. So it ended up to be a good thing we did Armageddon then because we would not have wanted to go back just for that!

So we ate dinner at the hotel and then made a change of plans and went to the Magic Kingdom. That was probably the best move because we went on all the rides that usually have horrendous lines and didn’t have to wait. We went on Small World with no lines, we just walked right on. Peter Pan’s Flight, Snow White’s Adventure, Mad Tea Party, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride all took us a total of about 15 minute wait each to get on. Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion we walked right onto with no waits. The timing was perfect. The time we went was around 7:00 or so. Most people (believe it or not) were either eating dinner then or were already waiting for the SpectroMagic parade. After we walked around some more to look at what we wanted to do the next day, we left and went to sleep.

Saturday July 4 1998

Being that it was the fourth of July and a Saturday which is a surprise morning for the Magic Kingdom, we left the hotel at 7:30 in the morning and got to the Magic Kingdom a little before 8:00. There was hardly anyone anywhere.

We went on the Tomorrowland Speedway and only waited for about 15-20 minutes (I remember 2 years ago waiting over an hour). After that my friends dragged me on to Space Mountain (of the 2 times I was in WDW, I never went on it. My family is not a ride family and I never wanted to go on it). The wait was probably about 20-30 minutes or so. But we didn’t wait outside, it was all inside, right where the line split into two sides. I would definitely have to say that I was glad that I went on it! It was great!

We then went on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and had about a 20 minute wait. I really enjoyed that one too! I think after that we just walked around and grabbed a quick lunch at The Plaza Restaurant.

Oh yeah! We went into Mickey’s Toontown Fair. I was disappointed in it though. Last time I was there it was being renovated. But the first time I was in WDW (in 1989) it was when Mickey’s Toontown Fair first opened. I remember (and have watched it many times on the home videos) that it was a lot bigger. There was also a place to have a show to celebrate Mickey’s birthday all year long! There wasn’t any place like that this time. We still got to see Mickey and Minnie’s house, but the area it covered just seemed to be so small. It was still cute, but I think I liked it the old way better.

We then walked around the shops for a little and sat on the street to wait for the Magical Moments Parade. And I got to participate in the Snow White and the Dwarfs part of the parade!! It was so exciting! Definitely was my "magical moment!" And I have it all on tape!

Afterwards we decided to go back to the hotel because it was so hot out and relax. We were going to go back that night, but SpectroMagic was going to be at 10:30 because it was the fourth of July and since there were no fireworks it was pointless to wait around for so long.

After dinner we went back over to Epcot. We went on Body Wars, with no line and then onto Horizons, with no line either. We then went into Innoventions and used the really big phone and did some virtual talk show thing with Jay Leno and the cast from Saved by The Bell. I didn’t see that one when I went last time. We were going to do virtual reality, but my friends didn’t want to wait around for it. But I did do it last time and it was really cool! It started to rain so we decided to head home and sleep.

Sunday July 5 1998

We had made priority seating reservations about a week before our trip at Chef Mickey’s at the Contemporary Resort for character breakfast as our flex feature. Our reservations were for 9am, so we took a taxi to avoid being late and having to wake up early to catch many buses to get there. We had a buffet with excellent food and got to meet Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and Chip and Dale. It was very cute!

We finished early and decided to take a ride on the monorail to the Magic Kingdom and hopped on our bus back to hotel. Here we changed and headed off to Blizzard Beach. I noticed when we got there that I had forgotten my resort ID card and therefore could not get in. Luckily I was able to buy a ticket and when I got back to the hotel I would get reimbursed for the exact amount. I was pretty lucky that it was only at Blizzard Beach where a ticket is only $27 and not at a park where the ticket is almost $50 because I would have had not a lot of spending money left! I only brought money with me what I thought I needed at each park.

So we finally got into Blizzard Beach at around 11:30 or so. I was very impressed with the park. We walked around barefoot and there were sprinklers on the pathways to keep your feet cool. Most water parks that I have been to, do not have this feature. We went on the Summit Plummet which I was so scared to go on and I loved it so much! One of our bus transportation drivers told us that they called it the "Super Wedgie." That is definitely true!

