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Trip Reports
01-07-2007, 07:32 PM
Kim Baker -- April 2000 -- Offsite

April 13 - 24, 2000

It is now 1 month 17 days 7 hours 34 minutes 50 seconds until we depart for our first trip to WDW.

Cast of Characters: Myself (35), Husband (37), Son (10) and Son (almost 6).

Cast of Characters:

Husband - 37 years old, not a great fan of true roller coasters
Self - 35 years old
Son 1 - 10 1/2 years old
Son 2 - 5 1/2 years old (6 in June)
Hotel: Holiday Inn Family Suites; we stayed in a Kids Suite with Disney a theme. Previous trips - Husband, 2 to DL; Self, many to DL; Son 1, 1 to DL; Son 2, no previous trips

We will be at WDW from 4/13 - 4/24.

We have our PS for the following restaurants:

Character breakfast at the Crystal Palace
Dinner at the Plaza Restaurant
Dinner at the Rose & Crown
Dinner at San Angel
Lunch at Restaurant Akershus
Lunch at the Coral Reef
Dinner at Spoodles
Lunch at the Sci-Fi Drive-In Theater
We have our days "planned", however are aware that we need to go with the flow and some changes made need to be made.

Trip Report Day 1 - Thursday April 13th, Travel Day

We told the kids at Christmas that we were going to WDW during Spring break, but led them to believe that we would not leave until the 20th.

Morning of April 13th: Alarm goes off at 4 AM to allow us to get ready for a 4:45 AM pick-up by a shuttle express town car. At 4:30 AM I awake son 1 and ask him if he wants to go to WDW, he says yes and rolls over to go back to sleep, because "I'm tired". I tell him it is only 4:30 AM and he asks why I woke him up so early and I told him we were leaving for WDW. "Now?" "Yes" and he bounds out of bed with exuberance. Meanwhile my husband awakes Son 2 and tells him we are going to WDW. He said "Yes, in 6 days" and went back to sleep. Dad told him we were going today and he bounded out of bed.

4:45 AM the shuttle picks us up and whisks us to the airport. We arrive at the Seattle-Tacoma (Sea-Tac) airport at 5:05 Am for our 6:30 departure on Delta Airlines. We check in curbside (or attempt to) and are told that our connecting flight out of DFW (Dallas-Ft. Worth) has been cancelled and we need to go inside. We proceed inside to stand in line for approximately 10 minutes, while I fret about the flight.

We approach the ticketing agent and tell her of the problem and she informs us that the flight out of DFW was cancelled due to mechanical failure! She spends 10 minutes trying to find us a way to Orlando and finally finds flights for us. This flight is scheduled to leave Sea-Tac at 8:15 AM (3 hours later) and arriving in JFK (New York) at 4:30 PM with a connecting flight to Orlando at 5:15 PM arriving around 8 PM. She tells us they will board the flight at 7:45 AM. I call our travel agent (she's also my friend) and tell her the new flights and have her call National and the Hotel.

Making the best of it we decide that we will at least get more frequent flyer miles by going through JFK and head off for breakfast. At 7:30 we head for the gate and find out that this flight is delayed until 9:10, because the plane was delayed in Portland. Needless to say leaving 55 minutes late will make us miss our connection to Orlando!! We approach the podium and are told they will have more information for us in a little while. At 8:10 AM we are transferred to a flight leaving at 8:30 AM with a connecting flight in Atlanta to arrive in Orlando at 6:37 PM. Well, at least we will get there earlier than the flight from JFK would have.

At this point the representative from Delta realizes that our baggage was checked in this morning with a final destination of DFW. Oops!! He calls the ticketing agent that checked us in and she comes down to the gate and says she did not intend to send the luggage to DFW. At this point I leave to call our travel agent again and give her the new flight information. The representative from Delta tells my husband he will get try to get our luggage from DFW to Atlanta to get on our flight there.

We walk quickly to the gate for our new flight only to find they are paying people $500 to give up there seats. We get our seat assignments a few minutes later and board the flight. We arrive in Atlanta and our connecting flight is 30 minutes late taking off - not too bad compared relatively. We arrive in Orlando at 7 PM.

