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Jennifer Gassman -- January 2000 -- Walt Disney World (CBR)Four Parks in Three Days with Grandma, Mom, Kir and V The participants
The dates
Note: Thank you to everyone who has posted good WDW trip advice on rec.arts.disney.parks! Day 0: Thursday, January 13 I (Jen the mom) worked from home in the morning; I had a conference call and some other mcls. work to take care of, and our flight to Orlando wasn't until 2:30. Kir and the V went to school. Our nanny Tracy picked them up at 11:45 a.m., brought them home for lunch, and then brought us to the Cleveland airport. We let the kids miss a day and a half of school: Thursday afternoon and Friday. Our Continental flight was delayed a bit, but we made it to Orlando close to schedule and were in Baggage Claim A at about 5:30 p.m. Thursday. My mom (Grandma Nancy) left Grand Rapids, Minnesota, way up north, on Thursday morning. She changed planes in Minneapolis, and we found her ("Grandma!") picking up her Northwest luggage in Baggage Claim B at about 6 p.m. Thursday. We had planned to meet in the Northwest baggage claim area, and it actually worked. I had been to WDW three times before. Kirsten had been there twice, once at 3 and a half and once on her fifth birthday. Vince had been there once at 10 months, and of course, he didn't remember it at all. My mom had never been to Florida before, let alone Walt Disney World. I wanted to make sure we went while Kirsten still enjoyed the part of the trip that was her favorite when she was 3 and a half: hugging Minnie Mouse. And it seemed like Vince was old enough to really enjoy this trip. The four of us took a cab to the Caribbean Beach Resort. I had sent a fax on Monday to the Room Controller as advised by Deb on wdwig.com and we received what was for us a perfect room, on the ground floor of Martinique building 26, very close to the Old Port Royale food court, video games, and shops, and very close to the sandy beach with hammocks in front of Old Port Royale. (I chose Caribbean Beach because I think that it is the only resort in the "moderate" price range that has two sinks in the rooms, which I thought the four of us would really appreciate. I had stayed there once before, with my husband, about 10 years ago.) The room seemed plenty big enough for the four of us. We unpacked a little bit. We decided we liked the refillable mugs in the room, opened them up, and went to the food court with them, where we had Italian: the kids had pizza (too doughy), I had a Caesar salad (ok), and Grandma Nancy had a meatball sub (ok). The kids checked out the arcade and Grandma Nancy and I took turns looking around the shop/watching the kids in the arcade. Then the kids went swimming in the Martinique building pool. Unfortunately, the big fancy Caribbean Beach Hotel was closed for re-furbishing Jan 13 to 17, the exact days of our trip. I didn't find out about this until we arrived. Good thing I hadn't shown the kids the pictures of the big pool with the cannons and water slides! They would have been disappointed. As it was, the weather was cool, and the trip was short, so we hadn't planned to swim much. After the kids' swim, we went back to the room, called the hubbies (Grandpa Tom and Dad Mike, both not really amusement park people), and we crashed. Day 1: Friday, Jan 14 Our alarm went off at 6. (No clock radio in the room, so no NPR in the morning!) I had requested a coffee pot for the room. The Caribbean Beach now says they only provide coffee pots on request. Whatever. They gave us one. And I brought a hot pot plus Swiss Miss hot cocoa mix plus Swiss Miss hot apple cider mix, and lots of mcls. granola bars, for our breakfasts. This was important, I think. The signs on restaurants in the Old Port Royale food court said they did not start serving breakfast until 7, and we wanted to get on the bus at 7. And we did! Well, we got to the bus stop at 7:02 and got on a bus to Epcot at 7:03. We have nothing but compliments for Disney Transportation. For this trip, it worked GREAT for us. We were at Epcot before it opened. It was quite cold, having dropped into the forties the night before. We were wearing jeans, t-shirts, and sweatshirts, and we were still a little chilly. We felt sorry for the freezing people in shorts. There were fewer than 200 of us standing there at 7:30 when they released the birds (doves? homing pigeons?) and welcomed us into the park. We rode Spaceship Earth and then we rode Test Track. The V loved Test Track, so the kids and I rode it again. We then tried to figure out what else was open. It seemed that the "Wonders of Life" pavilion was about it. Anyway, we went there, and we went to Body