Li-Bong Lee - July 1999 - Offsite

[Trip Reports]

July 25th - August 1st 1999

pre* trip report and a *pre-trip* report

Intro:

This is to serve as an intro to my trip report (hence the *pre* trip report) but was written before leaving for WDW to fully capture my planning insanity. I find often, that the pre-trip and the pre report are the most entertaining parts, if you hate it, by all means, skip it. It's long. Otherwise, I hope this part does not prove to be the exception. Oh yes, I tend to forget capitalization's and commas. sorry

Characters:

Me: 25yo 2nd year graduate student; been to WDW 4 times - offsite twice, Hilton at DD, and last time at CBR. Once to Disneyland. (Upon proof-reading I realized I didn't even tell you my name - Lib)
Jim: 25yo 3rd year grad student; been to WDW 2 other times. Last time was with *me* for our honeymoon (at CBR) - not quite the Disney nut (but I'm working on him).
Eric: 4th year grad student; newbie!!
John: 4th year grad student; newbie!!
Both have been to parks like Great Adventure and Hershey Park.

We're all grad students in chemical engineering - which means a) we're poor b) we will probably argue a lot as to the "best" way to do things.

The very long-winded body of this pre report :

I hadn't intended on going back until 2000 possibly, or more probably, after Jim and I graduate. This is despite the fact that I'm always reading everyone else's trip reports, keeping up with the room discounts, what's going on down there etc etc. So Jim being ever so sensitive, picked up on my blatant hints that I wanted to go back, suggested that why don't we just _go_? Hem-and-hawed and well, I decided, no. "too expensive...when will we be able to...we need to save for a car..." blah blah blah. (Pulling out soapbox) As much as I would love to go and stay at the Beach Club for a week, my biggest goals for each year is to save save save and invest. Even though we make grad student wages, I feel this compulsive desire to save what we can and put it away for retirement (even though we are not quite gainfully employed, one day we do plan to retire from _something_). So going to WDW is not the highest priority in my life and I can certainly delay any trips if need be. (soapbox away) Jim however insisted that we actually did have enough to go and we could take some time off to go etc etc etc

So as serendipity would have it, I was walking to the lab one day (in the very merry month of May - that fit well, huh?) when John shows up and says "Do you want to go to Disneyworld?" Well what kind of answer would you expect? So, it turns out that John has a wedding to go to in Boca Raton at the end of July. Airfare there however is close to $300 (West Palm Beach). But....checking flights to Orlando.....$150. Factoring the hotel and car and the fact that he would be down there for just the weekend, wouldn't it make more sense to go for a little bit longer and take a real vacation? So he got Eric (his roommate and fellow Star Wars compatriot) on board with the idea - and then knowing that I love WDW - he got me on board too. I called Jim, Jim said something to the effect of "I told you we could have gone and you didn't listen to me then but now all of a sudden you decide we can? Okay." Easy.

So this leaves when, transportation, hotel, tickets issues.

Well, the most important factor was that we had to be there July 31st for John's wedding. So that meant leaving Orlando by at least August 1st. And since we wanted to spend the maximum amount of time possible, we were going to leave July 24th (Sat-Sun trip). The point was brought up that we had no idea when the wedding was, so John could possibly be very rushed to travel back the next day, so we shift the schedule. Leave July 25th, come back August 2nd (Sunday to Monday - 8 nights).

We saw USAir flights from Philadelphia to Orlando for $157 on Expedia (stopping in Pittsburgh). But when we checked later they were gone. Instead we got tickets for $150, essentially the same times we wanted on AirTran (right now, there is a thread going on them on RADP - Eric has already checked them out and he's okay with it; we already bought the tickets so can't do anything about it now).

Since the wedding John has to attend is in Boca Raton, we're going to rent a car. That started the hunt for the lowest priced car rental. Ouch. Not so low. We wanted an Intermediate car. The lowest rate we have is $169 a week plus $29 a day from Dollar using the KISS rate, totalling about $280 with all the fees (Eric will be driving and he has insurance). Other car rates that we found were much more expensive going to a total of well over $300.

Next was rooming. After staying at CBR, I really wanted to stay onsite. That would provide everyone with a greater flexibility in the coming and going and it was just nice to be onsite (plus we could take advantage of E-nights and early entry). However, costs were clearly prohibitive, and it was regular season. If we stayed at a hotel, we would have to get two rooms. Two All-Star rooms would be much more than anyone wanted to pay (yes, I realize that it would be split by two for each room so around $45 pp, but it was still more than we wanted to pay). So since we were going for so long, I was already planning on getting an annual pass, I looked into AP discounts. There were two. $139 for the DI Bungalows. There were three separate beds but only one bathroom and the room arrangement would not have been the best. And $199 for DI 2-bdrm townhouse. Oh, that would have been sweet. But the cost was too much. Translation = offsite.

Since we were staying for so long, we (read: I) wanted a little more room than a hotel would have. So I looked into suites and condos. I had found two private condos that seemed to suit our needs and that were way in our price range - $75-85 a night (split by 4). And there were still some hotel/condos that were somewhat within range. However, location was a concern. Being the great group RADP is, I posted my question about location, especially along 192. And it so happens that someone responded, mentioned he had a condo, I asked - does it happen to be available, why yes it does - everything fell into place. The condo is on 192 west, seems like it is pretty close to WDW and the price was reasonable. Done. The other two that we were looking at were on the Universal side. Eric and John will probably go see IOA, but I have absolutely no desire to go see it. I know, I know, the reviews are in and say its great - but it just doesn't seem to *do* anything for me, maybe some other time. And since most of the days would be spent in WDW, it made more sense to go with a place closer to WDW. Plus, Jim _hates_ rollercoasters.

Then...the ticket format and prices changed. Ack, what a mess. I had previously explained the ticket medium to John and Eric - but then this *Plus* thing happened - what in the world did it mean? Was this going to totally change everything? Actually, no. The change from AIO to PHPP didn't really affect anything. Jim is not a big water park fan. And neither is John or Eric. In addition, Pleasure Island didn't really hold that much appeal to them either (are we beginning to sound like boring people?). So AIO wouldn't have worked anyway. The only thing other than the main parks that I think they would be interested in would be DisneyQuest and then we'd have to stay onsite and get the Unlimited Magic Pass. We'll just pay at the door. So it looked like regular 5day park hoppers for them. Jim and I went ahead and ordered our AP's at the Disney Store (took about 2 weeks to arrive). Of course, along with the ticket changes, there were also ticket price hikes. I told John about it and warned him that he might want to go ahead and buy the tickets - they might be going up. And the following weekend, yep, they did. So I told them to go buy them _now_ at the Disney Store since the $10 increase won't have trickled down yet. I mean - it's the price of a lunch, right?

So it's kind of all settled now. Fly down (airline tickets, check), rent a car (Dollar reservations, check), park passes (check - except for the Universal tickets for John and Eric), place to stay (condo, check - need to pay the balance the week of), squeezebreeze (check), floppy hat (check). Mouse ears (oops, were at the parents house - but my sister brought them up when she came to visit). Which brings me to a side point - one of my sisters is going to be in Orlando for a Latin convention. She'll have three days at WDW - which happen to coincide with when we will be there - so the question is - how much do I want to bug her and should I trick her in to trying the Beverly for me?

Food - probably mostly fast food. Maybe this time I'll actually get one of those turkey legs. Definitely a hot dog from Casey. On the days John and Eric go to Universal (two days) Jim and I will probably do some sit down. I want to go back to Cape May again. We (me and Jim) have dinner PS at Cape May (last time we went they were temporarily in Ariels, so I want to see it for *real* this time - they didn't have clams that time either), breakfast PS at Spoodles (wanted a buffet breakfast without the characters - haven't gotten over the shyness factor yet *blush*), and lunch PS at Le Cellier. Funny thing (very short side story coming up) when I called to get the PS, I had one already and but I just wanted to change the date of our PS at Le Cellier, and the nice lady at CRO (Sally I believe) went through the usual "These are priority seating .... please show up 5-10 minutes....How did you hear about this restaurant?" To which I responded kinda sheepishly that I'd heard of this cheese soup that they have.... and she started laughing a lot. Apparently she's heard of it and her friend has been urging her to try and she wasn't able to go when she last made her PS for Le Cellier.

Touring plans - haven't figured that out yet. The most I've got (and if you haven't figured it out they left a lot of the planning to me) is that Sunday when we arrive, we'll unpack, pick up groceries and maybe go to Downtown Disney and try DisneyQuest. Then later maybe the Boardwalk. I dunno. Neither they (John and Eric) nor Jim and I are real into clubbing. But I am interested in seeing Jellyrolls and I believe the Atlantic City Dance Club?? Jim and I took swing lessons this passed semester, so while we can't do the through the legs thing without making big fools of ourselves we can jump, jive, and wail well enough to not get shoved off the dance floor.

I wanted the first park they see to be the MK - but since Monday is an EE day for MK - we'll have to skip it. We're going to try the day- after method; which means MGM the first full day. Which probably actually works out well, since the three of them are absolute Star Wars nuts and will want to do Star Tours and gawk at AT-AT's. I have told them that the shop is closed (disappointment for them, slight relief for me) and that they are building a new shop that will resemble a Tatooine trading post (something like that, right?).

They are not so interested in AK - so they might save that for the Monday when we leave (our flight is not until 7:30 that night). All in all, this will be an interesting trip. I bought Frommers (ack ack ack. Can't believe I did that) and the Unofficial Guide (better) and lent the UG to John. I found it slightly derogatory towards WDW at times, and absolutely hated their cartoons. But the ride descriptions were quite good. John has since photocopied the touring plans. If he follows it...well, we'll see. I think the first four steps for MK might be a good thing to follow, but after that, I want to be able to park my butt on a park bench and eat a frozen mickey.

Other than that, we have the days mapped out of which park to start off in on which days and when they will be going to Universal. The days that they will be at Universal, we will just take a taxi back to the condo. I would think it wouldn't run us that much (cross fingers). The one thing I am hesitant about is that we won't really be able to take a mid-day break if desired as readily. However, at that time, I believe we will do as above and park ourselves on said bench and eat said ice cream.

The other things of note (at this point I'm wondering how long my report is going to be if I average this length per day) is that today (4 days to the event), walking back to the lab I noticed an interesting sensation developing on my foot. It felt like....a blister. Oy the timing of it all, bemoans me. How in the world could I be developing a blister? I will try and nurse it as well as possible otherwise I will be hobbling my way to Splash Mountain. (and moleskin is on our list of things to bring)

And finally the last bit of calamity - I received e-mail from Expedia (several pages ago, we booked our plane tickets from them) and it said to please contact them, our itinerary had changed *significantly*. Panic attack. Quickly I thought of SunJet that had recently closed up shop and left many travelers stranded (including several that were supposed to be going to WDW), and really panicked. What were we going to do?? Eventually I did call them. Sigh. Our flight back to Philadelphia got moved back by FIVE MINUTES.

So that is my pre-trip/pre tripreport report. I hope you made it through this because I haven't even gotten the trip part! (And it's LONG)

Pre-trip preparation

During the trip, we split up a lot. So what I've written is only the stuff Jim and I did at the World. I will go ahead and mention that even at the end of July, John and Eric were quite lucky in terms of lines. They had virtually none.

And in the tradition of our previous trip (Honeymoon June 1997), we encountered an ant problem. I hope this is not going to be a trend for all future WDW trips. For our honeymoon - we stayed at the Radisson the night before our flight and found ants in the hotel room. This time around, I was doing my pre-trip cleaning (where I go into a frenzied state and start cleaning the grout in the bathroom with a toothbrush) and preparations, when, while rearranging and putting in new toys for our birds, I found ants. Just a trail of ants and they led to a birdseed bell (for outside birds) that I had left in the box of bird toys. Argh. I hate ants- more than any other insect, I hate ants (but I loved Flik). So I was up until about 2:30 ~ 3:00am just trying to get rid of ants and cleaning the place up.

Day One : Our Journey Begins (7/25/99 Sunday)

Despite the fact that our flight was for 7:00 am in Philadelphia - meaning we would need to leave at 5:00 am, our friend (also in the same research group) bravely volunteered to drive us to the airport,a one hour commute from Princeton. Just so he wouldn't curse us (at least curse us loudly) later, I did fully explain that we had a travel itinerary which was not the best for people not going on the trip - early morning departure and a midnight arrival back in Philly. Didn't bother him.

He promptly picked us up at 5 and arrived at the airport about 5:45am. W e headed to the AirTran ticket counter and there was a small line. But it wasn't moving. Within 10 minutes, the line was out the terminal door. Not a good sign. Figuring that everyone in line was for the same flight we were on, we were going to be delayed. Once we reach the counter, I learned that AirTran policy is one carry-on per person. However, we had one large duffel bag, one carry-on suitcase and my booksack so she said that was okay. Cool.

While waiting to board the plane (which in fact was late) I was dying of thirst having not had anything to drink or eat yet, but gosh it irks me to pay so much for airport food - let alone water. So I didn't. (you would think I would get over this considering where we were headed) Then I realized that we never turned off our a/c (window unit) which is set on a timer for the birds. Ouch, big electric bill and freezing birds. So I had to make a quick call to our friend who was going to be taking care of birds at 7:00 am. Oh, and I mentioned that our conure likes blueberries.