My husband and kids head the baggage claim carousel and I go to baggage claim service. After a brief wait I am told that our luggage is arriving on a flight that is just landing and should be at carousel 16 shortly. While my husband waits for the luggage, I go to National Rental to pick-up our car. Amazingly enough there was no one else in line, so I was able to get our car and pick-up my family in about 10 minutes.

Check in at the hotel went smoothly. I will post a separate review of the hotel. Kim's review can be seen here at this site at /dtp/offsite/3_wdw/IDrive/HIFS_baker.htm

Trip Report Day 2 - Friday, April 14th, Animal Kingdom

Today we awoke around 8 AM and ate the free breakfast at the hotel. There was a wide variety of items to choose from; scrambled eggs, scrambled omelets (with various toppings), potatoes, sausage, yogurt, fresh fruit, bagels, donuts, 3 kinds of cold cereal and 2 kinds of hot cereal, juice, milk and chocolate milk.

We left for Animal Kingdom at about 10AM. The weather was warm and threatening rain, however we were prepared with rain ponchos. As it turns out it did sprinkle and rain quite a bit today, but this definitely kept the crowds low.

Our first stop was at Kilimanjaro Safaris which we walked onto. We saw many, many animals and were quite impressed with this ride. When we were finished we walked the Pangani trail and saw a mother gorilla with a baby on her back and another lounging on his back. We also saw other animals along the trail. We took the train (walk-on) to conservation station, where the kids enjoyed petting the animals.

Our next stop was It's Tough to Be A Bug, we waited a few minutes to get into the theater. This was a blast for the whole family!

It was now about 12:15 or so, so we headed to the Rainforest Café for lunch. Thanks to those who mentioned the Rain Forest Café Club, we had joined prior to leaving, and were seated within 5 minutes. The wait for those who were not members was about 25 minutes. We enjoyed our lunch; I especially liked my sandwich, Rumble in the Jungle Turkey.

After lunch we went to Dinoland and went to Countdown to Extinction (CTX), There was a 30 minute wait, so we decided to get fastpasses and head over to the boneyard. Our fastpasses were for about 45 minutes later, so we let the kids play for awhile and then did the Cretaceous Trail. When we arrived at CTX we were able to walk right on with our fastpasses.

The next and last stop was Kali River Rapids, another walk-on. As a matter of fact they were letting people stay on who wanted to go around again, since there was no line. Someone on one raft was going for his 5th time. Our 5 1/2 year old did not want to do this ride) he doesn't like getting his face wet), so I stayed with him while the other two rode. My husband then got off and I rode with our oldest son, who was begging to keep on going. However, when we got back to the unloading area there was about a 5-minute wait, so everyone had to get off.

By this time we were all quite worn out after traveling yesterday and quite soaked, so we headed back to the hotel.

The boys swam in the pool for awhile, we ate in the room and the boys played the Nintendo 64 that was provided in their room.

Trip Report Day 3 - Saturday, April 15th, Epcot

Today we awoke at 7:15 and again had breakfast at the hotel, instead of french toast and sausage they had pancakes and bacon. We left the hotel at about 9AM.

We discovered today that Florida 536 runs down the other side of our hotel, so we took it directly to EPCOT, about 5 minutes.

Our first stop was at Test Track, where there was a 45-minute wait, so we picked up fastpasses, which were for 10:35 - 11:35 and proceeded to Honey I Shrunk The Audience (HSTA). We walked right into HSTA and waited about 2 minutes for the pre-show to begin. We really enjoyed HSTA, although my sons and I took off our glasses during the snake part. Our 5-1/2 year old would put his glasses on and off during the show, which made him feel comfortable. When we were finished he said he wanted to do it again. I told him possible later.

We then walked into Journey Into Your Imagination and this was a nice ride, however I would not wait in a long line for it. We then proceeded over to Test Track for our fastpasses. The stand-by line was now 75 minutes.