Wars, which I told the kids would be like "The Magic School Bus - inside Ralphie." Kirsten and I felt car sick. Grandma and the V liked it. The V said it was just like the Magic School Bus except that there was a splinter instead of a cold. After that, Kir tried out the exercise bikes while the V did the batting cage. Then we went to The Miracle of Me movie (ok) and the Cranium Command movie (good). The timing worked out right in that we were pretty hungry by then, having eaten only our 6:30 a.m. granolas, and it was about time for our 10:30 breakfast with Chip and Dale (and Mickey Mouse) at the Garden Grill at The Land. The food was bad, bad, bad, bad. "Family style" servings of scrambled eggs (heavy and greasy), cheese grits (ditto), sausage (ditto), ham (heavy, overcooked and dry), biscuits with heavy greasy gravy, and cinnamon rolls. The kids liked the cinnamon rolls. The menu said "seasonal fruit" but the only fruit they served us seemed more like canned apple pie filling than anything else. The breakfast/brunch was a lot of fun for the kids, though. The restaurant was not very crowded. Chip and Dale and Mickey all each came by twice, so we had six character visits and lots of hugs and autographs. The coffee and the orange juice were good. I had them bring milk for the kids. They served it in cute plastic cups with lids and straws, which we were able to keep as souvenirs.. So, I guess it was a success, but boy, I would never recommend it to anyone (well, maybe it would be good for someone on the Atkins diet). I think it was $14.95 per adult and $8.95 per child - definitely over $50 with tax. As we walked out, we went to Food Rocks. I had planned to skip it, but we were walking right by and couldn't resist it. "The Peach Boys!" Grandma Nancy and the kids (especially the kindergartner Vince) loved it. Then we went down and rode the Living with the Land boat ride, passing by some of the scenery which we had seen from our table in the Garden Grill. We all liked the tour. (Grandma Nancy told us about how Great Grandma always planted cucumbers with the corn so the cukes would grow up the corn stalks.) After this, we went to Honey I Shrunk the Audience (3D movie). We all loved it except for the kindergartner V, who thought it was much too scary. When you have "shrunk" and everything else is big, he says, "It freaks you out!" Then we walked over to Universe of Energy. I loved the Ellen/Bill Nye the Science Guy update. We all liked this ride a lot. The V told me that there was a Tyrannosaurus fighting a Stegosaurus. When I pointed my finger out to say, "Look, a pterodactyl," he pulled my arm back. "It might bite you, Mom!" The dinosaurs were very realistic and the story line was fun. Last time I saw this show, my husband and I were so surprised when our seats broke into sections and started moving. This time they mentioned this several times in advance. Spoiled the surprise. I haven't mentioned it, but I have to say: We didn't need to wait in line for anything, really. Five minutes or less of a wait for everything we did so far. After Universe of Energy, Kir and V got Disney Ice Cream bars: V the dark chocolate covered Mickey on a stick, and Kir the Mickey ice cream sandwich. I tested both. Yummy! We were back at the hotel by 2:45 or so. The kids played on the hammocks on the beach. Then, I told them they didn't have to sleep, but they had to rest without talking, from 3:15 to 3:45. They fell fast asleep. We got up and re-energized, were back at the bus stop around 4:30. We made it to Epcot by 4:45 or so, and stopped by the "Leave A Legacy" to get a photo made. (Magic Kingdom Club Discount - that was nice.) Kirsten and Vince are immortalized at West 5-C-4-11, if you'd like to see their smiling faces. We were in the World Showcase by 5. Since Mexico was right there, we rode Rio de Tempo. My mom liked the musicians who were playing in the Mexican Restaurant. Next we went to Norway. Vince and Kir played on the Viking ship. Then we all rode the Maelstrom ride. Vince loved it. After we got home, he was describing the Vikings and the trolls in great detail. Now, it was near 6, and they announced that the 6:30 Tapestry of Nations parade (with the giant puppets) had been cancelled due to the high winds. (It was still cold and windy! We were now wearing jeans, t-shirts, sweatshirts, and jackets, having added an extra layer after our break, and we were still a little cold.) We went to United States and had hamburgers for dinner at the counter service Liberty Inn. Well, Vince had a kids' hot dog platter. This was fine. After dinner we watched "The American Experience." Mom and I liked it. We had been planning to stick around the World Showcase side of Epcot