Boarding was chaotic and the plane was at full capacity. It was an old plane (the seat covers were peeling), but we landed in Atlanta fine, with about 20 minutes to get to the next gate. Jim of course needed to use the bathroom on the way there (from the one little cup of juice he got) and we arrived in time final boarding. Oh yes, there was a very long line at the gate counter here too. My opinion of AirTran was not that high at the moment. Again the plane was full and I had a very active little girl sitting in front of me, reclining her chair, throwing things behind her, sticking her arms between the chair, rocking the seat etc. etc. And guess where she was going - WDW. Smile.

We arrived on time, and since none of us checked any bags in, we headed straight for Dollar. But first, let me gush over the Orlando airport. I love this airport. It's really beautiful. I have never been to an airport as pleasingly aesthetic as MCO. I mean, there's _trees_ outside! Not just concrete. I mean, sure, some airports are nice, Washington National (or is it now Ronald Reagan?) is quite nice now. But MCO has a very welcoming feel to it. And the floor with the rental car agencies was done quite nicely too, just _everything_. Anyways, no problem and no line at Dollar, though they tried to get us to get a convertible instead. Okay, so even picking up the rental car, you pass through some gorgeous scenery that you wouldn't find at other airports... We got a Hyundai Sonata and paid for the extra driver (since John would be using it to go to the wedding and Eric had the insurance and likes to drive and be in control).

We decided then to go to the condo and see if it was ready. It was about 12:30pm so it was kinda early. I had the directions to the place, but we ended up following Eric's directions (who had never been here). Two tolls on the way totaled $1.25 and then finally I-4. We could see Downtown Disney from there and saw all the exits to Disney (which I really really wanted to just take) and headed to 192. 192 reminded us slightly of Vegas but not as crowded. The condo was in the Lindfields area so it was a little removed from the brightness on 192. We missed the turn into the condos on the first pass (I had misread the directions and the road was not exactly a road at that point) and had to turn around for it. Well, when we finally reached it, tried the number code for the door, and entered. It was spacious and gorgeous and there were still dishes in the sink. Sigh. Arrived a little too early.

Got back into the car and went hunting for lunch. Well, this became one of those thing when you're with a bunch of people and no one really wants to decide because they aren't sure what the others would like... Eventually (and because Eric seemed to be frustrated) we decided on the Golden Corral since we had those little coupon books that they throw to you everywhere (10% at GC) and since Jim and I miss Ryan's down South and the Golden Corral is *kinda* like it.

Well, it was okay. It had fried okra and pretty good gumbo. But it didn't seem quite _clean_. Good enough though. ($33.46, plus tip for all 4 of us) There was this lady in the entrance selling Universal tickets but they decided not to get them. Later in the week we did try and stop and buy them, but then they were out.

Since the condo wasn't going to be ready until 4pm, we then headed for Downtown Disney. Oh boy, I think I shouted when I first saw the WDW gate/sign. So very exciting! Downtown Disney was easy to get to and there seemed to be plenty of parking - I guess because it was only 1pm. We parked on the WestSide and couldn't miss the Cirque de Soleil theatre and then - DisneyQuest. It was beckoning it was calling and it was saying "come in - try me - you can never conquer all the floors, and well, Eric didn't hear it call him and went straight to the Virgin MegaStore to look for DVD's. He looked at DQ and said we could do that later.

So we spent more than a couple of minutes in the Mega Store and moved on to the Mega-all the other stores there. As we passed the theatre I mentioned that they were showing Tarzan in digital format there - Eric seemed to think that was pretty cool. We walked past all the places that I have only heard everyone else talk about (I have never been to DTD before) and found the store that is currently selling only Star Wars merchandise. Eric, John and Jim heard _that_ store talk to them. I of course, followed them in.

While they looked around at the STUFF, I recreated the light sabre fight from the Ph. Menace (I've seen it twice with Jim - Eric and John have seen it about 7 times) with the little figurines. Eventually I bought some postcards (Yoda, of course since he's done by Frank Oz) - $2.00. John also bought some postcards there.

One of the main goals we had today was to go ahead and buy postcards to send back - including one to send back to our lab, so the ultimate destination was the World of Disney (yea for me). After they finished looking at all the STUFF, we headed through Pleasure Island towards the Marketplace. Wow.

The Lego store was just amazing. All those things to just look at. I wanted to play with the legos, but there were a lot of kids there and I didn't want to take a spot away from them. This could very well possibly be a child's dream with all those lego stations. We then looked around at the dinosaur family - I love the baby eggs. And the dragon - very cool. This is where we regretted not having the camera with us. Eric went into the store while we stayed out for a bit. We even noticed the ducks out in the lake were legos as well - except for one and he blended in nicely!

Eventually Jim went inside the store to find Eric and a few minutes later he dragged John and me inside - why? Because they had _Star Wars_ legos! Jim eventually bought a Darth Vader lego keychain and SW lego postcards. $5.47.

After awhile, I told them that I was going on to the World of Disney. The store is big. It's kinda like over shocking your system with Disney stuff, you don't know where to start. I never did get to go see the fine collectible stuff either. (Next time...) Eventually I ended up buying a cute little puzzle Winnie-the-Pooh mug for our advisor's son (John and I split this cost), some postcards to send out, and a Mickey key chain with our last name on it. $13.47. John and I decided we would have to return here to buy candy for the lab on the last day.

Looked around a little more, we liked the giant kaleidoscope which Jim took a while to realize that they were mickeys. We checked out a couple more stores, some of which were carrying Star Wars stuff and Beast Wars stuff (jim's a really big fan of Transformers and Beast Wars - see his site: www.princeton.edu/~jimlee). We finally walked back to the West Side where Jim and I were trying to convince John and Eric (John was willing, Eric was hesitant) to do DisneyQuest. Of course once Eric agreed, a huge group of Brazillian teenage girls got in line (this was our first but not last encounter with tour groups, oh yeah, they all had matching t-shirts _and_ fannypacks with their names on them). Now, just tired and hot we decided to come back later tonight and just go to the condo.

We left at 4:30pm and arrived at the condo which was freshly cleaned and very nice. We were quite impressed and it's definitely much bigger than what we live in now. Jim and I took the master bedroom (with it's own bathroom) while John claimed the bedroom with the double bed, leaving Eric with the twin beds. We settled in, (I loved having a walk-in closest for a week) and then headed to get groceries at the Publix. We bought the necessities :milk, juice and coke. Oh, and ice cream. Godiva's chocolate chip. I had just read Consumer Reports' testing of ice cream where they ranked Godiva's high. I thought it was just okay. But I think our freezer might have been cranked a little too high. I would rather have Blue Bell Mint Chocolate Chip (which we can't get in New Jersey, sigh). We also bought some fruit and some frozen meals for dinner (yeah yeah, not that great for you, but we eat them up here too since we don't usually have that much time to cook). Oh, and John bought a map of the area since the thing Dollar gave us was useless.

After unpacking the groceries and eating a little (I believe just John or Eric ate a bagel, Jim and I were still too full from lunch), it was 7pm. And Eric had settled down with his caffeine free diet pepsi on the couch and looked like he was beginning to vegge. Warning sirens went off in my head - if we didn't leave *now* we were not leaving that night. Spurt of energy shot through me and I stood and said "Let's go to DQ NOW!" Well, I think that helped. As it roused Eric up and John and Jim were ready.

Since earlier in the day we had just left everything in the trunk, I prepared for vacation-disneystyle mode, meaning fannypack with all the essentials (keenex, park passes, cash, id's, gum, sunglasses, barrettes, camera) and dumped the purse.

Heading back to DQ, we ended up with a worse parking space than earlier. Our tickets with the AP discount was $45.05; our AP's had not been activated yet though. How they have you entering the building was totally unexpected and impressive. I could "feel" the rocket taking off. And when I got off the elevator, I was totally disoriented and we had to ask the CM what floor we were on (3rd). We decided to try floor by floor and headed to Buzz Lightyear Astroblaster. That looked really fun - bumper cars with a blast. While waiting in line (we waited for a cycle and a half) we looked at all the 80's videogames they had. John and Jim wanted to do play a four-person Gauntlet. Jim and I got into one car and John and Eric were in the other. Eric and I drove, jim and John blasted. At the beginning Jim didn't realize that balls didn't always pop up to where they were visible, so we were essentially sitting targets (well, moving targets with no defenses). Some other car did hit us, and we did spin uncontrollably (which was fun). At one point we were facing another car's target spot - as in the other car was touching us and well, we still missed. Oh well. This was one of the attractions we wanted to do again (but never did).

We decided to hold off on the arcade games until later (mistake), and went to the other side of the floor. I saw the pinball game and since there was no line for it, I got in line while Eric wandered off somewhere (to the racecourse game) and eventually Jim and John saw me standing in line and joined me. The no.8 ball won in the group that had just let out. So instead of playing that ball, I tried the one next to it (I think #2?), Jim did no.8 and John did some other number. Well, Jim won and John and I came second. I could not for the life of me get into the big target, I ended up just bouncing around the smaller targets, I guess that was good enough. After that ride (is it a ride? game?) I was actually breathing hard. Turns out DQ requires energy!

We then went to watch Eric race - he ended up 8th. Afterwards we kinda split up a bit looking at the different arcade games, I wanted to try the motorcycle racing game, but it was broken. We then headed up a floor to Ride the Comix - there wasn't a terribly long line for this one and it looked -pretty neat. Unfortunately, some of the players are situated pretty close to the queue area and some guys behind in line (who were slightly inebriated - or more so since I could REALLY smell them) were teasing and probably bothering the player. For this game, you do look really silly in the helmet and waving around what looks to be a flashlight. It was pretty cool though my visor kept slipping off. I didn't realize it until after the game (when John mentioned it) that we were actually working as a team and you could "see" each other. John and Jim confessed that they would take their thumbs on and off the saber so they could be Jedi's. Eric slayed the most with 12, John and me came in next with 9 each and Jim, who didn't realize those blue monkey-dogs required more slashing got 4. Eric got into this game - he was sweating a lot and breathing hard afterwards.

Not knowing exactly where we were or what to do next, we wandered into the line for the game where you have to pick up passengers. Except we didn't know that until the game started. John, Jim and I were gunners and Eric was the navigator and we all died.

Eric, who was getting a little too into these VR games, was pooped and so he sat out while we did Aladdin's Carpet thingie. Of all the things to sit out of, this was the tamest. And we won. Though I still didn't quite understand it. I don't think you really have full control over what you do or where you go on this on. And Jim and I debated who actually arrived at the lamp first, since we both reached there and neither of us saw anyone else there. The line for CyberSpace Mountain was too long (though I really wanted to do it). So we went down to the Jungle Cruise. That looked pretty fun - and dry. But when we reach our raft, we all looked down and said to the CM - it's wet! And she looked at us and replied "It's the Jungle _Cruise_" This ride was GREAT. Loved it.

We then went to do Hercules. Long (not really that long) and non- moving line. Eric sat this one out too (paddled too hard on the Cruise). Too bad. Many of the things in DQ seemed to be geared for exactly 4 people. So Jim was Pegasus, I was Meg and John was Hercules. At first we didn't realize that you had several screens to collect bolts and Jim didn't realize that he, as Pegasus, could also collect bolts. But, he was great as a navigator and we won. I think of all the 3-D/VR systems, I liked these the best. The VR helmet would keep slipping off my head and give me headaches. And I prefer seeing the character like a normal video game. But the VR stuff was definitely fun.

We met up with Eric who was looking exhausted, and though it was 10pm, we decided to head back to the condo. John wrote out postcards and so did I. Jim and I had our frozen meals and then called it a night. We had an early day tomorrow. MGM.

Daily Costs (for Jim and me only - including pre-trip stuff):

Tolls $ 1.75

Golden Corral $ 19.23

World of Disney $ 13.47

Star Wars Postcards $ 2.00

DQ $ 45.05

Groceries $ 22.93

Lego Store $ 5.47

Plane Ticket $300.00

Condo $398.72

AP $655.08

Car $169.63

Total $1632.83 And it's only the first day.

Day 2 (7/26/99 - Monday) MGM

I woke up at 7am. I was cold. Jim had taken the blankets. Some things don't change on vacation.

I didn't need to hit the snooze several times or stay in bed staring at the ceiling wondering if I really had to get up, we were going to the Tower of Terror!!!

After getting ready to go - Disneypacked the booksack too with sunscreen, pocket squeeze breezes, extra film and a book for Jim to read while in line (Divided Allegiance by Elizabeth Moon), I took some pics of the condo to remember that for a brief week we had more than 2 1/2 times the living space of what we live in now. With a washer and dryer (that was SOOO nice). Turns out Eric (who, when I last checked, was still in the bathroom) was waiting in the car. Oh well. We headed to MGM - where I prepared to take a picture of the MGM entrance while driving. We all thought it was a very cool thing to get waved in after flashing an AP and not pay the $5 fee.

We got in about 8:40, and instructed Eric and John to go directly to the TOT rope drop while Jim and I got our passes validated. While there, the CM also offered to mail off our postcards (yea). The bioscan was pretty neat and we headed to the rope drop as well. We originally planned to meet John and Eric at various times of the day in front of Gerties - but we ran into them at the rope drop. Walked to the TOT with a 5 minute wait. I really like the theming of this place. And I LOVE the new drop sequence. The lap bar was a little high so I got some great air time. There was a point in the drop sequence where you get the split second feeing of weightlessness. It's great. Jim hates this ride. And then I find out Eric doesn't much care for thrill rides. John thought it could be longer, but did like how they lead you into the drop instead of just dropping you.