At Test Track we walked into the fastpass area and had a wait of about 15 minutes before proceeding to the briefing room. This is a definite not to be missed attraction, everyone really enjoyed it and wanted to do it again. We will check for fastpasses when we leave this afternoon.

We then walked to Norway for our PS at the Restaurant Akershus. We arrived at about 11:25 and they don't start seating until 11:30, so the kids played at the LEGO table in the waiting area. The theming of this restaurant is wonderful and all of the CM's were from Norway. Our server was Stina and she did a great job. The food was excellent for the adults. We have highly selective children and they ate the lefsa and flatbread (as they have had this at grandmas). Stina offered them the children's menu, but they were not interested. The children's menu would satisfy the majority of children that would not eat from the buffet. We all ordered dessert; the kids had the sugar cookie troll which you could paint, my husband had the Viking ship mousse, and I had the Millenium dessert which had rice cream in a chocolate spaceship earth. When the bill came Stina did not charge us for the children, as they just had a few pieces of bread.

It was not a little after 1PM and we went to ride the Maelstrom. The wait was about 17 minutes, but the line was constantly moving. This was an okay ride, however I would not wait in a long line for it.

We bought a few items in the gift shop at the end of the ride and headed for the Living Seas. At the Living Seas we waited about 4 minutes to be allowed into the pre-briefing room. After the pre-briefing room we went directly to the hydrolators and proceeded to Seabase Alpha. This is a very nice exhibit, although somewhat different than I had pictured.

At this point we decided to return to our hotel for a couple of hours. I tried to get fastpasses for our return, but they were sold out for the day. When we returned to the hotel the boys and I went swimming, while my husband napped. We rented a gator and had a great time. When we went back to the room the boys played Nintendo for a while. AT 5 PM we left to go back to EPCOT.

We arrived at EPCOT and went to Spaceship Earth and had about a 4-minute wait. We then proceeded to Universe of Energy and had about a 3-minute wait until we could enter. Both of these rides were okay, however I would not wait in a long line for either one of them.

When we were done at Universe of Energy we had about 35 minutes before we had to be at the Rose & Crown. My husband suggested we do a quick walk around of world showcase to get to Britain. We did this however, I do not suggest to anyone to try to do this; my calves still hurt the next day from the very quick pace we set. As it turns out we arrived in Britain with 15 minutes to spare. We requested veranda seating and actually received it. We were able to see a good portion of Tapestry of Nations and had a good view for Illuminations. Our dessert arrived during Illuminations and while we were finishing up and paying the bill the crowd thinned out. Our server Estelle was excellent and so was the food; we had Bangors and Mash, Fish and chips, child's hot dog and special ordered a grilled cheese. For dessert we had the lemon posset and 2 millenium desserts (this time with chocolate mousse).

We arrived back at our hotel at about 10:30 and decided that we would let the kids sleep until they wake-up tomorrow.

Trip Report Day 4 - Sunday, April 16th, Kennedy Space Center

Today we decided not to set the alarm and let the kids wake-up when they were ready. The last to awake was son2 at 8:45. We got ready, had breakfast and left for Kennedy at 10:40. $2.50 in tolls later we arrived at Kennedy around 12 PM. We bought the Maximum Access Pass.

Our first stop was the 3-D IMAX file "First City in Space"; this was greatly enjoyed by the all. We planned on seeing "The Dream Lives On" later. We then went to the boarding area for the bus and waited approximately 5 minutes before boarding.

The first stop is L39, where we could see the shuttle on launching pad 39A about a mile in the distance. We had lemonade slushies here and they were very refreshing. We then waited in line for a bus for about 5 minutes.

The next stop was the Apollo/Saturn V building. Here you get an overview of the space program prior to Apollo 8 on a movie screen. We were then moved into another area to see the actual set-up for the control room and the countdown for the launch. After this movie you are on your own to explore the rest of the building. Let's just say walking in and seeing a Saturn V rocket was amazing. We had a light lunch here, before heading onto the next stop on the tour.

The last stop, before returning to the visitor's center, is the International Space Station (ISS) assembly building. Here we waited for a few minutes before seeing a very short film about the ISS. We then proceeded to walk through the mock-up displays of the ISS. Then we proceeded to the assembly building to view the actual ISS being assembled. This sent shivers up my arms.

