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Tim & Kelly McKenny -- March 2000 -- Walt Disney World (ASMoR)(Kronos' Note: The following TR was written by my wife, a WDW Newbie, for other newbies in her family. I thought you would all like to see The World through her eyes.) The Newlywed Cast:
The Time: March 20 - 25, 2000 The Hotel: All-Star Movies March 20th (Monday): The Arrival & The Magic Kingdom The first day of the Honeymoon- and the first day of Spring! We got off of the 21/2 hour plane ride and arrived at Orlando's International Airport at about 3:00pm. Then, by Mears shuttle bus, we went to our hotel-The All-Stars Movies Resort. We checked in, got unpacked, ate a very late lunch, and hopped on the next bus to the Magic Kingdom. We arrived at the front gates at about 6pm. I got to see Cinderella's Castle for the first time in person. It was magnificent! I couldn't believe that I was actually getting to see it; the trip finally felt real. We just HAD to make The Haunted Mansion the first ride we got on, as it's Kronos' favorite ride. He immediately lit up like a kid and I got to see what all the hype was about. The Mansion lived up to it, all right! It was great; I was hooked immediately (I now help Kronos with his HM website). We then walked around, doing whatever rides we could find that didn't have an hour-long wait or more. This being our first night on our honeymoon, I decided to surprise Kronos with the bride and groom Mickey Mouse-ears hats which I had refused to wear before (I didn't want to be one of those couples). The most memorable part of the evening was being over in the Tomorrowland area of the Magic Kingdom. We went to The ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter, where I had the pants scared off of me. We soon found out that the best time to be in the park was right before it closed. We were able to get on the best rides without having to wait at all. In fact, we were the dead last people to get on Space Mountain that night. Even the passenger loading crew came down to ride with us. Since the park was now closed we decided to go back to the hotel. We got there at 10:30pm and as we walked past the pool to our room we were hit with the inspiration to go swimming. There were only two other people in the pool -- we soon found out why. It was cold! Needless to say, we didn't stay in there long. From there, we decided to call it a night. March 21st (Tuesday): The Magic Kingdom, Part II Because tonight was E-Ride night (where if you're staying at a Disney hotel and have a special ticket, you can ride certain rides from 9pm to midnight, after the park closes to the public), we decided to make this a full day at the MK. We did almost every ride (we swore we wouldn't go on The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh because it replaced Mr. Toad's Wild Ride), including the big ones: Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, The Haunted Mansion, The Jungle Cruise, It's a Small World, Peter Pan's Flight, and Space Mountain. (We didn't get to go on Pirates of the Caribbean because the ride was closed for renovations - or "rehab", as they say at Disney, which made Kronos joke that it was going to be renamed "Pirates of the Betty Ford Clinic"). We also got to take a spin (literally!) on one of Disney's newer attractions: Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, which is sort of a cross between a ride and a shooting gallery (I got 53,400 points, but didn't feel too bad - Kronos only got 55,600). Being a HUGE roller coaster buff, I was a bit disappointed at the coasters of the Magic Kingdom. I felt they were a bit tame. But what they lacked in ferocity, they more than made up in scenery. I have never seen coasters with THAT much detail before. Most coasters don't have stories to them either. In fact, the thing that impressed me the most about WDW was that for the same amount of money you would pay at regular one-day amusement parks, you got the magic and beauty that only Disney could provide. Everything was gorgeous, and well kept! The only downside to the day was spending a couple hours searching, in vain, for souvenir T-shirts that would be large enough to fit me. I am a 3X, which they only carry two designs in. We finally found a shop with 3X shirts, but they were cut on the small side. That night we saw The Main Street Electrical Parade. It was very impressive and cute. The most magical part of the evening was watching the Fantasy in the Sky fireworks show together, which is set to various pieces of music from the park (including the song "Grim Grinning Ghosts" from The Haunted Mansion, which made Kronos VERY