We waited for our picture, but it never showed up. Sigh. Someone must've been doing something...I hate that.

We walked by Rock and Roller Coaster and saw that it was open. Quick moving line and we were in within 5-10 minutes. I wish we had just a little bit longer to pass by the stuff in the queue so I could fully read the cards. When we were in the pre-show area - they had a guy in there rolling up wire and Jim and I wondered if he was a "prop". Then we headed into the "alley" where we saw the coaster just peel off - wow. Of course this freaked Jim out. The 0-60 was great. I was worried about bringing the booksack on, but it fit without a problem. This coaster was sooo smooooth, it was great. Unlike what I had read, I didn't think it was too short. I don't like rides that are long with nothing interesting going on - this one was good. And I had only noticed the one inversion and only because I could see the front of the car ahead of me (when we rode it again later in the week, I noticed the other two). And as a testament to its smoothness - Jim didn't even realize we were going upside down at all. Even Eric liked it (and was trying to guesstimate the G-force on it).

I wanted to do it again, but we decided to keep going. We were heading to Star Tours, but as we passed by Indiana Jones, there was about 10 minutes to the next show, so we entered. We were sitting in the far left, but the view was okay - it was stuffy though. Jim and I took our squeeze breezes out - I'm sooo glad we bought these - and used them for the first time. Jim was impressed with the effectiveness. And I know there was discussion previously on radp about squeeze breezes, but the mist and subsequent fanning is what make a difference in the cooling.

Of course John and Eric had never seen the stunt show, but Jim had also never seen the show either (I made us skip it the last time), so no one realized the guy was a plant until later. The volunteers that were picked were really good and added to the show. But this would still be an attraction I would go to every other trip.

After exiting the show, we walked, along with others, to Star Tours - stopping for pictures along the way. The AT-AT was spraying water and Chewbacca was also there. The wait was about 15 minutes so we didn't get to see much of the Ewok village - which I thought was pretty neat. We did get to see the droid assembly line - which I really like to watch (yes I realize it just goes around and around). We got the first row, which is not the best and the far right. Since I've done it before, I took the first seat so the guys could be closer to the center. We exited to the construction that will be the Tatooine Traders (Jim will probably spend some time and money here when we come back next).

We were going to do Muppets next, but it was down. So while the guys went to the bathroom (side note, on this trip, most of the bathroom stops were for the guys, not me - the girl), I went to the shop with the muppet stuff. Out of my little moral conscience, I do not buy/browse/stop by any Disney merchandise in the store that should be all muppet stuff. I checked to see which shirts they had - I wanted to get the Dogfather t-shirt with Rowlf, but it was a black tshirt and I would get too hot in it. So I got the Evolution of an Amphibian t- shirt, a Rizzo the Rat furry magnet head, a Kermit furry magnet head, a card with Kermie and Piggy, and Kermit stickers - all the Kermit stuff is for my other sister who would not be able to go to WDW this year (she was quite upset to learn that not only was I going to go for a week plus, but our other sister was going to be there and at the same time for a school convention thing). ($44.26)

John, thanks to the Unofficial Guide, wanted to eat before 11:30am and at Rosie's. So Jim came to get me in the store. It took awhile to pay for the stuff due to some trouble with the couple ahead of me and when we went back to where John and Eric were supposed to be (at the benches by the Muppet fountain), they were gone. Well, scratching our heads, did they go into a shop and we missed them? Were they so famished they went into Pizza Planet? Oh wait, the Muppet thing is just opened - maybe they're in there? Or maybe they got tired of waiting for me and headed to Rosie's? We decided to wait about 15 minutes, and then started walking over to Rosies. Interesting note, within the 15 minutes we waited, we saw the line for the Muppets go from a total walkon (we guessed they had _just_ opened it) to a very long and winding queue going out of the queueing area.

On the way to Rosie's, we passed by the Great Movie Ride, where it seemed the line was inside the building - okay, side note. I have never ever ever gotten the Cowboy side. And I still haven't. We got the gangster side. I think they added some new (at least within the 2 years since our last trip) footage to the preshow. And then of course, there's that classic Armageddon that is on the end footage. If they're going to have to pick a Bruce Willis flick shouldn't it at least be something like Die Hard or something?

We finally got to Rosie's at 12:30pm and saw John and Eric finishing up their hot dogs. They had gone into the Muppets. Since we hadn't eaten yet, and we wanted to go to somewhere cooler and not outside, we decided to split up and meet back at 10pm by Rosie's for Fantasmic!

I was thinking the Commissary, but remembering the non-variety and the very long wait back in 1997, we decided to try the Backlot Express. When we first got there, we weren't even sure it was open, it was deserted. The outside seating area is wonderful and cooler than the rest of the park and the inside wasn't crowded at all. Jim got a cheeseburger (one complaint here, I do not like cheese on my burgers, but all the burgers at WDW fast food seem to come with cheese, I suppose I could ask, but still - it should be an option) and I got a hotdog. From the toppings bar I was able to put melted cheese and jalepenos on my fries to make cheese fries. We also got two cups of water and a large coke. This would pretty much be what we did for all fast food meals, order a drink and cups of water so when we finished we would still have ice or water with us. By the time we finished, the line was very long and people had turned into table vultures. You know, they stand their with their trays, surveying the scene, staring at people. They spy that last bite and quickly, they're by your table, circling, circling down.

We went out to check the Muppet 3D line, it was still way too long, and now the Star Tours line was snaking through the Ewok village. Ouch. We decided to jump parks at this point. Our favorite park? Epcot. Hands down.

We exited MGM (got handstamps for kicks) and I asked Jim which he would rather take - bus or boat? He chose boat and the rest of the trip - whenever there was a boat option we took it.

While waiting for the boat, there was a family ahead of us with a kid that dropped his gatorade juice box in the lake. His mother saw it (and saw that he deliberately threw it in) and well, he got the three name treatment...I remember his first name was Dalton and that he was not going to get to go swimming that afternoon. Dalton was upset, but he probably didn't throw any more things in the lake.

The boat was nice, quiet, relaxing and air-conditioned! I realize that I hadn't been talking about the weather. It was hot, it was humid. In the upper 90's. I loved the humidity since I could breathe so much better, and once we were used to it, the heat wasn't that bad. At first we were worried that we wouldn't be able to get used to the heat and humidity again (we're both from Louisiana) but I liked it - still, air conditioning is a good thing.

We got off at the Boardwalk where I looked longingly across and wished that one day we will stay at the Yacht or Beach Club - but looking at the Boardwalk - hey, that looked good too. We took a slow walk to Epcot - it such a beautiful stroll. And yes, it is definitely a stroll (sometimes with a quick jump to avoid the surreys), not a walk. Headed into Epcot (whoppee) and walked passed the countries to FutureWorld.

My mission: electronic postcard. Secondary mission: how much of Innoventions is down?

Well, we found the electronic postcards rightaway. Innoventions was quite small, and the e-card was hard to miss. We made one for his parents, but since I always use nicknames to send off email, I had forgotten my parents and sisters email addresses. Oh, there were some people doing multiple postcards - that seemed kinda inconsiderate since there was a line for it.

Next Jim was intrigued by the Internet Planet (hosted by the omnipresent Bill Nye), so we waited for it. We really shouldn't have. I'm glad we didn't wait long. There were long lines for the home entertainment thing, so we skipped it (I also figured Eric would like to see this one, so we saved it) and then we tried to checkout the Dreamcast, but there were too many people. Oh yes, there was a CM demostrating those voice command things where the computer will type what you say. It was kinda neat. Overall, Innoventions still got us to stay in there for a little bit (we played on the computers some) but it'll be nice when there's more stuff in there. Oh, and I really miss the game where you instructed a mouse (up,down,left,right) by giving him commands in a different language.

Our next mission: Ice Station Cool; My own little secret diabolical mission: to watch Jim's reaction to the Beverly.

When we left Innoventions, I was trying to figure out where ISC was - Jim could tell I was looking for something, so I told him there was a place with free drinks. Jim was definitely in. We found the place and the very cold entrance (I find it very funny that people complain about it being so very hot outside but then when they hop inside ISC, they run as slip-resistantly as possible to avoid the cold). Most people headed to the first station, perhaps not realizing all the stations were the same, we went to the ones on the side. Now I couldn't decide whether it would be more clever to start jim off with the first one (Israel??) and then the Beverly since it was second or just go for the gold and give it to him first. Well, Jim had already done the first one (he said it was okay), so I poured him the next one - hey it happens to be from Italy "Jim, try this one". Sometimes, I can be mean.

Jim drank it, but I think the taste doesn't hit you til afterwards (I wouldn't know), because a second or two after he downed it, he made this great face ("great" as in great for me to see it). He then realized that I already _knew_ about it...he got a little mad. We then tried the other drinks - I liked the Japanese one the best. And the german one. The one that tasted like cream soda I didn't care for but Jim liked. We then spent a couple more minutes watching other people try the beverly. Jim called me cruel, but eventually he was spotting people too.

Well, since we weren't onsite, we couldn't easily take our mid-day break, so instead we headed to the Living Seas since Jim just wanted to sit in some place with air. Of course there was no line. We sat in the preshow area. Then sat in the movie (where I almost fell asleep while it rained and rained and rained). Sat in the ride and finally found some benches underneath the stairs with a view of the tank and I sat, Jim took a little nap. Afterwards, we switched, I napped he sat. Nobody (well, one other person) ever sat on these benches. We also got a view of the sea turtle desperately trying to cross through the cage bars (probably being mocked by the little fish that had no trouble). Oh, and a dolphin swam by once. This was very very relaxing and just what we needed. Jim didn't want me to divulge this information since he wants it to be uncrowded the next time around too.

When rested, we walked around the exhibits, but not for too long since I was now itching to go somewhere else. I believe we went up to the upperdeck and watched the manatees (they smell) and the upper half of the tank. We skipped the diver suit and some of the other smaller exhibits for later. After we left, Jim recalled that he never really cared for the Living Seas (and we didn't go to it on our honeymoon) but this time around he did like it and wanted to come back to read the exhibits more (we're getting older).

We went to go checkout the Spaceship earth line - it was still a little too long for me. So we decided to try test track - knowing that was going to be long. The line was out to innoventions. Ouch - totalling about 1:30 to 2 hours - too long for me. Instead we went to the Universe of Energy. No wait. Jim loves this ride with the dinosaurs (I think he could care less for the Ellen part - but I like the Ellen part). We sat in our own private very long row.

After exiting, we noticed the TT line was about 30 minutes shorter. So our attitude became - we're going to do it anyways - might as well be now. I told Jim about the singles line, but we decided to do it straight through. To note: the line is 40 minutes when you reach the ENTRANCE of the building - so tack on an estimate of the outside line. There was also a beverage cart outside selling drinks. And they were selling these strappy things that people were using to carry coke bottles and the like. I thought about getting one, but never did. The family in front of us did have one, and during the line, the mom's broke, the CM at the cart replaced it for free.

Well, the queue area - wow. Cool things to look at. I think this may be my favorite queue. And all those tools...my advisor would like it. I liked looking at the different tests that they do - and for some reason, I like the corrosion test. The impact test - where it smashes the door with the big metal thing (I'm sorry I keep using "thing" to describe "stuff") shocked us the first time, but afterwards we wanted to see it up close (never did). Oh, Eric later explained that it never really "touches" the car part...Eric tried to explain a lot of things to us, but I don't really care for the explanation. Well, while looking around, I glanced out the window - rain drops. Oh no. They stopped the ride for a bit, so I sat down and tried to write (I hadn't been taking trip notes until very late at night and in bed - not the best time for a memory test) while Jim kept reading his book - he was almost done.

Since it wasn't really raining - just a couple of drops - the ride started up again (everyone cheered and was very good natured about the delay). This time we passed the body impact test - the only one that seemed to be working was the knee. I wanted to see the chest. Oh well. Next time, maybe?

Finally in the pre-show area (we waited exactly 1 hr), Jim got freaked out when they showed the crash test, it was very funny. As if they would really crash us...All in all - we really liked the ride and we really liked the queue. I would do the queue once a trip definitely. We wanted to stay around and see the stuff that they had at the exit, but we were getting hungry and eventually needed to head back to MGM.

My favorite place to eat in Future World: the Land. It took me a while to decide (and that was okay since there were no line) but I ended up with a chili and cheese baked potato and soup. Jim got pasta with garlic bread and a potato, med coke and two waters please. (12.88 for the potato and pasta, 2.13 for the soup) The potato was good, and the soup was okay. Afterwards - we were thinking about another potato (we really liked it) but the line was now quite long. The Land ride also had a line so we skipped it and started our way back to MGM.

Oh yes, I wanted to sit by the fountain area - rushing water always has an appeal to me even in a food court setting - Jim however set his food on a table with one of those umbrella things. I hate those things since the umbrella pole hinders movement around the table. But Jim wanted the extra light that it had. We ended up with the umbrella.

We hoofed it over the International Gateway. We could see the MGM boat approaching the Boardwalk and figured we weren't going to make that one so we went to the Yacht Club. My what a walk. Jim loved taking the boats but he didn't care for the walk. He sat outside this time even though the boat was air-conditioned and he had been complaining about the heat. He eventually came back in and a whole family took his place outside.