After the ISS we decided we were all too tired to wait for another IMAX and returned to our hotel.

Trip Report Day 5 - Monday, April 17th, Disney/MGM Studios

Arrived at Disney/MGM at about 9AM and headed straight for The Great Movie Ride and walked right into the pre-show area. We waited there about 10 minutes and then boarded the ride. This was a nice ride with good effects.

Next we went to The Disney Animation Tour and waited about 2 minutes before the tour started. When the tour was over it was time to head for our PS at the Sci-Fi Drive In. The themeing was excellent, the food was great and the prices were high.

After lunch we headed to Muppetvision 3D and the posted wait time was 15 minutes. We waited about 20 minutes before moving into the pre-show area and spent 11 minutes waiting to get into the theater. Everyone, especially the boys, enjoyed this - they love 3D.

We then headed to the Backlot Tour, which had a posted wait time of 25 minutes. The wait was actually much closer to 15 minutes. This was a great tour of the backlot and some special effects. At this point it was close to 2PM, so we decided to return to the hotel for a break. The break at the hotel really makes a big difference!!

We returned to Disney/MGM and arrived at the tail end of the Mulan Parade, about 5PM. We made out way behind the people watching the parade and to Doug Live. We waited about 5 minutes before being seated in the theater. This was a fantastic show and a must see for anyone who likes Doug.

After Doug we went to dinner at Toy Story Pizza Planet and the boys each played an arcade game. The themeing was good, however I have had better pizza.

After dinner we went to "Sounds Dangerous", this was great, we really felt the special effects. However, if you or anyone in your party does not like the dark I would skip this. We then headed for Fantasmic and arrived at the stage at about 7:10 PM for the 8:30 showing. At 7:30 they were seating for standing room only. The only thing I can say about this show is "Awesome!"

We then made our way out of the Fantasmic and home to our hotel.

Trip Report Day 6 - Tuesday, April 18, 2000, Magic Kingdom

Sidenote: This is the only day that staying on site would have been nice. Having to park, take the tram and then the monorail is crowds is not a great thing!

We arrived at the Magic Kingdom parking lot at about 8:45 and parked in Pluto 21. We boarded the tram and headed for the Magic Kingdom. At this point I forgot we had to take the monorail to the Magic Kingdom, so I thought we were in great shape for our PS. When we arrived at the Ticket and Transportation center I remembered that we still had to take the monorail to get to the park - Ooops!

Well we made it to the Crystal Palace at 9:20 and told the CM we had a PS for 9:05, we were seated about 8 minutes later. We were seated and went to the buffet ($14.95/adult and $7.95/child) which was wonderful. There were a wide variety of items, you could even have omelets and eggs made to order. They had a puffed French toast that I just could not get enough of. As we exited from the buffet line Pooh was there to shake hands, sign autographs and have photos taken. Of course, we did the photo thing. At the table, while we ate Tigger, Eeyore, and Piglet worked the room going to each table. We took the pictures of the boys with each character.

After breakfast we turned on our talkabout radios and separated. I went to get fastpasses to Splash Mountain while my husband took the boys to the Swiss Family Tree House. At this time it was about 10:20 and we got fastpasses for 12:25 - 1:25. We met up at the exit to the treehouse and went to Pirates of the Caribbean, since I had noticed the line was fairly short. We ended up having about a 20-minute wait to board the ride.

After Pirates, we went to check out the Jungle Cruise and decided that we did not want to stand in line for 35 minutes for this ride. A show was just about to start at the Enchanted Tiki Village, so we opted for that instead. The show was nice and the boys really enjoyed it. At this point Son 1 and I headed to Splash Mountain for our fastpasses and my husband took Son 2 on the train.

There was about a 7-minute wait to get on Splash Mountain, my son and I both enjoyed this ride greatly. We purchased our picture from the ride and called my husband on the talkabout.