happy). After the fireworks the park closed to the public. We decided to wait out the mass exodus in The Haunted Mansion. We thought we would spend about a half hour here riding and taking pictures for ourselves and his website. We actually ended up spending the rest of the night at the HM (a total of over 3 hours)! We never rode anything else that night and we must have gone through the Mansion 30 times or more, taking pictures, talking to the castmembers, etc. In fact, it got to the point where the castmembers simply let us stay in our "Doom Buggy" as it moved past the exit area and back around! While I was inside talking to a castmember, Kronos went outside to get more pictures. As he was taking a picture of the front gate something peculiar happened. (Here, Kel relates "An Occurrance at the Haunted Mansion". http://welcome.to/the.hauntedmansion for those who haven't seen it.) The smoke appeared in the picture, but was not actually there. There was no one smoking and there was no fog or mist in the area at the time. The castmember who was greeting people at the front gate verified that there was nothing there. The camera has NEVER produced a picture with a flare (or whatever it is) in it before or since this particular picture, so we feel that it was not due to a camera error. We even showed the photo to the lab techs at Kodak and they could not explain why the smoke was there. If this isn't a ghost picture, it sure is at least a good conversation piece and one heck of a trip memory. After we took this picture all of the castmembers at the Mansion wanted to see it and talk to us. Some even told us stories of weird occurrences at the Mansion. We ended the evening riding The Haunted Mansion at the stroke of midnight - the "witching hour". What a day! March 22nd (Wednesday): Epcot Center We spent the entire day at Epcot. We started out in Future World, by attending a character breakfast at The Garden Grill restaurant in The Land pavilion. We were able to take pictures with Farmer Mickey and Chip and Dale. The restaurant rotates through scenes in the Living With The Land ride (which was odd, but fun). We then headed immediately to The Living Seas pavilion. This was what I wanted to see the most in Epcot. I love water and water creatures, so this was like heaven for me. There is a huge tank that houses two sea turtles, a bunch of sharks, sting-rays, dozens of schools of fish, and two dolphins (Bob and Toby). Another tank held a HUGE manatee. It was great to see all of these wonderful creatures in such a beautiful and educational setting. Disney treats their animals extremely well. We then went to: Journey Into Your Imagination, the Honey, I Shrunk the Audience 3-D movie, Ice Station Cool (where Kronos tricked me into trying "Beverly" - one of the NASTY international Coke products), and then into World Showcase. We stayed in the Canada area of World Showcase to see "Off Kilter", a Canadian-Celtic Rock band. (Five men in kilts playing rock music-Woo-Hoo!) We saw two sets, in between which we walked around a bit and saw three performers. They played butterflies. They were on stilts and had mechanical wings that operated by controls on their chests. They were amazing. At the second set of Off Kilter they played "Fields of Athenry", our favorite song, which we requested. After the show we got to talk to them and get their autographs. They were really nice - I think mainly because they enjoyed seeing people there that actually knew their music. I had a LOT of fun at that show. Fearing that we wouldn't get to see everything, we went on to Mouse Gear where we did some souvenir shopping (I finally found shirts that fit here). From there, we went to Test Track, where YOU get to be a crash test dummy. This ride was awesome! The next stop was Body Wars, a simulator ride where you get to fly through the human body. The ride was great, unfortunately, I got motion sickness from this one - BAD! Part of the problem was that I had forgotten to eat, so we immediately went to get food. After dinner we went to Spaceship Earth (AKA the big Epcot golf ball). It's much more impressive on the outside than on the inside. After that we rushed to get a good spot for the Tapestry of Nations parade in World Showcase. We ended up standing in Mexico, right at the end of the parade. This parade was beyond awesome. All I could think of was "Cirque de Soleil meets Jim Henson". There were 15 foot tall rolling drum sets being played by guys in costumes, tons of dancers with puppets strapped to them that mimicked the dancers moves, and the "Sage of Time" - a guy in long flowing robes, on five foot stilts, painted