When we got back to MGM we headed for Muppets 3D and ran into Eric and John on the way. Apparently they did everything there already with no waits - not bad for the end of July! They decided to wait for us after the Muppets (Eric said he couldn't take it again - what??? Can't take the Muppets again???) Kermit was wonderful as usual, and I got a little choked up thinking about Jim Henson. Afterwards, John and Eric went to show us the rope by Indiana Jones (the don't pull rope, rope). That was pretty funny and I had never noticed it before.

We went back to the Fantasmic! area where people were just sitting around. I decided since we're in the area and we have another hour before they let us in, why not Tower of Terror? (seems reasonable, right?) Well, no one else was game - but since Jim is my hubby, he was forcibly recruited. We had a 30 minute wait, but it's either 30 minutes for ToT or just sitting outside. I loved it of course - but that's when I found out exactly how much Jim HATES this ride. Apparently, he'll do it once since he figures he's here, but he didn't want to do it again. Sigh. I need another thrill ride person.

After this revealing revelation, we got a very frozen mickey ($2.00) and waited outside with John and Eric. When they finally let us it, it was only to stop us about 1/2 way there while we watched the 9:15pm show empty out. It was very hot and very crowded. The squeeze breezes were wonderful!!! I would say we stood there for about 20 minutes before we finally hit the theatre. No one was terribly happy. (I was glad to finally get to the theatre as we were behind a very PDA couple with some personal family problems that they would discuss between PDAs) We got the Scar section with a good view of the bellhops. They were HILARIOUS! I could have watched them the entire time!

As for Fantasmic! I guess I was expecting something else, but I did like it. The Pocahontas scene was good in and of itself, but did seem slightly out of place. However, Jim LOVED it. (Pocahontas is one of his faves) Of the nighttime stuff, Fantasmic was his favorite (mine is still Illuminations).

Exiting the theatre is still a nightmare, but doesn't have to be a big headache if you just take your time (which we didn't). I think Eric was slightly overdone as he almost ran into car on the way back. Otherwise, a very packed first day in the parks. Tomorrow, the Magic Kingdom.

Daily Costs:

Muppet Stuff $44.26

Lunch - Backlot $11.77

Dinner - The Land $12.88

Dinner - The Land $ 2.13

Frozen Mickey $ 2.00

Total = $73.04

Day Three - (7/27/99 - Tuesday)

Today was Magic Kingdom day. We woke up and were all ready by 8:20am. Got to the parking lot and got the Pluto lot and tried to decide to either hoof it or wait for the tram. Seeing as how the tram was about to reach us, we waited. Good thing, that would have been a fairly long hike. We exited the tram and just made the monorail and enter the wonderful wonderful gates of the Magic Kingdom at 8:50am. At this point I wish I could say we slowly sauntered down Main Street and took in all the sights and smells. But alas, well, we kinda speed-walked to the Tomorrowland rope drop while I twisted my neck like an owl trying to catch all the details (and I'm sure I ran into some people walking like that).

Right at 9am they dropped the rope and we headed to Alien Encounter (following the unoffical guide). We had to wait for the first set to go in and then it was our turn. I would like to just see the pre-show for Skippy and skip the actual stuff. I do not like this attraction. I think my imagination gets the better of me, so I go through this one sitting as far from the back of seat as possible, cover my neck and stare at the floor. Jim handles it fine (I guess as long as there's no motion he's okay) and John and Eric didn't think it was that scary. John had read the dire warnings the UOG gives for kids and thought it would be worse. Well, Tomorrowland was already packed, but we headed to Space Mountain since the line was still inside the building. We had about a 20 minutes wait - we chose the right hand side. I like the monitors that they have going. It keeps me occupied and it was about just the right length too. I think I like the left side better.

When we exited (I really like the exit of Space Mountain) it was 10am and there was no line at the Time Keeper so we went there. We had the 8 minute wait for the preshow, but it was nice and cool inside. I love this show. This is probably my favorite circlevision show, I don't care for Canada or China's. When we finished this it was 10:40am. We wanted to catch the Carousel of Progess, but since it was going to open until 11, we hopped on the TTA thinking that when we got off, it would be right about 11. Well, it was but we walked a little too slow to catch the first show. Oh well. CoP is Jim's favorite. He loves singing "It's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" and I love watching the changes in technology. I wish they could add a couple of scenes.

When we exited, Tomorrowland was really crowded, so we decided to skip the rest (we should not have skipped Buzz - we ended riding it multiple times). Since it was close to lunch I led the way to Liberty Square. It was completely deserted. There was no line for Hall of Presidents, but we decided to eat first. I wanted Columbia Harbor House. I was going to get the clam chowder in a bread bowl but ended up getting the vegetarian chili. The guys ended up getting chicken fingers. ($13.15) Jim got a bag of baby carrots with his chicken that we both needed - raw uncooked vegetables are something you don't take for granted when you realize that the majority of your meals might be fried. The chili was pretty good but the bread was a little tough.

After lunch, Liberty Square was packed. Quite a change in the 30-40 minutes we were eating. We went to the Hall of Presidents, which I had NEVER seen. It wasn't bad, but I like the American Adventure better. I thought it would be more presidents and less film. I did watch Polk wiggle his feet the entire time.

We then went to see the Haunted Mansion, but the line was too long so we skipped and went to Frontierland. The line for Splash Mountain was snaking all the way to the parade entrance. The line for Thunder Mountain wasn't as bad, but it was still long enough that we skipped it too. We then headed to Adventureland and ran on to Pirates (no wait at all) and walked through Swiss Family. I love this tree. I don't think Eric and John really cared for it, but I love it. I like the water system and watching it make it to the kitchen especially.

After this we kinda just looked around wondering whether to try and just go ahead and do the Mtns, instead as we walked and wondered we wandered into the Tiki Birds. I hadn't seen this since the very first time I was at Disney and I HATED it. I remember being SOOO BORED during the original show, that since then I never went back. Well, I knew they had changed it, and there was no wait for it, so we did it. And, well, I liked it. I really liked the change (of course I don't remember the original one other than the fact that i didn't like it) that now, I would do it again.

It was now 2:30pm, and figuring that people would be lining up for the parade, we headed to Thunder Mountain. The wait was about 25 minutes, ok. This is my second favorite Mountain (the first being Splash). After running around all day, Jim and I were quite tired. Splash Mountain had an hour wait and John had his checklist he wanted to go through so we decided to split up and meet at the Plaza at 6pm. Jim and I hopped on the next available train with our own row toward the back. We went around 1 2/3 times and got off at Toontown. We thought it was very commercial (who am I kidding???) to have Colors of the Wind playing as you go by the Indian village. But it cooled us off.

We took the scenic walk to tomorrowland. Wow, what a change in noise level just being on that path. We got on the TTA (no wait of course) and stayed on it twice - I love this ride it's sooo relaxing. I think that's what's missing in MGM - there isn't anything there that is air conditioned or cooling that you can just stay on/in other than the food places. In Epcot we had the Living Seas and MK we had the TTA.

After we got off the TTA I decided I wanted a hot dog. And not just any hot dog. A hot dog from Casey's. We got a grand slam and split it so I could put all the sauerkraut I could handle on it and Jim wouldn't have to try and eat it. I love their hot dogs and their fixings for it. The sauerkraut was wonderful. We ate it near the bleacher area and watched the cartoons they had running. ($5.73 hotdog and coke)

We then went through the castle (you _have_ to do this) and headed to Snow White. I liked it better when the Queen would pop out at you. This was a little too tame. We headed back to Tomorrowland and did Buzz Lightyear. It was a 30 minute wait but we LOVED IT. My score was 195200 versus Jim's 135100. Jim was controlling the spinner. We wanted to do it again, but it was nearing the time we were supposed to meet John and Eric. They were already there sitting a table, and they had already eaten. They hadn't done BL so we got them to go on it with us. This time I spun the vehicle and well, my score really suffered - I got 26K Jim got 96K. Ouch. But jim did keep grabbing the spinner away from me.

We headed for Fantasyland and waited for the Pooh ride. While in line a small band came and played to the people in the queue, they were quite good but I figure they must have been burning in those suits. The pooh ride was great - I loved the swaying feeling you get at the end. I really liked this ride. Eric liked this ride a lot too.

We passed by It's a small World, and so with a 10 minute wait we of course had to do it. They're newbies, right? We headed to Peter Pan next, where the wait was another 30 minutes and the band showed up again. They played "In the Mood" and Jim and I were going to try and dance, but it was a little too crowded. Peter Pan is one of my faves in Fantasyland - but Pooh is darn good.

Another thing that I've never done was the Country Bears so we stopped there. I loved it! We couldn't always hear them, but what we could hear was funny. This is probably going to be a repeat for me (of course _everything_ is a repeat for me). By this time Jim and I really needed to eat so we went to Pecos Bill, Eric, prompted by the food carts, went to go get a turkey leg and John just waited for us. We got two burgers (again, both with cheese) and drinks ($14.69), the fixings bar here was good.

By the way, during the time we were separated, Eric and John did the Haunted Mansion (they said with no wait), the train and Tom Sawyer's Island.

It was getting close to parade time, so we decided to stake out a position. My fallacy was in thinking that the parade started where it actually ended. So we ended up waiting for quite some time, perhaps slightly peeving John. What I had wanted to do was to was watch the parade at the beginning and then hightail it over to the Jungle Cruise and be in time to stake a position along Mainstreet for the fireworks. Well, whatever. While waiting for the parade, there were still lots of people crossing back and forth between the ropes and kids climbing up on the fences and trashcans until the CMs came (it continued after they left too). Eric at this point developed a theory (actually it's a hypothesis since it hasn't been proven yet). We had a great view of the Splash Mountain splashes. Well, his hypothesis is that the volume of screaming is inversely proportional to the amount of splash. The reasoning behind this: if you have a boatload of girls, on average, they will weigh less than a boatful of guys but scream much louder. For maybe about 60% of the splashes, it seemed to correlate. More study needs to be done to determine the true nature of this correlation. Can we please have some grant money?

The Main Street Electrical Parade is the one I remember from my very first visit. I love it. That's not to say I don't love SpectroMagic. I love them both. I especially love Cinderella's mice and her carriage. Eric seemed to enjoy it. Jim's not all that into parade, but he did wave to everyone (and believes Cinderella waved directly back at him). I had to change film during Pete's Dragon, so I missed pics of that, and it turns out Eric's pictures didn't turn out.

Right after the parade ended, we hightailed it to the Jungle cruise. Adventureland was deserted - but our Jungle Cruise was at max capacity (with no wait). I'd say we had a good cruise, since a) it was at night b) the group we were with were into it c) the skipper was into it as well.

After the cruise, we headed toward Main Street and made it to the Crystal Palace when the fireworks started. I LOVE fireworks. I like the noise especially. And I know you can see them from whereever in the park, but to see them over the castle...wow. John and Eric wanted to call it quits (which is why we went for the earlier parade) and we headed toward the exits (sigh, I love Main Street at night with all the lighted buildings, it's one of favorite scenes). We decided to take the ferry since the line to the monorail was jammed pack. We just missed one, so when we got on ours, we had our pick of seats. My pick - leaning by the rails. I figure everyone else would be more tired than me, so they can have the seats and the crowds. I was leaning out by the rails staring back at the Magic Kingdom across the lagoon. And despite the great crowds inside the boat, where I was - it was quiet and there was a nice nighttime breeze. And, as I would like to think, to reward me for appreciating the quieter moments in life - the Electrical Water Parade started, making me smile at all the "oooh's" that arose. Then of course my rail became crowded, but that was okay.

We got back by 10:30 or 11, and went for a swim when we heard a double boom. Apparently the shuttle just landed. All in all, a nice day.

Daily Costs:

Lunch - Columbia Harbor House $13.15

Dinner - Pecos Bill $14.69

Snack - Casey's $ 5.73

Total = $33.57

Day Four - (7/28/99 - Wednesday)

Plan was to start at Epcot. We arrived at 8:45am. Jim and I had PS at Spoodles for breakfast at 9:30am. Spaceship Earth and Test Track were already opened. As much as I would have liked to have sprinted to Test Track - I definitely wanted to get breakfast. And actually, I believe we both wanted to ride Spaceship Earth more (Jim likes that one). We took a leisurely walk towards the World Showcase. I really enjoy the serenity of Epcot in the morning - it was especially enhanced when we strolled through the WS with no one else there. Wonderful.

We caught the boat going to the Boardwalk and got to Spoodles at 9:30am exactly. It wasn't crowded at all (this is a trend I noticed, I made PS at all the sit-downs and none of them had waits except for Cape May). The food was good. Our waiter, Eric, was slow in first coming for our drink order but quite expedient afterwards. Jim ordered an omelet with everything (comes with the buffet) and finished about 3/4 of it. I didn't take that many notes, but I remember really like the rotolo they were trying out. They no longer did pancakes, and the mickey waffles I didn't like so much. They did have smoked salmon (which is why I wanted to eat here, otherwise we would have headed straight for Norway, which Jim had no particular hankering for except for the CM's). After a stuffed breakfast, $26.50+tip, (they had some interesting cold items that I never got around to trying) we checked out the Boardwalk.

We entered through the bottom and ran into some breakfast spread they had out for some group. The area looked very nice, turns out we were in the Inn side. We eventually meandered into the lobby area. Wow. Very nice. I used to think that the Boardwalk was not to my liking...but y'know...I think I could manage. I would have loved to check out the Villas portion, but I also wanted to get back to Epcot. We took another slow walk back (jim wanted to take the boat) and I took pictures of some bird with really big feet.