Talkabout Usage: We found out that within the same area of Magic Kingdom the Talkabouts work very well. For example if one of you is at Cinderella's Castle and the other is somewhere on Main Street, you can locate them. However, when my husband was in Toontown and we were just outside Splash Mountain I could make him out enough to figure he was in Toontown. He could hardly hear me, but when I was on the train platform it was a better connection. He stayed put and we joined him in Toontown and decided to depart for the afternoon, the crowds were getting very bad.

We took the train to Main Street and again separated. My husband and the kids stayed on Main Street, while I went to check out fastpasses for Space Mountain. The standby line was 90 minutes and fastpasses were being issued for 6:25 to 7:25, so I picked up 4. When I got to Cinderella's castle I was able to connect with my husband on the talkabout and met him at the quarter press machine by the train station.

We returned to the hotel for about 2 hours. We returned to Magic Kingdom at bout 5PM and went to Tomorrowland to check out the waits for Buzz Lightyear and for Alien Encounter. The wait for Buzz was about 45 minutes and the wait for Alien Encounter was 60 minutes. My husband was the only one who wanted to do Alien Encounter and he really didn't want to do Space Mountain, so he went to stand in line. The boys and I did the Tomorrowland Transit Authority, checked out the wait for the Speedway, 35 minutes, we didn't have time because of our PS. We shopped and waited for our PS time. Hubby contacted me on the Talkabout when he was finished (after about 45 minutes) and I asked him to accompany me in the line for Space Mountain. I thought Son 2 might decide not to ride or might be too short. We all walked in and waited about 10 minutes to board, as it turns out Son 2 wanted me to ride first and let him know if there was anything scary. I am glad he chose not to go; I had forgotten how jerky it was. I told him he needed to be a little older and taller, he just made the height requirements. We then headed for our PS at the Plaza Restaurant.

We arrived at the Plaza Restaurant at few minutes before 7PM. We were told to be seated and they would call our name in a few minutes. Twenty minutes later I went up to the podium to ask about our table and was told they had called our name about 15 minutes ago. We were sitting only a few feet from them and not heard our name, so be careful to listen extremely closely. They did seat us within 5 minutes after I went to the podium.

After dinner we went and staked out our spot at The Sleepy Hollow for the parade (thanks to The Unofficial Guide). This is a great spot especially if you get there early and can get a table. You can see the parade come around and over the bridge. We arrived there at about 7:45 for the 9 PM parade.

After the parade passed us we followed it through a little while into Frontierland and walked straight into The Haunted Mansion. Perfect timing!

We then skedaddled over to Toontown Fair to do Goofy's Barnstormer. As we were waiting in line (about 3 minutes) the fireworks show started. This is a perfect viewing place and we were able to view them from the ride. After we got off the ride we watched the grand finale and then Son 2 and I walked right onto Barnstormer again.

We walked through Mickey's house with no wait, although we did bypass the barn for Mickey's signature. We then headed off to Tomorrowland to checkout Buss Lightyear. The wait was about 15 minutes, so we got in line and really enjoyed the ride. My husband scored 53,000; Son 1 16,000; myself 1300 and son2 1,000. I wish this one had fasspass!!

It was about 10:45 when we finished with Buzz and decided to head out of the park. This is when staying on property would have been extremely nice. We didn't arrive at our car until 11:50 or so and back at the hotel a little before midnight. The drive to the hotel was really easy, it was the waiting on the monorail and the tram that took forever.

Trip Report Day 7 - Wednesday, April 19, 2000, Typhoon Lagoon

Well after staying up until Midnight last night, we decided to sleep in until the kids awoke on their own. They did not wake up until 9:45 AM, so we didn't make in to Typhoon Lagoon until 11 AM. Blizzard Beach was closed today for some reason, so Typhoon Lagoon was extremely crowded and was closed by Noon. We had a good time, until Son 2 hurt himself and did not want to go in the water anymore. We had lunch and left the park at 1 PM. I suggest getting to the park when it opens to stake out your spot. We did not have any place to sit, so we stashed our stuff on a rock. Also, bring your own towel and nothing you are afraid of leaving on the beach. The line for renting towels and lockers was very long.