until the 8:00 Tapestry of Nations parade. But, around 7:45, we heard that this parade was cancelled too. We briefly looked into the Millennium Village and decided to head back over to Imagination to see Journey into Your Imagination, which we had skipped earlier. I told the kids that this is what we were doing, and we walked over there. The ride went down, off-line, shortly before we got there. Kirsten was disappointed. She said she could tell by the name of the ride, "Journey into your Imagination," that she would really like it. Now it was only 8:10 or so, and we didn't know what to do til 9:00 Illuminations. Park attendance was light - it was clear that it would not be necessary to stake out a spot, plus it was too cold to stake out a spot, to watch Illuminations. We decided to walk to The Land to see the Lion King "Circle of Life" show which we had missed earlier. When we got to the entrance, it was 8:15, and there was a sign across the entrance to the show: Closed for the Evening. Bummer. So, we trekked back over to the Millennium Village. (We stopped on the way to buy a light saber flashlight for the V and a "Mickey-as-Sorcerer's-Apprentice" sparkly flashlight for Kir). The kids waited in line about 10 minutes and then played miniature golf in "Scotland" in the Millennium Village until almost 9:00. Then we went out and watched Illuminations from the front of Canada. It was lovely. The music was loud enough for us. Everyone was pretty darn cold. Leaving the park was not too hard, considering that everyone was leaving at this time. We did a shopping stop to get Vince a WDW2000 baseball hat. Then, it was a fairly quick walk to our bus stop. Grandma and the kids got seats on the bus. I didn't mind standing. While we were on the bus, we talked to a nice family from Stillwater, MN. They told us that the day before, the dad had gotten absolutely drenched on Kali River Rapids at Animal Kingdom, and that his stuff was STILL wet. Made a mental note to avoid Kali River Rapids this trip! We managed to be back in our room with the lights out at 10:15 p.m. Day 2: Saturday, Jan 15 We were a little rushed Friday, so on Saturday I set the alarm earlier. The buzzer went off at 5:50. We had coffee and Swiss Miss hot cocoa mix plus Swiss Miss hot apple cider mix, and again lots of mcls granola bars. Once again, we got to our bus stop at 7:02 and got on a bus at 7:03. Once again, we were standing in line outside the park before it opened. A little girl waved a magic wand and opened the Magic Kingdom at 7:30 a.m. We were wearing jeans, hooded sweatshirts and T-shirts, and we were a little bit chilly for the first two hours. We headed immediately back to Fantasy Land and the kids both rode Dumbo twice, with no waiting. Then they rode Cinderella's Carousel and the Mad Hatter's Tea Cups, again with no waiting. I know you're supposed to be 7 to go on a ride without an adult, but Vince is a tall 6, so no one questioned him. I'm glad I didn't have to spin in those Tea Cups with him. Then Kir rode the Scary Adventures of Snow White with Grandma. She reported to V that it wasn't too scary, so she rode it again with V and me. He decided he liked it and wanted to ride again, so we rode it again - that's three times in a row for Kir. Still no lines. Then, we went over to the Tomorrowland Speedway, where we waited about 10 minutes and rode that. Then we rode Adventures of Pooh (a fun new ride, but don't those Heffalumps and Woozles scare smaller Pooh fans?) and Peter Pan's Flight. Actually, I think we did Peter Pan twice, too. Grandma Nancy was disappointed that "It's a Small World" was closed for renovation; she really wanted to see it. I'll have to get her back to WDW sometime. By now it was close to 9 a.m., the park's official opening time. We headed over to Frontierland just as the not-early- entry people were coming into the park. We rode Thunder Mountain Railroad. Everyone liked it. Then we rode Splash Mountain. (Don't laugh: I had garbage bags in my fanny pack, and put one over each person before we got on the ride. The people sitting in the front row really got wet. And it was quite cold out, probably around 60 degrees. Better safe than sopping.) Grandma and I thought Splash Mountain was a bit too much for us. The kids liked it. After that, the kids and I rode Thunder Mountain Railroad again. There were no lines yet, really. And this was a Saturday! By now it was about 10:00, and we had 10:15 reservations for breakfast with Tigger and Pooh at the Crystal Palace, plus my mom and I desperately needed coffee. We headed over to the Crystal Palace. There was a short wait on the veranda. The food was absolutely wonderful. It was a lovely buffet. I especially