As we walked back through the World Showcase, we started discussing the physics of water droplets (hold on non-science people, this'll be short). Jim, in his Jim sort of way, started on some random topic. Why does the water splash back up when something hits it - like another water droplet or a bowling ball. We discussed whether it's the force exerted on in (Newton's 3rd law (???) of equal and opposite reaction) or momentum. Whatever it was, Jim didn't agree with me and we got into a slight tiff because he of course had his preconceived answer which he had already well thought out. Which is of course opposed to my answer which I had to conjure up after a breakfast buffet. Anyway, the reason I remember this is because we were discussing this as we crossed the border between the WS and FW - it was before 11 so there was a crowd waiting to cross. The CM at the rope noted that we were having a disagreement and urged Jim to agree with me. It was kinda neat crossing the otherway - I would have liked to savor it more, but well, we were arguing about water.

In the end, I believe he was "more" right. Though I don't think I was entirely wrong ;>

We headed up to HISTA, no line, but they were experiencing some technical difficulties. Whatever, we decided to wait it out. The CM tried to entertain us with trivia questions, of which I answered the how many bricks in Cinderella's castle (zero). Jim was reading his book. I believe by this day he had finished one. Unfortunately for him, he had brought only two more, he finished them all two days before our trip ended. Luckily for me, it meant I had two days with someone to talk to in line. We waited only a couple minutes more before they let us into the preshow. I love watching this show for the audience reaction - especially to the little mickeys running about.

After HISTA, we decided to amuse ourselves (and avail ourselves to free beverages) at Ice Station Cool. I would estimate that we spent 30 minutes to an hour here just watching people. I find it very amusing. And since Jim had already been the subject to my cruel joke, he joined me in watching people enter and haplessly drink whatever they saw. It was fun. Jim said it was kinda mean, but he was watching with me.

We finally left for the Wonders of Life and went straight to Cranium Command. I really like this one. The CM in this show pulled the "reach under your seat for your 3-D glasses" stunt here. After CC, we went to the Making of Me. This is one of those that I have NEVER seen. It was really good! Martin Short was pretty funny in it.

We rested here a bit (on some hidden side bench). One of us took a small nap (since I don't remember who, it was probably me). We then headed to the forced perspective room. I love it. I think it's the neatest thing and I've always wanted to see what its like. Jim, however, still doesn't get it. Sigh.

We then checked out the Circle of Life which we have never seen. Well, I like the preshow part where you watch stuff on video screens. The show itself...well, they really drum it in. I mean really really drum it in. I'm all for being environmentally responsible, but I'm always wary about people who advertise overkill (there's a pun in there somewhere I'm sure).

Did you know there's a side area near the Garden Grill??? We had no idea it was there! Very nice and quiet. We were going to sit there for a bit, but I wanted something sweet. I picked up peanut butter cheesecake (okay) and a coke ($5.68). I was watching the exit by Food Rocks! and when a whole bunch of people walked out, I grabbed Jim and we just made it to the next showing. Again, another thing I had never seen. We thought it was pretty funny.

Oh yes, I think the Land is a big gathering place for tour groups. We saw no less than three different sets of T-shirts congregating in the food court area trying to organize themselves.

Living with the Land was still too busy, so we skipped it (but I do love this ride). We wanted to ride Spaceship Earth, but that was too long of a wait. So instead, we headed to the Magic Kingdom specifically for Buzz Lightyear. It was a 15 minute wait. Jim got 237200 and I got 136800. Respectable, but I lost. Argh. I hate losing, especially video games with Jim. So we went again. This time was ahead before we got to the last room - but the ride broke down and when it did, it wiped out our scores, so in the last room I was able to get a couple thousand points and beat him.

We wanted to go again, but the line was too long. Jim had said he wanted to see what the Jungle Cruise was like during the day. So we went there. About a 5 minute wait. It was hot. And I think Jim now agrees it's better at night.

The Haunted Mansion had a short line outside, we ended up with a 10 minute wait to get inside, but another 5 minute wait for a buggy (some people do NOT know how to line up). We then checked Splash Mountain, but it was too long, so we left and took the Resort monorail. I wanted to see the Grand Floridian. But then realized that after the Contemporary, the TTC was the next stop. So we got off there instead. While on the monorail though, we saw this great family with adopted kids (my belief only; the parents were caucasian and the kids were asian, and the kids were referring to her as mom). They seemed to be explaining all sorts of stuff to the kids about Disney and seemed very patient. It was really quite nice to see.

When we passed over Epcot from the monorail, you could see all the construction that was going on inside the barricades. I don't see why they had to tear it all up, but I'll wait and see the final results in June (cross my fingers). Then it started to rain. It wasn't a straight down rain. It was almost horizontal rain. Yech. Instead of trying to wait out the rain (which is what some people were doing) we made a run for it to the first gift shop to buy ponchos. After we stepped out, it stopped raining. Oh well. We were heading to Spaceship Earth (we saw John and Eric in line) but due to the rain, that line had grown. So we headed to Mexico. We looked around alittle bit. I love the interior of Mexico and I guess one day we will eat there except that Jim hates places with dim lighting since he can't see the food. Sigh. So much for romantic ambiance.

We then headed to Norway to just look around. As I'm writing this, I realize that we've never gone into the church or the ship. But I like the pavillion overall. We made our way to China where we decided to eat dinner (15.48 - two dinners, waters, and a large coke). It was okay. Standard fare, but I did notice that had cool stuff like red bean ice cream (YUM) and lychees. But we didn't get it. We then browsed a little in the shop. Jim was looking for transformer knockoffs, but he didn't find any. We skipped the movie and I believe we caught the acrobats - probably half way through the act. Wow. As we left I remembered that I didn't want to visit the China pavillion at all on grounds of political reasons - due to the China-Taiwan goings on. We kicked ourselves afterwards.

We were supposed to be meeting with John and Eric at 7pm in front of the fountains. So we headed back to FutureWorld. We got there early - 6:30 so we went to Ice Station Cool. That place is quickly becoming a favorite. I immediately got some Vegitabeta (the Japanese drink) and waited for a Beverly victim. I slightly feel like one of those nature- shows camera people. Just sitting and waiting. Stalking our intended subject - the innocent tourist who will unknowingly get bitten by the Beverly. It's like watching the snake catch the mouse. We finally saw a little boy make the most scrunched up face ever. And we left.

We found a bench outside and watched the fountains while waiting for John and Eric. It was 6:45pm - slightly odd since they've always been WAY early. Well, it reached 7pm and no John and Eric. Quite odd. Jim decided to walk around a bit and came back with John! They had been sitting at the outside patio area of Pasta Piazza?? right above us!!

Together we headed to Innoventions for a group postcard to send back to our research group. We had to wait for this one group that was sending like 3 postcards - we finally went to a different line. We also did the home theatre experience. That was slightly interesting. Definitely in the old Innoventions style. I like the flat screen tv, really liked the HDTV and could really care less for my seat bottom to boom loudly with bass. Well, Eric being the gadget crazy person he is - really loved the personal home theatre and decided he wanted one of those. Whatever.

Tonight we were going to catch Illuminations, so we started to walk back to the World Showcase - we stopped in front of the UK and Canada - but the benches that were unoccupied were facing the other way (which would have given us a good view of Off Kilter's later performance - which we ended up NEVER catching). So headed to France. The bridge was totally empty so we parked ourselves there. John, Eric and Jim talked while I kept glancing over the France. Come on! There are _shops_ there and there are _pastries_ there! Like I'm going to just sit on the bridge for that long! I headed over the France and went to the perfume shop. I bought a little sampler of perfume, lotion and whatnot for Lynn who was taking care of our birds ($17.49). The gentleman in France was really selling the stuff, he sprayed this little girl and gave her perfume samples - she was thrilled.

I also checked out the Patisserie - but there was quite a long line there. Oh well. I was supposed to pick a drink up for Jim too. I was thinking about getting some wine (by the glass) while there, but I tend to get giddy and then rather tired after just a glass.

I headed back to the bridge where the party boats and pontoons had settled below. Someone was celebrating a birthday! Everyone around sang "Happy Birthday" and the boat seemed very festive.

Illuminations. I know some people don't like it. I love it. This is my favorite nighttime event. It was gorgeous. And I love their fireworks coordination. Sigh. I would have liked to have seen it again (but you'll see I didn't get to...)

We made it back eventually and fell right to sleep.

Spoodles - breakfast $26.50

France - gift $17.49

Dinner - Lotus Blossom Café $15.48

Ponchos (2) $ 9.99

Snack - The Land $ 5.68

Total = $75.14

Day Five - (7/29/99 - Thursday)

Well, today we were splitting up. John and Eric - who have never been down to Florida - were going to the "other" park. Which is fine for them since I figure that Universal might have more that would grab their attention - however - Universal for some reason just does not "do" it for me. And since we have paid for annual passes, Jim being slightly che...frugal in nature, would rather not waste a day. So, this morning, Eric and John dropped us off at Animal Kingdom (not before we missed the entrance and ended up at the back way for the employees). I should add - by this point we were quite loving the AP free parking -"flash and pass". The nice parking attendant pointed out where they could drop us off and we were off. And let me just say - wow. That may rest as my preamble to Animal Kingdom, now, our second most favorite park after Epcot.

Okay, so yes, the parking lot is a big big concrete piece of oblivion. But this just contrasts oh so highly when you enter the park. We got there about 8:30 or so, it was just interesting to enter and park and totally not know where you are. We saw the artimals - praying mantis and some birds. I wanted to explore the Oasis, but I also wanted to get to the Safari. So I made a mental note to take the Road Less Traveled (Jim and I used this term a lot in our visit to AK) on the way back. I gaped at the Tree of Life - its huge. And we followed the map (somewhat) to Africa.

Here was our first encounter with FastPass. They were handing out fliers at the front gate about the FastPass system - but thanks to the newsgroup - I already knew how it worked. It works WONDERFULLY. We got to the safari. The standby line was 40 minutes - projected arrival time - 9:40. The fastpass line would let us at 9:50. 10 minutes later, yes. But, there's a trail nearby - we could do that while we "waited". We got our tickets (please remember that there are dispenser all the way around - there were lines at the first two dispensers and NO lines at the next 5) and went on the Pangani Trail.

As soon as you enter the trail - it was a totally different environment. Yes, it seemed more humid in here - but less hot due to the shade. And btw, I love the humidity. I always figure, once you stop fighting the humidity and let it just saturate your body - it's much easier to get through the day than trying to stay dry and cool. The woods around were wonderful. I was always staring up trying to find birds. Which we found after the molerat exhibit. There was a CM right before the molerats with a turtle and she was answering questions about it. There was a line to view the mole rats so we skipped it and headed out. Right outside was birdie heaven. There were these birds with rather large beaks. The CM said they would pick up large sticks to take back to their nests. Most people just kept walking past this little area - but for those that were patient - this fairly large black bird would swoop down eyeing the stick - pick it up and leave. Way cool. Here I was also able to catch a bird with some brilliant but subtle blue coloring and well as some more brightly colored birds (I wish I had written down the names) and my especially favorite African Grey Parrots!! I have only seen them in pet stores and as scientific studies on animal intelligence. It was really wonderful to see them in their "environment".

Jim does not share my enthusiasm for birds, so he had skipped on ahead a bit. I walked slowly to catch up with him, pointing out some birds to some little kids who were trying to find them on the way. (I would LOVE to be a CM in this area!) I saw various types of ducks before catching up with Jim who had found what he likes to look at - fish. We watched the little guys (very colorful) for a bit and then walked on to the hippos. Quite neat, though the hippos were at the far end away from the viewing area. I know other people have said that their zoos have these underwater viewings for hippos - but I've never seen it so I thought it was neat.

We also saw (through a very big crowd of people) a mother gorilla with her baby. Really cute. Though I would think they would get very hot outside.

By the time we got out of the trail (I have to admit we sped it up a little after the hippos), we had 10 minutes until our fastpass (FP from now on) time. Tuskers House is convenient to the Safari so we went in there to get some water. The water there is actually by the service area where the napkins and plasticware are kept, along with paper cups. Very convenient - no waiting in line for just water! We also checked out the plastic display food - looked quite good.

Well, the time was now here - to see if FP was worth it. Yeppers it was. We showed our pass - and walked by this long line of people who were just standing there (I did feel kinda bad - but I got over it when thinking that they actually _just_ got in line while we've been "waiting" for 40 minutes). We get to the point where they actually take the tickets and merge the two line and on a bus all within 5 minutes. Cool. (It might have been just a tad bit longer, but we were a party of two! Party of two helps SOOO much!) The safari was good - the giraffes and hippos were both out and about (the hippos were out of the water). Jim and I were sitting in the last row, so when we passed near the elephant area we could turn around and see them on the overhang. The poacher thing was "okay". The CM at the end wasn't quite ready when we approached.

It wasn't yet lunch time when we finished the safari and we knew we wanted to eat at the Tusker House, so we headed to Conservation Station. We just missed a train. I love the theming they have here. Quite detailed. The CS area has quite a different feel than the rest of the park. But I still like it. We looked some at the drawings kids had made and started walking. Now, when I read other people's reports about the walk to CS, it seemed really long. Maybe because I was expecting a really long walk or just enjoying the foliage (or possibly because we didn't have kids with us????) it didn't seem that bad. Oh yeah, I really liked the strollers they have there.