The afternoon was spent relaxing and doing laundry. Actually doing the laundry was relaxing for me, because I got to sit outside the laundry room by myself in the breeze and read.

We left for the boardwalk at 4:30 PM and went to Spoodles early at 5:30 after walking the boardwalk. If you like Wyland, you really need to visit the Wyland gallery on the boardwalk.

Dinner at Spoodles was really good, however with tip it cost $128 for 2 adults and 2 children. We did not have any alcohol and my husband and I split dessert.

Trip Report Day 8 - Thursday, April 20, 2000, Sea World

Today we had planned to leave at 8:15 to arrive at Sea World before the 9AM opening. We wanted to be early, so we could be sure to get a Shark Tour. We actually arrived at Sea World at 9:30 and were able to get a Shark Tour at 4:15 PM and a PS at Bimini Bay Café at 5:30 PM.

Tip: If you want to make a reservation for a tour, PS for lunch or dinner and rent a stroller these services are near the entrance. We made the reservations for our tour first thing, went back to the entrance about 45 minutes later to make our PS and again about 30 minutes later for a stroller.

After making our tour reservations we headed for the Dolphin Show, Turtle Point and Stingray Lagoon. At Stingray we bought food to feed them and we were able to touch the stingrays. We then went to Manatees: The Last Generation, Penguin Encounter, Pacific Point Preserve and then to lunch at Mama Stella's.

After lunch we went to the Wild Arctic and did the "walking" tour. The line for the "ride" was a 30-minute wait, while the "walk" was only 10 minutes. We had planned to go to the Shamu show afterwards, but did not make it out of Wild Arctic in time.

We then went to our PS at the Bimini Bay Café. The food was really good and not too over priced.

We then headed for Terrors of the Deep for our behind the scenes tour. This was a great tour; very informative and you can pet a White Spotted Bamboo Shark, if you want. Our next stop was Shamu's Happy Harbor and then Shamu Rocks America.

We had a great time at all of the shows and exhibits and the only lines we experienced were for lunch and Wild Arctic. We stayed away from Journey to Atlantis because the line was an hour long.

Trip Report Day 9 - Friday, April 21, 2000, Downtown Disney

Today definitely did not start out as planned. We awoke to the fire alarm going off, however it shortly went off. When we went to breakfast and the air conditioning in the eating area was out. However when we returned from Downtown Disney everything seemed to be okay.

We arrived at Downtown Disney about 10:30 and there were not that many people there. We did our shopping, had lunch at The Rainforest Café, dessert at Ghirardelli's and then back to the hotel.

We relaxed and played until the sitter from Fairy Godmother's Sitting Service came. Laura arrived a little before 5 PM, right on time. She is a Grandmother and very kind.

We left the kids in her care and left for Epcot. We had dinner at San Angel, the food was good, however the menu is very limited compared to most Mexican restaurants. After dinner we toured the World Showcase at a leisurely pace. We stopped and watched Tapestry of Nations, then went to France and to the Patisserie. We then continued our leisurely walk through the Showcase and took a roundtrip on the Monorail.

When we returned to the hotel, the kids were in bed as instructed, and Laura said all went well.

Trip Report Day 10 - Saturday, April 22, 2000, Universal Studios

We were up at 7:30 this morning and on our way to Universal about 9:20 or so. This was later than planned, but oh well. We arrived at Universal and after purchasing one-day admission the first thing we did was rent a stroller.

We then headed for Kongfrontation, Earthquake or Jaws depending on the wait times. We ended up going on the Jaws ride first with about a 15-minute wait. We then headed for Earthquake, which had a posted wait of 15 minutes. After the pre-show and first staging theatre we were told they were having technical difficulties with the ride, so we would be issued a one-time use pass. This pass was good for the front of the line on anything at Universal Studios, except Men in Black.

Our next stop was Kongfrontation with a posted wait of 30 minutes, but ere able to walk right into the pre-show with our pass. We all really enjoyed this ride even the 5 1/2 year old. By this time we were hungry, so we headed across the way to the Monster Café. The food was okay and we had picked a good time to go.