remember liking the frittata, an omelet type dish with veggies, served with salsa, and what they called "breakfast lasagna," which included layers of fruit and custard over pancakes. There were all sorts of fresh fruit: watermelon, cantaloupe, grapes, pineapple. The kids loved the pancakes, the tigger waffles, and the "french toast," which was basically fried dough rolled in cinnamon sugar. We had lots of contact with Tigger and Pooh and Eeyore and cute little Piglet - they came to our table one by one, for autographs, pictures and hugs. All four of us loved this brunch. After eating, we swung by the Jungle Cruise. There was a 35-minute wait (the first we had encountered), so we picked up Fast Passes for the Jungle Cruise and rode Pirates of the Caribbean. The kids were not too impressed with the Pirates. This ride could use more updating. Then, we stopped in the pirate shop, and the kids bought beads. These were a nice, inexpensive souvenir. Vince especially liked the bead with Goofy dressed as a pirate. The beads were 75 cents each. They're about the size of a stack of four nickels. (We put them on keychains on the kids' backpacks when we got home to Ohio.) By the time we were done with the Pirate stuff, we only had 5 or 10 minutes to wander around before we could ride the Jungle Cruise. We liked the Jungle Cruise, but again, this ride could use more updating. Then, we went to the Haunted Mansion. Kindergartner Vince thought it was a little too scary. The rest of us liked it. Then we rode the riverboat. My mom said she had hoped we'd be able to see more from the boat. The kids got a kick out of the boat ride. By now, it was definitely time for a break. We stopped at a shop on Main Street USA. Kirsten got some Mickey Mouse socks. The kids picked out some post cards and a "WDW2000-Tracy" key chain for our nanny Tracy. Then, we waited about 15 minutes for a bus back to the hotel. Again we were back at the hotel by 2:45 or so. Once again, the kids played on the hammocks on the beach; it was really too cool to swim, even in a heated pool. Then, I told them they didn't have to sleep, but they had to rest without talking, from 3:15 to 3:45. Again, they fell fast asleep. We got up and re-energized, were back at the bus stop around 4:30, and were in the Timekeeper show by 5. This was fun. I had never seen it before. After that, we headed over to the Hall of Presidents. We had just missed the start of a show, so we went over to El Pirata Y el Perico for tacos for dinner. (Well, Vince had a hot dog again.) After we finished eating, we went to the 7:00 show of Hall of Presidents. Mom and I liked it. I think we should have sat closer to the front though; I'll remember that the next time I go there. When we got out at 7:30, we pretty much sat right down on the sidewalk in front of Hall of Presidents and waited for the 8:00 show of the "Main Street Electrical Parade." We all liked it very much. I had never seen it before. Afterwards, we wandered through Fantasyland. We passed Cinderella's castle around 8:50. We watched the Fantasy in the Sky fireworks from 9 to 9:10 and then tried to get ourselves a little closer to the exit. There was a bit of a gridlock for 5 or 10 minutes; not too bad for a Saturday night. Then we headed to the bus stop, and again, I think we managed lights out by 10:30 or so. Day 3: Sunday, Jan 16 Although we had early entrance privileges to MGM, the kids were much more interested in the Animal Kingdom. They had begged to go there, so that was the plan. We were up at 6:15 and we were at the bus stop by 7:20 or so. Once again, we managed to be in line outside the park, waiting for it to open. The Animal Kingdom opened as advertised, right at 8:00 a.m. We went in, and started walking toward the Kilimanjaro Safaris. We were sidetracked by "It's Tough to be a Bug" (the 3D show with characters from A Bug's Life). I was glad it was not too crowded. I would have definitely felt claustrophobic in the little lobby area where we were waiting to enter the theatre if there were any more people. It also felt as if it might be a fire hazard: as if there were not enough exits in case of an emergency. Kirsten (age 10) and Grandma really liked the movie. Kindergartner Vince thought the bugs were too scary. After the movie, we walked over to the "Kilimanjaro Safari" jeep rides. We waited about 10 minutes to get on. We all really, really enjoyed this. It was still pretty early in the morning, and a lot of animals were out and about. After Kilimanjaro Safaris, we headed over to see the dinosaurs on the "Countdown to Extinction." This was a really fun ride. We were glad that Vince was tall enough; you had to be at least 46 inches; he's about 47", a