We went on a couple more of the water rides and took a nice break on the Cross Country Creek that takes you around the park. A good way of relaxing and getting a tan! At around 3:30 or so we got all watered out and decided to go back and call it a day. We had lunch back at the hotel and then at around 5:30 went back to the Magic Kingdom. We walked around the park and bought some last minute gifts.

We ate dinner at Pecos Bill’s Cafe. We then went back around Main Street to wait for the parade since it started to rain. About an hour and a half before the parade would start it stopped raining and we grabbed a seat. Since it was wet we got three big plastic bags for each of us to sit on. It worked out very nicely and people followed our idea. The parade started right on time and was great. I didn’t see the parade the last time we were here because we thought it was the same as the Electric Light Parade, but we were wrong. SpectroMagic was very nice. I really enjoyed it. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel to pack and slept.

Monday July 6 1998

We left for Animal Kingdom at around 10:00. We checked out then and left our baggage at the luggage service to pick up later. We wanted to go see It’s Tough To Be a Bug. But when we got there the line was past the entrance and we knew how long of a wait there would be just to get from the entrance to the inside, so we decided to pass on it and not stand in the heat.

So we took a bus to the Grand Floridian and took a look around it. We then grabbed the monorail to Epcot and walked around the World Showcase. By 1:00 we were back at the hotel because we couldn’t stand the heat anymore.

We waited around the hotel watching The Little Mermaid on the televisions. We had to wait around till 4:00 for the Mears shuttle to take us to the airport. We got to the airport and everything was going right. Or so we thought. According to the board our flight was on time. But it wasn’t really. It hadn’t landed yet and was diverted to Tampa. It was storming and raining here so it couldn’t land and it needed to be refueled at the other airport. By the time the plane got to Orlando International, it was about 3 hours late. Then they had to change two tires. One tire went flat and another one fused together from the heat. So we had to wait until they could fix both tires. We ended up not taking off till about 11:10pm when our flight was scheduled for 6:15pm take off. What a nice time in the airport.

Closing Remarks

I would have to say that I was very impressed by the Disney Transportation system. It was extremely well organized. We never had to wait more than 20 minutes for a bus to come. It usually took only about 10-15 minutes. Everything was clearly labeled so we never got confused about anything.
I was disappointed because all of the fireworks were cancelled. But I was glad that I did get to see the IllumiNations show. Being that it combined laser lights with fireworks it was different than just plain fireworks. It jazzed up a mere firework show. I would have liked to have seen the fourth of July fireworks at the Magic Kingdom and was disappointed about that, but I am glad about the Epcot fireworks.
The refillable mug was a great idea! We got unlimited drinks and definitely saved us a lot of money on soda! The only thing I didn’t like was that the soda was Coca-Cola and not Pepsi. I hate Coke, but if I have to drink it, I will. I was so glad to come home and have a glass of Pepsi!
The overall crowds and waiting times were not as bad as I thought they were going to be. I think the longest we had to wait for a ride was about 30 minutes and I can’t even tell you which one it was. We must have hit the rides at excellent times. We went early, left during peak (and hot) hours and came back later to go during down times, dinner times, and parade times.
The heat was definitely not like I expected it to be. Everyone always says its hot, but I thought they were just exaggerating. We came home everyday soaked from sweat. We took a shower at night and slept in the freezing cold air conditioning. We did wear light colored, light weight comfortable clothing. It helped, but it was still way too hot out.
Each night we went to sleep at around 11pm or so and then woke up by 7am. You would think with three young girls we wouldn’t be able to do that, but we did. We got enough sleep and got up early enough to do a full day of activity. That’s why we had no problem falling asleep at 11pm (which is very early for us!).
The hotel we stayed at, the All-Stars Sports, was good. I’m not sure what I expected it to be like, but it was great. We stayed at the Touchdown! building. It was close to the main building where the buses were and the food so it was convenient. When we checked in at the front desk, I requested the building and I got it. The size of the room was perfect for three girls. We had a great view of the football field from our room.
I think that’s about all that I have to say about our trip now! Hope you enjoyed reading it! I had fun recalling everything! Any questions about anything, feel free to email me!

Elizabeth Awerbuch

awerbuch@sprintmail.com