We then proceeded to the Nickelodeon Studios, Hanna-Barberra (HB) Studios and T2-3D. These shows/rides were enjoyed by all. We did do the stationary seats in HB and I am glad we did. Son 2 was disappointed that we did not do the moving seats.

We then went to the kids play area for about an hour, this was a fun place for them. We then went to the 5:30 PM Wild, Wild West Stunt Show.

We avoided Men In Black because the shortest wait time we heard was 2 hours. We did not do any of the rides that can cause motion sickness.

We headed out if the park to NBA City for dinner and were seated immediately. The menu looked really good, however we decided we were all tired and headed back to the hotel. We will eat something in the room, don' ' know what exactly, but something.

Trip Report Day 11 - Sunday, April 23, 2000, Magic Kingdom

We arrived at the Magic Kingdom at 9:05 AM today and planned to leave by 3PM. My husband was taking the 10AM Keys to the Kingdom Tour, so the rest of us left him at City Hall and took the train to Frontierland. When we got to Big Thunder Mountain the posted wait time was 10 minutes, so into line we hopped. We all really enjoyed this ride and Son 2 asked to ride again. The wait time was still posted at 10 minutes, so we rode again. This time Son 2 raised his hands and I thought he might slip out, he is 44" tall and thin. When we got off the posted wait was 30 minutes, so we headed to Fantasyland.

On the way to Fantasyland we stopped at The Haunted Mansion since the wait time was only 5 minutes. We then went to Fantasyland and got fastpasses for Winnie the Pooh. It was now about 10:15 or so and our return time was 11:40. We had a snack and went over to ride the Carousel. The wait was not very long and the boys were impressed at the size of this Carousel. We then went to ride Peter Pan which had a posted wait time of 20 minutes. However, after we had been in line only a few minutes they changed the wait time to 30 minutes. The boys enjoyed riding Peter Pan. Since Son 2 had never been on It's a Small World and it had a wait time of only 10 minutes we rode that next. It was now time to return to Winnie the Pooh, boy was this ride enjoyable with the movements they put in the "hunny pot".

At this time we decided to head to Tom Sawyer's Island. We are supposed to meet "Dad" there after his tour, sometime after 2 PM. We arrived on Tom Sawyer's Island at about 12:30 PM and discover a few things and then go to Aunt Polly's for Lunch. We will not eat at Aunt Polly's again since the meat sandwiches were on a mixture of light and dark rye bread. Also, Son 2 does not eat Peanut Butter and Jelly, just Peanut Butter and Honey.

We then went and discovered the rest of the island and went back to Aunt Polly's around 1:50 for Ice Cream. My husband called at 2:05 PM on the talkabout and we decided to meet at the Castle where he was. We then left the park to go start parking for our trip home.

At 4:30 we left to go to dinner at the ESPN Club on the boardwalk. Dinner here was nice, but very noisy. We went back to the hotel, finished packing and went to bed.

Trip Report Day 12 - Monday, April 24, 2000, Epcot and return home

We awoke, got dressed etc., had breakfast, packed the car and checked out of the hotel.

We arrived at Epcot around 10AM and went straight to Test Track for fastpasses. Our fastpasses were issued for 2:20 - 3:20, which was okay as we needed to leave the park by 3:30 PM. We then went and got drinks and went to Innoventions West.

We then went to the Coral Reef for lunch. The Coral Reef has a very nice atmosphere, great food and prices to go along with them. This was our second most expensive meal of the trip, $77 not including the tip.

After lunch we headed for Test Track only to find out that it was having technical difficulties and would be up sometime later. We then went to Innoventions East and spent some time in there. After 30 minutes I went back to Test Track and discovered it was again operational. I rushed back to my family, so we could get there before everyone else discovered it was running. We waited for about 8 minutes before going to the Pre-ride area. Once again this ride was great and was a great note to leave Walt Disney World on.

On the way to the airport my husband started talking about "the next trip" in about 5 years. I figured this would be our only time to WDW, but I guess I was wrong. Yeah!

Kim Baker