Inside the building we touched a snake (they had you use anti-bac. lotion afterwards), watched a bird being wheeled away from the vets, checked out little baby birds and baby tommys (too cute). I also checked out the menu they had for their parrots to see how well I'm feeding mine (okay).

We then did Grandmother Willow's Rainforest. The line for this was on and off. Unfortunately, we caught the line. Fortunately, we didn't miss the facts and other diversions they had for the queue. Neat stuff (but I love watching nature shows and the like). I like the sound booth, but yes, the conservation message is rather drummed in (but you _are_ in CONSERVATION station).

We left the building (sigh, it was air conditioned) and caught most of the Scoop on Poop show. The lady had a scarlet macaw with her (I have an idea of what kind of poop they make!). It was a very cute show with good involvement from the kids.

After CS, we headed to Tuskers for lunch. I believe we hit it around 11:30 or so. There wasn't much of a line at all. Jim ordered the chicken satay (or was it just a peanut crusted chicken?) and I had the rotisserie chicken. Both were very good - very different from your normal fast food stuff. Also more expensive. Total: 18.77.

After lunch (and refilling our large cup of leftover ice from the coke with water - you definitely need it here), we headed to Asia. Well, we tried to head to Asia. Somehow, we ended up lost in one of the Tree of Life trails. They're very diverting. Ran into some several creatures here (that I forgot the names of). We also saw the line for It's Tough to be a Bug. Ouch it was long. We decided to skip that for now. We eventually made it out and finally crossed the bridge into Asia.

So, Asia. Hm, it's kinda crowded here. I wanted to see the Wonders of Flight show (of course!) and the Kali River Rapids ride. There was a show in about 10 minutes, so we decided to do the Fast Pass thing. There was a hold up getting the tickets (some of the machines were down and some people didn't understand how it worked), but we eventually got them and hurried back into the Wonders of Flight show (or is it Flight of Wonders? Probably FoW.). Considering that this is one of those shows that depends on how cooperative the stars are, it was quite good. I got to see Groucho, the singing Amazon parrot, that showed up on the Tonight Show earlier. But my favorite bird was the one that came out and would take a gecko (or a rubber lizard) and bash it against a rock.

After the show we still had about 15-20 minutes until our fast pass. So we decided we would find a place to sit and wait. So did everyone else. A lot of people were milling around the entrance to the standby line as well as the FP line (in fact I didn't realize it was the FP line until it was time). And there were people milling around the whole area just waiting. Not good. And definitely not enough places to sit here. We didn't want to do the Trek since we figured we didn't have that long to wait.

When we finally did get in line (which there was essentially none for FP, except for people who didn't understand how FP worked), we waited for about 8 minutes before getting on our raft. The queue was very gorgeous (but I wouldn't want to wait in it considering how hot it was). We got wet. We got very very wet. Of course, reading the newsgroup, I had been forewarned. Jim had not (otherwise I would not have been able to get him on the ride at all). I loaded our stuff under the plastic sheet they had (it did keep it dry), and we got wet. The beginning of the ride is wonderful. Rising up into the mist - then you hear the water. And for those facing the water - you see it coming - but it isn't coming for you - only for the people who couldn't see it coming. Jim and I could not see it coming. The people opposite us, were laughing. Eventually they got wet too, but definitely not as wet as us. The rest of the ride is just kinda well, boring. There is only one small drop and then its over. Sigh. At any rate, I wouldn't do this again without fastpass. And we probably will never do it again now that Jim knows that he _will_ get wet.

Since we were so wet - we thought perhaps we would get dry by going through the Majarajah trek. Not really. It was probably too humid to get as dry as we wanted to be. So, we didn't really enjoy the trek that much at the beginning. When we reached the tiger area we decided to sit on the concrete benches that were hot and rotate ourselves like rotisserie chicken (did I mention how wet we were?). We did like the bats - neat creatures (and by the way, are all the bats they have male?). And then towards the end - lots and lots of beautiful birds. They had lots of gorgeously plumed birds just running and hiding under foliage on the ground. If you just stopped and looked for a minute, you could see quite a few - some doing weird things.

We were both kinda tired and a little grumpy (that comes from still having very soaked shorts that now seem to rub your legs raw) so we slowly walked to the Dinosaur area. This place is packed. Walking in we did see them giving out water (which we took - it was nice and COLD). We picked up FP's at CTX and meandered to Dinosaur Jubilee and the Research area. The Jubilee was okay. Some little stage show just ended, so we just sat there for a bit. Not quite air conditioned, but cooler. Jim likes looking at this stuff, but we were both kind of tired now (no Living Seas to rest quietly). The research station did have something Jim was excited to see. Whoever works in there (supposedly fellow grad students like ourselves) had set up in the window the T-rex Transformer toy Grimlock and the Transformer Beast Wars toy Megatron. Jim was thrilled. We took a couple of pictures (it not as if Jim doesn't have these toys...).

I wanted to see Tarzan Rocks! but it was closed for the day. So we decided to wait in Restaurantasaurus til our Fastpass time. So, this is McDonald's, huh? Not bad. Extremely crowded, but I like what they did with the place prop wise. Foodwise, we got a coke.

On to CTX. Disney bought Bill Nye's soul, huh? Once again the Science Guy was present. I like the waiting rotunda type chamber. Which is where the FP and the regular meet up. The ride itself was pretty good - maybe a little too jostling for me (I must be aging) and then imagination gets the better of me and I duck into Jim's sleeve for the Picture. We didn't buy it.

We took a nice leisurely walk back to the front and saw there was no line for ITTBAB. The queue is tremendously well done and it's kinda ashame to race through it. But since there was no line we could let other people pass us. I love the movie posters they have in the holding area and in the queue. Great!

The show - this is my favorite show along with Muppets. I knew about the stinger and the stink so I was prepared for that (Jim wasn't, heh, heh, heh) - but the very last effect - I was so not prepared for it! Quite a shock but hilarious! Jim really liked the show too. Coincidentally, he loves A Bug's Life (he even bought the movie without me prodding him).

We decided to head out and go to Epcot - on the way out we stopped by the stores (the way they place them its very hard not to). I picked up an AK t-shirt that was on clearance for 10 bucks but it's an XXL - sleepshirt! In the Oasis area we spent a little more time - saw the cockatoo (I believe it was a sulfur) and a hyacinth macaw. There was a CM by the macaw explaining that the feathers are not really blue but they're blue due to the sunlight reflection.

We took the Yacht/Beach Club bus back to the Epcot area. While going through the front is always neat since you confront the Ball, going the back way through the resorts and directly to the countries is just so comforting! We got off at the Yacht Club - I've never gotten a chance to look around it before. I really like it. I know people say its stuffier than the beach club - but I'm thinking not really. The only thing that would have me stay at the BC over the YC would be the distance from Epcot. One day....

Once Jim realized that we still had a several minute walk to epcot - we had to take the boat. We sat there and watched people at Stormalong Bay and we looked at the Boardwalk - and thought that maybe one day we will stay there. Sigh. Joining us for the boat was a family of four boys and a little girl (she was the youngest). The boys were only several years apart from each other - the oldest couldn't have been more than 13. They were all very rambunctious but happy as they posed in various permutations to take pictures. Of course I volunteered to take their picture - which they accepted. The mother then told me that its somewhat difficult to get a whole family picture. I hope it turned out well.

Since it's now almost 6 months since the trip - I don't remember the order of the boat trip. It doesn't really matter since in all instances Jim would really rather take the boat. We got off at the International Gateway and headed for France where we saw Impressions de France - we didn't get to see this during our honeymoon. We both liked it and the CM working there was apparently new and a favorite of the male CM's there as they led cheers for her before and after the show.

We headed down to the UK where I wanted to finally catch the World Showcase Players. They performed King Arthur and the Holy Grail (Grail Grail Grail - unh). I thought it was pretty funny. Jim thought it was a little too british in humor and didn't like it (he read his book). I love british humor and wish that for all the great programming the public tv stations here put on - there's none of the slightly zanier stuff like Black Adder or 'Allo 'Allo. Jim can't stand those shows.

After the show we did a slow walk back to the IG for our PS at CMC in the BC. (quick - get out your decoder rings) Cape May looked quite packed and we had a ten minute wait (I'm glad we were a small party). When we came here for our honeymoon, they didn't have the clams and mussels so this was really our first experience. It doesn't really matter since Jim's not too keen on seafood. I loved it. Yes, I know there are better clams to be had, but still. And the fried shrimp on the children's buffet was SO good! There were lines for all sides of the buffet but it was all quite good. Jim likes it too - so there's some selection for non seafood eaters.

And according to my notes, I apparently had carrot cake, apple pie and chocolate cake. I hope I had small piece of each. Total 42.30

We headed back into Epcot around 8:30 and went toward futureworld. I would have loved to stay around for another illuminations, but we were supposed to meet John and Eric at Downtown Disney.

Well, I suppose had we caught a bus at 8:30 we would have made it. But we hit Spaceship Earth - we hadn't done it yet!!! And of course there was no line so...

We finally caught a bus to PO/DxL. I suppose we should have taken the monorail to the TTC and caught a bus there instead. Oh well. I wanted to see some of these resorts anyways.

We got off at PO - didn't really see much of it but I guess I wouldn't mind staying there. The bus to DTD took us through to DxL - which did look quite nice.

At 9:50 we made it to DTD where John was waiting solo for us (quiet time for him). Eric got sick of waiting for us and was in the car - which had the A/C on. Sorry guys.

Summary of their day - they spent it at Universal Studios. Liked it. Really liked Terminator 3D, thought that was the coolest thing ever.

Expenses:

Lunch - Tuskers $18.77

Dinner - Cape May Cafe $48.50

coke $ 1.91

AK shirt $10.59

Total = $79.77

Day Six - (7/30/99 - Friday)

Eric and John head off for IOA today, so they drop us off at MGM at 8:45AM. They were letting people into the park - but the rope hadn't dropped yet. So we sat in the patio area of Starring Rolls (I think) feeding the birds crackers. Unfortunately, someone else had a cinnamon bun they were tossing so she won.

When they dropped the rope, we sauntered over to the GMR - everyone else was rushing to TOT and RnRC. I was hoping and hoping and hoping I would finally get the cowboy side. But alas, no. The line was short - but there was only one line and only the gangster scene. Sigh. I slightly feel like Don Music from Sesame Street (the guy who could never finish a song and bang his head on the piano "I'll never get it, never, never!").

Since we were going to do the stuff that we didn't do the first day we next headed to The Little Mermad - Jim had never seen it. And since there is usually a line later for this, I figure this was a good of a time as any. I never really liked the show - but it turns out Jim loved it. (He said he liked the laser stuff - but it was probably Ariel he liked)

When we exited, the line for Bear in the Big Blue House was starting so we hopped into that. I know its geared for preschoolers and we are gradschoolers - but anything associated with Jim Henson I watch at least once and I really loved Bear at first sight - so of course we had to see it. While in line a CM was selling the plush beanies of the characters - we bought Treelo and Bear ($12.70) - he also gave me the sticker they were handing out to the 6 year olds.

The show was cute - I love Bear. I love the puppetry involved with him. Quite neat. It was neat to see it with all these little kids there dancing with Bear and pointing out stuff. There was one girl in particular I remember. She was probably 7 or 8, and she didn't want to standup and dance with the other little kids (who were all about 1 to 2 years younger). You could _see_ she wanted too - and eventually she did. I would have liked to stand up too, but then I would have blocked quite a few little people.

The Disney Animation tour had no wait so we headed there next. I love this tour. This is my favorite thing to see at MGM (other than Muppet stuff). The movie animation is totally why I like Disney - I don't really care for the shows and I like the original characters okay but never really saw all that much of the stuff. But it's the animation process and the ability to really draw in the depth and motion into a movie that is wonderful. I wish they let you spend more time there. And I totally love that film with Walter Cronkite and Robin Williams. That is something they should never ever touch!

Jim is just okay with the tour.

We head out (after gawking at all the cells in the store) toward the backlot tour, and who do we see but Minnie just coming out from the back area! We're the first people she greets - quite privileged. She comes over and hugs us both and I proceed to accidentally tap her head too hard. It makes for a nice plastic thud. Sorry Minnie.

Quite embarrassed we head to the Backlot tour but like our last trip we get lured into the Backstage pass. Now, I don't know why we do this since I know they change very little of it, but we do. Jim finds the set kinda interesting (from Mortal Kombat I believe).

Lunch is up next and since the commissary is the closest we headed there. I was hesitant since the last time we ate there we had a tremendously long wait for burgers. Not this time. The place was almost empty and they had red beans and rice - Jim's favorite. He liked it so much he went back for another order. I had the kid's meal of chicken fingers which were really good and came in the ultra-cool purple Doug lunch box. The lunch box actually came in hand for packing later. They also had this side of some asian coleslawy salad thing - that was good too. It was a nice relaxing lunch after a nice relaxing morning. And of course we noted they were pushing all the ABC shows - fine by me - I love Peter Jennings.

After lunch we went back to do the Backlot tour. Still very little lines (I believe we've been rather lucky in that respect), and yet again I don't get wet sitting on the left. Oh well. The tour is essentially the same except they have George of the Jungle's treehouse. I don't believe we had seen the movie at this point so it made practically no impression on us.