tall kindergartner and a big dinosaur enthusiast. This ride is really, really shaky; it jerks you around like no other ride I have ever experienced. We all did okay with it. Vince hid under my arms a bit when dinosaurs loomed over us, but he said he liked it. Kirsten got a cute Animal Kingdom sweatshirt. After this, we walked over to the dinosaur bones ("Boneyard") playground. The sun was shining. My mom and I sat on a bench, rested our feet and enjoyed the sunshine while the kids played on the playground. Then we stopped at the Flame Tree Barbeque and had a very early (10:45 a.m.) lunch. Vince liked the PB and J kids meal. Kir had cheese fries and diet Coke - how nutritious! Please don't report me! There were too many birds in the area where we were sitting, and in the three minutes before we finished eating, birds pooped on the arms of my mom and Kirsten both. Yuck. Oh well. After this, we went to the "Festival of the Lion King" show. This was my favorite part of this year's WDW trip. The music and dancers and acrobats were a lot of fun to watch. We all liked it a lot. After this, we went out to the Disney Transportation area and took a bus straight over to MGM. Isn't is amazing that they have buses that go from one park to the next? Great for crazy people like us. The sun was shining. As we approached MGM, we saw lockers outside, but I thought I recalled reading that there were lockers inside the park, and ta-daa! there were, just inside the entrance. We stuffed our four sweatshirts in a locker on the right, just inside the entrance of the park, and enjoyed the T-shirt weather. We attempted to make reservations for a Mama Melrose dinner with preferred seating at Fantasmic at 7, but none were available. (We figured we couldn't last til 7, anyway; we'll have to catch Fantasmic on our next trip.) We went to "Muppetvision 3D." This alone made the trip to MGM worthwhile. Vince was scared, and wouldn't wear his 3D glasses, throughout "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience" at Epcot and at "It's Tough to be a Bug" at Animal Kingdom, but he absolutely loved "Muppetvision 3D." The rest of us really enjoyed it, too. After this, we rode "The Great Movie Ride." Mom and I liked it. The kids weren't too crazy about it. We got Jessie's autograph, and (Hurray!) autographs from Woodie and Buzz Lightyear. (And the Green Army Man.) Our autograph books from this trip were very good. We got ice tea and pop and let the kids play in the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" playground. They really enjoyed that. The Indiana Jones show was "closed for renovation." We skipped "Star Tours" and "Voyage of the Little Mermaid." None of us were too interested in "Tower of Terror" or the "Rock n Roller Coaster;" another year or two and the kids will want to do these, I'm sure. We were really darn near ready to head back to the hotel at 2:45, but as long as the Mulan parade was at 3, we stayed and watched that. It was not very interesting. Or maybe we were just too tired to enjoy it! :-) It was nice being outside in t-shirt weather, anyway. It was in the 70's and sunny with no wind. Lovely. After that, we took the bus back to our nearby Caribbean Beach hotel rooms. The kids went for a swim. We ate at Old Port Royale, the food court of the hotel. The kids played in the arcade, and my mom shopped a bit at the store. Then we crashed. Day 4: Monday, January 17 (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day) We had an 11:00 a.m. flight home. We left the hotel at 9:30. Made it to the airport in time to check our bags with Continental and then walk Mom to the other half of the airport to check her bags with Northwest. Then we went to our gate and she stuck around and shopped. We played cards on the plane, and the kids slept a bit. My husband met us at the airport at 1:20 p.m. We were back at our house by 3. It was good to be home. (At work on Tuesday, I really missed the kids, after being with them day and night for four days.) My mom shopped til her flight at 1. She flew to Minneapolis. She got on her flight north (to Grand Rapids, Minnesota) but it was too windy to land there, so they took the plane further north, to International Falls, and then put her on a van for the three-hour ride to Grand Rapids. She made it home by midnight. She was REALLY glad to be home. This is the end of the report! We had a lot of fun, and we think MLK weekend turned out to be a nice, quiet time to be at Walt Disney World. Thank you again to everyone who has posted helpful advice on radp. Our trip went very well. Jennifer Gassman jgassman@bio.ri.ccf.org Mail a Comment to Jennifer Gassman |
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