The best part about the Backlot tour is that it dumps you in the AFI thing. Wonderful wonderful wonderful. Especially with the Muppets/Henson stuff they have there. I love this place! This time there was Kermit and Robin from The Muppet Christmas Carol, a Landstrider from the Dark Crystal and Pod People from the Dark Crystal! My middle sister would be so envious!! I made a note to definitely try and let my youngest sister know too - since she was supposed to be somewhere in Orlando and WDW.

Well, after everyone on the newsgroup extolling the virtues of the HoND show - I dragged Jim there. We ended up sitting in the bleachers - which was okay but it was so very very hot. The squeeze breezes were wonderful (Jim even admits they were worth the money). We missed most of the preshow which looked like it would have been good and I made it a mental note to always arrive early since the preshow is almost always as entertaining as the actual show. So, the actual show - quite good. I will admit I like HoND least of all the recent Disney movies.

Side story of why this is the least favorite: when they premiered it, they premiered it at the superdome in New Orleans. We live in Baton Rouge - so this was a very real possibility. Well, I heard that they were giving out tickets and I kept my eye out for it. My sister and I sent for the tickets, we got them (4) and were quite excited. My parents took this as a time for a little weekend trip to New Orleans and got a hotel room in the riverwalk - it would be a nice little family outing. Okay, but there are 5 of us and 4 tickets. Was that a problem? Noooooo. And why? Because I had a TEST that day!!! Because I was in a co-op program at LSU, I have to take courses every other semester - including summer. So I was taking Kinetics that summer and well...they had fun. My sister also finagled some cardboard cutouts from the displays there (of the gargoyles).

But this show was really good - well sung and performed. I really like the used of puppets/marionettes in it. We did the slow exit with the crowd - and by this point in the afternoon it was quite a crowd on this side of the park. We decided to head to the other side to catch BatB.

On the way to the other side, we passed a cart selling Bear merchandise, I was already regretting not buying the other two beanies - and *boom* here was a golden opportunity (my mom always uses this phrase, but she's usually referring to studying time) to pick up the others. So we got Ojo and Tutter. Total $12.72 (notice it's 2 cents more than in the line...) Unfortunately they didn't have Pip and Pop (pup??).

Since we're on this side....why not do RnRC???? We grab a FastPass for it - the wait was only 25 minutes but we wanted to see the BatB show and that was going to start shortly so we figured when we got out we would be able to just walk on RnRC. We got to the the preshow - 4 for a Dollar, I believe. Jim loved it. He likes musical stuff - I like "activity" stuff. We were sitting two rows behind this family that had a little boy _obsessed_ with Cogsworth. He would scream for him when he showed up. It was really kinda cute.

When we exited the show it wasn't quite time for our FPs, so we did a little browsing - I almost bought a towel set. Those FPs - they can really get ya...

This time on the coaster I noticed there were actually three points that you're upside down. The first day I had only noticed the first one. I really love this coaster.

The Mulan parade was going on when we left the park - we don't really have any interest in these types of parades. We really liked Mulan though.

We took the boat (of course) to Epcot. And headed straight for Ice Station Cool to a) drink sometime cold b) be somewhere with AC and c) to people watch. After watching people fall victim to their own relatives' practical jokes - we headed back to the WS. I was able to get Jim to go to the WS without fuss saying that we would go to Japan and he could see if there were any Japanese toys there. Well, while we were walking through Morocco - who should we run into? My sister! She was with her friends from school and they were heading out of Japan. They had spent the previous day at the MK (where they rode Splash Mtn some 5 times) and they were going to MGM the next day. For the trip they all got one day one park tickets. They were staying at the Days Inn so she gave me her room number since they couldn't call out from the hotel. Since the convention started Sunday, they weren't going to be able to go the AK. It was great seeing her there since I usually only get to see my family at Christmas. Though this summer was a little unusual since my mom was up in Rhode Island for a bit (which is within driving distance) and my parents sent my sister up there for a couple a weeks to keep her company. Then my middle sister decided to spend a year at UMass so I see her too - but still, kinda fun to run into your sister at WDW.

They were actually about to head over the Ice Station Cool, so I told her to try the Beverly...

Jim and I headed into Japan. We first went to the small little stand outside. He found some interesting stuff but nothing attention grabbing. I wanted to head into the museum, instead we headed into the dept store and BINGO. We hit the time sapper of the trip. Jim found a wall of Gundam (I don't really know) toys that are apparently similar to Transformers. So he nicely amused himself there. And I found...pearls. Wow. Actually, at first I was just browsing around the other stuff - I picked up some chopstick rests for friends that were in the shape of animals (cute) and looked at the tea sets.

Then I found the pearls. I just stood there and watched oyster after oyster being opened. Each time hearing the lady exclaim - "Oh, it's a beautiful pearl" "Oh, how large" "Oh, it's a very rare color". By the time Jim decided which toys to buy, I decided to buy a pearl. I picked a white 7mm pearl. The lady after me got two pearls in one oyster - she got the drums (they beat drums if you get a large pearl, say greater than 8mm or twins). I got the pearl set in a cage for a necklace. I rather like it.

While we waited for the pearl to be set, we went to go get dinner at the Yakitori house. Jim got the teriyaki something and I had udon noodles. The little small place they have to eat inside was full so we ate outside, despite how the weather and the food was hot - it was still comfortable. We later picked up my pearl and finally left the Japanese pavillion, which had sucked quite a few bucks out of us.

We walked a bit more thinking we could catch the American Adventure, instead we watched the end of the Lord of the Dance. By this time we needed to head to Downtown Disney. Being smarter this time, we went to the Yacht and Beach Club and waited at the Beach Club busstop for the DtD bus. A lot of people were waiting for it, there was finally a bus after about 1/2 hour. In fact there were two busses in a row for it. We got to our designated meeting place early at 8:50.

We exchanged stories - they loved IOA - especially Spiderman and the Hulk. Apparently their line luck was carrying over, as they had no wait at IOA either. On the way back we stopped by Publix to refuel (on Diet Pepsi for Eric). We also found Krispy Kreme donuts - we bought the holes. Haven't had them in a while.

Tomorrow, John takes the car to West Palm Beach for the wedding (you know, the real reason we came to florida).

Costs:

Bear Beanies (stand) $ 12.72

Bear Beanies (line) $ 12.70

Dinner - Yakitori House $ 14.37

Lunch - Commissary $ 15.80

Lunch - Commissary $ 2.65

Publix - junk food $ 8.89

Pearls and Toys - Japan $119.50 (ouch)

Total = $186.63

Here I would like to point out that while Jim and I were eating our dinner from the Yakitori House, my sister was apparently getting dinner at the Teppanyaki place!!

Day Seven - (7/31/99 - Saturday)

Since John needed to take the car to West Palm Beach - we all woke up at 6AM and were at the AK parking lot at 7:30 AM. John drove off for his wedding and Eric, Jim and I milled around the entrance until 7:45am where they let us into the Oasis, where we milled around some more. The Artimals came out and entertained us for a bit. Now, Eric likes to be first and special. So we figured we would do the same thing we did the day before, get a fast pass for the Safari and then go to the Trail.

When they let us through the Oasis, it was only to a rope at the bridge. So we waited some more. I got to watch flamingos eat (that was neat). Finally, the safari was open. The line was moving pretty fast, but we still went ahead and got the FPs since there were gorillas to see! Eric caught on to the concept, and seemed to warm up to it. I wasn't really sure how Eric would take to AK, since we would be mainly outside and it's more of a walking and seeing park (as opposed to a sit/ride park).

Well the Pangani Trails were great! We saw the mother and baby hippos right up against the glass. Way cool. We watched them for quite a bit. We also spent a lot of time watching the molerats since there was no line going through the building and of course I made them watch the birds. When we reached the gorillas we saw 4 of the bachelors eating and moving around. And there were only a handful of other people around. Definitely morning is the best way to view the trail. The meerkats were also out.

By the time we made it out it was time for FastPass. Eric saw the magic in the whole system as we by-passed slews of people. He loved it! I can not even begin to describe the look on his face as we just kept walking past all those people. The Safari was pretty good, there were elephants over us again and the giraffes got fairly close.

After the Safari, we skipped conservation station (we would be coming back to AK with John on Monday) and went to the Festival of the Lion King. We were in the Giraffe section. Jim and I loved the show. The arrangement of the show was quite good - I thought it would just be a retelling like the one in the MK, but it was more of a musical revue. Eric seemed to enjoy it too.

This area of the park is extremely high traffic - it took a while to get into the area and longer to get out. Somewhat of a headache. We skipped Pocahontas (I'm sure Jim regrets that) and since ITTBAB had no wait, we meadered through the Tree of Life and headed into the show. I made Eric hang back a little so we could get the center seats. I also didn't tell Eric any of the things that would happen - they really got him. As for me, well, I dodged them all - no way was I going to get stung, sprayed or crawled under!

I really wanted to see Tarzan Rocks since the day Jim and I were here the show was canceled. We got into the very long line that was out in the very hot sun to wait. Fortunately they have a drink cart out in the line (got a coke $2.25), but unfortunately the line is very unorganized and "bunchy". Well, my review of Tarzan Rocks! - It doesn't quite rock. The music was so very very loud. The rollerblading I was not so impressed with - one person skidded off the platform. However, the most wonderful saving grace of the whole show - and I know others already knew this - TARZAN. WHOOHOO. WOW. Who could think the real thing could look better than a drawing that could defy physics. Woooww. After he appeared it didn't matter that the rest of the show was loud and not great. My word - what a vineswinging-loincloth-wearing-muscledtoned hunk of man meat! (Okay, that is the most unPC I will be for the rest of the report except for this: Jim thought Jane and her little act were hot too).

So, I don't know what Eric thought of the show. I didn't really want to talk about it with them - but as we walked out I heard several women older than me express the same feelings (and their menfolk nicely accepting it).

After that nice little show, we got lunch at Flame Tree BBQ ($16.70, two plates and a coke). I had a BBQ chicken sandwich that was better than I expected. I wanted to sit down closer to the water but it was all crowded. After lunch, we decided to head to Epcot (we didn't want to do all of AK since John hadn't seen it yet). We took the bus over to Epcot, the line for Spaceship Earth was long so we headed to Ice Station Cool. Jim and Eric went in, I stayed out to watch the fountains. After the show, I went in and joined them. We then headed to Living with the Land - the line was still too long, so we went to the Living Seas instead, where we took turns taking naps. After we all rested, we headed to the WS. We ended up stopping at China to watch the acrobats - very bendable kids. Jim got an eggroll ($3.29). Then we headed to Norway - the line for Maelstrom was too long so we got some rice kreme instead ($4.03). Apparently, Eric already got some earlier in the week and really liked it. Browsed in shops at Germany and Italy, but then...but then we hit Japan.

I specifically wanted to come here to watch the candy lady. We were a bit early, but I told Eric what I was waiting for and he patiently waited with me. Jim had gone inside to look at toys. Since we were there waiting for her, she asked us first what we wanted - I got a green dragon, Eric got a cat. Really neat - I wish I could do that and that fast too. Afterwards, we went inside the department store and headed to the pearls....oh no....we watched one after another getting opened - captivating I tell'ya. And well, I bought another one - this time I picked one of those silver/blue colored pearls. I picked a ring setting this time. Eric seemed to think the pearl thing was pretty neat too. Jim found another toy he wanted (we really got the money sucked out of us this time).

After leaving Japan without spending any more money (finally) we saw Jafar at Morocco and did a little looking in the shops at France (didn't buy anything though), and made it in time for the World Showcase Players in Great Britain. They were doing the Grail again, I still thought it was funny and Eric seemed to enjoy it - Jim however still didn't understand it.

After the show we walked back to France to catch the Living Statues. We sat at a bench while the statue was "performing" with people's purses, hats, cameras etc. My timing for catching the stuff was working out pretty well as we caught the next showing of Lord of the Dance. Hmm, well I did like the dancing even if the taps was taped in. Jim liked the music part of it. So it worked out pretty well. Eric seemed to enjoy it too.

By this time it was dinner, and we were near Germany - I was thinking Biergarten - but the pocket was thinking fastfood. We got the sauerbraten (or whatever) and sauerkraut at Germany and ate there ($10.60). Eric and I both agree that the sauerkraut is really really good here. I did see a guy with an LSU t-shirt on over there - I wish I had been wearing mine.

We then did the Maelstrom at Norway with minimal wait and skipped the movie (I _have_ seen it several times). By this time everyone was staking out spots for Illuminations - I really really wanted to stay and watch it. Eric wanted to go home. So we headed toward the front and rode SE again and took a taxi back ($23.00 total, $15.33 our share). We got back at 9:30pm. It was the earliest we got back this week. Sigh, slightly peeved, but i guess for the sanity of everyone, it's best to let Eric rest.

One last thing - apparently, we committed a faux pas getting a taxi. The taxis are nicely lined up right before the resort buses, well the first one was a van and we thought that was for larger parties - apparently not. You're supposed to go to the first one. Oh well.

Daily Costs:

Taxi $ 15.33

Lunch - Flame Tree $ 16.70

Rice Kreme - Norway $ 4.03

Coke $ 2.25

Japan - Pearl $137.80

Toy $ 28.54

EggRoll - China $ 3.29

Dinner - Germany $ 10.60

Total = $218.54

Day Eight - (8/1/99 - Sunday)

(My notes are slimmer now, so these latter days are shorter)

So, John wasn't going to get back until mid-morning from West Palm Beach, so we slept in a little. We also did a little laundry (that is a wonderful wonderful benefit of getting a condo). John arrived - I forgot when, we gave him a coupla minutes and we headed back to the parks. Jim and I had PS for Le Cellier so we went to Epcot. We were a bit early for our PS, so we looked around the shop for a bit (lots of Anne of Green Gables stuff) and also hopped over to England. Le Cellier was not packed at all. But it was sooo good! Jim ordered something pasta that seemed to emphasized sundried tomatoes, and asked for no sun-dried tomatoes (which he got) and I got the buffalo steak and the cheddar cheese soup. The soup was pretty good (very rich) - but the steak was great! Jim also really liked the breadsticks. I was kinda curious as to why the Yukon has a sourdough festival, but the CM didn't seem to really know. ($55.33)

After lunch we headed to the UK again to catch...the World Showcase Players. By this time Jim was getting slightly annoyed. All the other players were different each time we saw it - except for this one guy (kinda cute too). I'm sure this guy thought I was some sort of loon for seeing the thing 3 times. I forgot, one of the times we saw it, there's a part where they ask someone to sing/scream??? for Gallahad - and this one lady from the audience did it quite operatically. I think it threw the Players a bit.

After Jim dragged me away from there, we headed to Ice Station Cool yet again (we're up to at least 8 now, I'm sure). We did our usually bit of people watching and then went to Test Track where we did the singles line. We rode in the same car and waited for a total of 3 minutes. We also did some of the activities at the end - but I always seemed to end up with a broken machine.

We trekked across to The Land with a 15 minute wait (one of my favorite rides). Grabbed a shake ($2.40) while we were leaving and headed to Innoventions where I played mancala on the computer (okay, yeah, I could be spending my time doing something else - but I like mancala and Jim won't always play it with me at home). It was about time to meet Eric and John - I thought we said in the front. Well, apparently not. I stayed at the front while it started to rain - Jim went off to go see if they were by Ice Station Cool (where he said they would be). And he was right. I was wrong. And it was raining something big. Poor John - the one time it's rained heavily - he left his poncho at the condo. When we all met up again, Eric was recounting what they had done. Apparently, they did the same things that we had done with Eric the day before. In fact, Eric bought a pearl for his mom and he also bought a tea set in Japan - which broke. I said - "You know, you could probably take that back and they'll exchange it". Eric said - "okay". So John, Eric and I trudged back to the WS (actually we caught the boat) and exchanged the teapot (this time they wrapped it nicely in a box). John recounted their adventures - Eric made them eat at Germany (Eric - _loved_ the sauerkraut), made them go to Japan, made them watch the Living Statues, and was about to make him watch the World Showcase Players when it started to rain. Due to the rain, Jim stayed in Innoventions during which time he sent me 3 internet postcards of himself in a mickey poncho.

After we got Eric's pot fixed, we headed back to the car and drove to the TTC to get to the MK. I asked to sit in the front, thinking the guys might think it kinda neat. We had to wait for the next monorail, and as we traveled to the Magic Kingdom - they were doing safety checks. Which means, the monorail would stop for several minutes at different markers and the drivers would be radioing each other back and forth (in addition our guy was in training). This was highly entertaining stuff for Eric.

After debarking, I had only two goals really - Buzz Lightyear to beat Jim and Splash the Mountain. Can you believe? We've been here for over a week and we haven't done Splash Mountain!!! Well, perhaps it was Kismet. I did not beat Jim. 147000 v. 67000. I just don't understand it at all! How could he be beating me? (other than the fact that he would swivel us around as I'm firing...) We grabbed dinner at comic ray's - I had a soup and sandwich - those things are HUGE! Jim had a burger. ($9.27 and $5.80)

Our timing was bad - we finished just as the parade was about to start - so hordes of people were lining up for the parade. And I, well, I decided to be like those salmon that keep jumping upstream (water = people other than us) trying to reach the promised land all the while knowing a grizzily (bear = huge stroller) is out to get you. Eric was like the salmon one length behind, telling you, you aren't jumping high enough - let him lead. Hmph.

We did finally make it to Splash mountain - where we also witnessed flagrant line jumping (people from outside the ropes but not at the entrance were just crossing over). We had about a 40 minute wait - but I figured if we didn't do it now - that was it. While we were in line, there was a lady in front who asked us how much longer the line was - I knew it still had a few more turns - so I told her and she left the line with her kid. I felt terrible! Sigh. This is one of those rides I love - much beyond the big drop too. Oh well.

Well, we finally got on a boat - and several boats ahead of us was this huge group. They kept splashing water at each other and rocking the boats. The CM's had to interrupt the ride several times to get them to stop. Very obnoxious behaviour. The ride otherwise was great. John originally thought it was just the drop and didn't realize the ride was so long. Waiting to see our picture - the CM covered up another log's picture that had just come up. Of course, the people on that long kept trying to reach over and pull the cover away. Argh.

We were about to start walking back when the fireworks started. We stopped and watched that from Frontierland. Sigh. My last night. It's a very quiet feeling you get when you start realizing that "this will be the last time in the MK" "this is the last set of fireworks" "this is the last monorail trip" etc etc. Sigh. I doubt jim gets the same feeling.

We walked back and took the monorail back to the TTC and drove back to the condo and did some packing.

Tomorrow: The very last day.

Costs:

Lunch - Le Cellier $55.33

The Land - Shake $ 2.40

Dinner - Cosmic Rays $ 5.20

$9.27

Total = $72.20

Day Nine - (8/2/99 - Monday)

This was it. We had to pack up and leave the very spacious and beautiful condo with the washer and dryer and go back to New Jersey where we live in grad student housing with secondhand window a/c units, poor insulation, coin-op w/d, and no carpeting. Sigh. But first...we still had 1/2 a day!

We packed up the stuff and said goodbye to the place and headed to Animal Kingdom - I made the very bad mistake of putting my candy dragon in the trunk. Stupid. Eric had already eaten his. Mine was of course melted by the end of the day.

Once again we went to AK - now my second favorite park after Epcot (and Jim's as well) walked through the Oasis and headed straight for the Safari for a FastPass. Then we backtracked to catch FotLK - this time we were lions. Jim really likes this show a lot - especially the birds. The only drawback is that it can be extremely hot in the theatre.

After the show we headed back to the Pangani Trail where I once again watched the birds while the guys headed for the hippos. When I caught up with them we headed to see the gorillas - the silverback was out and very visible. Three younger males were down by the water eating. It was really wonderful to watch them. All in all this was our 3rd time going through the trail and each time it has been different and fascinating.

In the FP line for the Safari, Eric glowed about how great "this" was to John. John thought he was talking about the Safari...afterwards, he realized Eric was actually talking about FP and walking past whole lines of people. The Safari was pretty good - we didn't get a shaky bridge this time and the elephants were over the bridge again - we were sitting in the back so we were able to get a good view. The giraffes also got up pretty close too. I think John liked it. (It was really hard to tell which ones John liked or didn't like)

It was close to lunch so we headed to the Tusker House where Jim and I ordered something (my notes are really sketchy now, sorry) - I believe we again got the chicken with peanuts and a sandwich, which was very good. $15.80. Eric also ordered stuff but John still had food leftover from the week and was finishing up a bagel.

After lunch we went to Conservation Station where they had the Solomon's Eclectus out!! Those birds are beautiful! They had the red one out (female I think) but they do have the green one (male) too. John, Jim and I tried the Listen to the Rainforest which we thought was pretty good - the facts that they have written in the queue are really interesting. Eric in the meanwhile was trying to manipulate the zoom cameras. Oh yeah, I also went to the bathroom here - I only mention this as I wanted to check out the poop facts on the doors I heard so much about.

When we left we headed over to Countdown to Extinction - there was an extremely long line to enter the FP line - which was slightly puzzling. But we went ahead and got our FP (BTW, everywhere we went to get FP's, inevitably someone messes one up. I hope by the time we go again it will be running smoother). We headed over to Dinosaur Jubilee looked around some and then sat some. Decided to head over to Restaurantasaurus to get something to drink ($1.91) and then went to the CTX. The FP line was short again and we waited for 5 minutes. I really like the holding area and preshow...and I still ducked. Oh well. Of course everyone laughed at me, but hey! I have a vivid imagination thank you very much.

ITTBAB was next with again no wait! It's really a shame though since the tree is remarkable and it's really hard to slow down and let people pass you when someone like Eric who is a line speed demon is with you. Jim and I stopped for a picture with the chimpanzee carving and well...it caused us to _just_ miss the show. To me that's no biggie, since now I finally get to read all the posters, Eric however was slightly peeved (shall we say?). It did however allow me to chat with CM there who saw my t-shirt from LSU, apparently she's from LSU on the College Program (and I told Jim just the other day that I should get more LSU tshirts since I always see people from LSU at WDW). Even after the third time seeing the movie - it's still very funny and now I know when all the special effects are so I can avoid them...and still laugh at everyone else.

It was time to leave the park after this - we needed to stop by Downtown Disney to pick up gifts and then head to airport...sigh. I took a last couple of pictures of us on the tram leading away from the Park- that-we-should-have-gone-to-earlier. Oh well.

We went to the MarketPlace where we had to backtrack to the StarWars store so Eric could buy some set we were pretty sure was also at Walmart... Then we went to the World of Disney and bought some candy for our research group. I also bought some candy for myself (so did Eric). When we left it was getting cloudy and started to rain, I guess that was the sign that our vacation was over. The drive back to the airport was somewhat painless except for deciding which road to take back (I4 according to Eric). Eric had to repack his bag in the airport to accommodate his starwars toy, but otherwise check-in at AirTran was painless - it was actually much better with nicer people here than in Philly (and no line). In fact we were able to switch to an earlier flight into Atlanta. While waiting for the plane, there were all sorts of other planes delayed due to the weather. We also saw an ambulance go out on the runway. The intercom also went on saying there were delays of some United flights. For one, there was a mechanical problem and was already headed into Orlando but would not board anyone and would fly up to New York with no one on it to get fixed and then fly back to get them. They were looking at a departure time of 2-4 am. Ouch. AirTran was looking pretty good.

Our flight to Atlanta was fine - the flight attendant was from the Baton Rouge area and we chatted for a bit (see, that tshirt...). Jim and I ate dinner at the Popeyes.

We finally got in to PHL at 12:30am where our friend picked us up. Sigh.

Next: Summary (if you can stand it) and things to look forward to.

Expenses:

Lunch - Tuskers $15.80

Coke $ 1.91

Dinner - Popeyes $11.50

Gas $12.48

Gifts $15.53

Toll $ 0.75

Total = $57.97

Summary

Well, overall it was great. 9 very long days (that didn't seem long) at the World. We didn't skip all that much and there are some things I still wish we had been able to do more.

In list format....

Things We Finally Did and Regret we didn't do it sooner:

Animal Kingdom
Tiki Birds
Country Bears
Impressions de France (I had done it, but didn't recall being terribly impressed)
Miyuki the Candy Artist
Picking Pearls
World Showcase Players
Chinese Acrobats
The Making of Me
Things We Still Skipped and/or Have Never Done

Sounds Dangerous
Singing in the Rain Umbrella
Body Wars (for Jim)
Voices of Liberty
Off Kilter
Pocahontas show
Hunchback preshow - all of it
O Canada (Jim)
China Circlevision (Jim)
Japan Museum
Stave Church
Teacups (Jim)
Doug Live
Diamond Horseshoe revue
Dumbo
Watching the streetmosphere characters
Jammitors and other epcot entertainers
Things We just didn't Do:

Tom Sawyer's Island
Penny Arcade (the one or two that are remaining somewhere)
Squishing coins
Organized Character meets
Things We didn't do enough (aka: our favorites):

Animal Kingdom - specifically the two trails and the bird show (for Jim include FotLK)
Buzz Lightyear (and if you fully read the trip report, you know we mean business)
Splash Mountain
Fantasmic! (for Jim)
Illuminations (for me)
Rock and Roller Coaster
Sitting on Main Street with a Casey hotdog (not being shared with the hubby) watching MK fireworks
Carousel of Progress
TTA
Spaceship Earth
Test Track
DisneyQuest
Sauerkraut at Germany
Cape May Café
Tower of Terror (not for Jim)
Pictures of Jim Henson stuff at MGM
Resort visiting
Meeting up with family in the park
Please note that none of these lists are in any particular order.

Expense Summary

Food = 405.94

Includes sitdowns at Cape May (D), Spoodles (B) and Le Cellier (L), groceries, cokes, snacks and fast food plus tips

Tickets = 700.13

Includes two annual passes and two disneyquest admissions with AP discount

Transportation = 499.20

Includes car rental from dollar, gas, tolls and airfare for two ($300)

Lodging = 398.72

Condo rental for 8 nights

Misc. = 424.15

Includes gifts, souvenirs, toys, pearls and ponchos

Total = 2428.14

Wow. Well, considering how long it was for...maybe that's good?

Future Plans:

Considering it's almost a year from when I first started writing this... Well, since we have annual passes, we might as well use them, right? I got annual pass rates at Coronado Springs for June of 2000 (this is after first booking at ASMo). With the airfare still high, we'll probably drive down especially since now we have a car that we can both drive (and we like roadtrips). We'll see. Regardless, if I we do go, I will try and write a trip report faster than I wrote this one!

Hope you enjoyed reading what I consider as a log of what I've done - I swear my memory seems to be slipping day by day!

Li-Bong Lee

llee@princeton.edu