silver and gold who narrated the parade. At the end of the parade we killed some time until Illuminations 2000: Reflections of Earth started. This is beyond any fireworks show EVER! Picture fireworks and water fountains set to music, over the lagoon in World Showcase, with a 20 foot Earth globe covered in lights and video screens. The finale of the show was the globe sailing across the lagoon to the center where the globe opened up and revealed a huge torch. Disney really went all out for the millennium celebration - the Tapestry of Nations parade and Illuminations 2000 being the jewels in the millennium celebration crown. The theme of all of this is the brotherhood of man. You see all these people coming from every country in the world, and for a short time, while in Disney, they put aside their hatred and just have a good time together. I still can't think of it without getting teary-eyed. It's just a shame that once you walk out of WDW, everything goes back to normal. (Leaving the sanctity and safety of Disney is like a slap in the face - I hated it!) It was this that made me see why everyone gets so excited and fanatical about Disney; I didn't understand that before, and it's something you can only understand once you've been there. March 23rd (Thursday): Animal Kingdom, The Disney-MGM Studios, and Pleasure Island This was the day that we split up between Animal Kingdom and The Disney-MGM Studios. We started out by taking the bus to Animal Kingdom. Right as you walk in, the first thing you see is the Tree of Life, an enormous (but fake) tree with dozens of animals carved into the side. It's a work of art! Our first stop was DinoLand USA, the dinosaur area of the park. We went on Countdown to Extinction (soon to be called Dinosaur), a "Jurassic Park" adventure type ride. After this, we took an opportunity to get shots of us with some of the characters. Kronos took a picture of me with Donald Duck. (this one was for my mom - she took me to WDW when I was five and while I was there I got so excited over seeing Donald that I ran to hug him and knocked him over. I have yet to live THAT one down. ;-) And for the record, I was so little I don't even remember the trip, so Kronos and I consider this my first time.) We also got shots with Goofy. We then did some souvenir shopping. Kronos got so hot wearing his jeans that he bought a safari outfit, camera vest and all. He looked very cute in it! We then went to the theatre underneath the Tree of Life to see It's Tough to be a Bug. This is another 3-D show, only this one was freaky because pointy things came out of the seat during the show; they were supposed to simulate being stung by a hornet. The most spectacular part of this experience was the labyrinth-like path that led up to the door of the theatre. Since you were going underneath the Tree of Life, you had to pass through the bottom of the trunk and the "roots". More animals were carved in these. By going through this path, we were able to get right up on the Tree and its carvings. The carvings are all incredibly detailed and some are ten feet tall or more. Next, we went to the Kali River Rapids. I realized ahead of time that we would get soaked, so I took my shoes and socks off and put them in with the rest of the souvenirs in the plastic shopping bag. Only my top got wet, which in the heat, I didn't mind. Kronos, on the other hand, forgot to do this and ended up not only with soaking wet clothes, but with sloshy shoes. Squish squish squish!! We then made the fatal mistake of going to the Tarzan Rocks! stage show. Folks, if you value your lunch, you will never go see this. Picture a dozen performers in body stockings with leaves all over, skating to and fro on the stage while a Phil Collins wanna-be sings very badly with two Mariah Carey wanna-bes who can't sing as well as he can. It took all of our will power not to get up during the show and leave and to not scream "RUN AWAY!" at the people waiting in the ENORMOUS line to go see it. At this point we realized we had spent more than half the day at Animal Kingdom and wanted to have time to spend at The Disney-MGM Studios. So we hopped on the bus and went there! The Disney-MGM Studios didn't seem that big to me. Our first stop was The Tower of Terror, a free-fall ride. This ride was AWESOME! We were dropped three times! Most of the big rides have photo stands where you can pick of a picture of yourself on the ride. This was the first one we actually liked, so we bought it. We then went to Star Tours, a ride like Body Wars. And again, like Body Wars, I got sick, but not as bad. Our next ride was the new Rock 'N' Roller Coaster. Now THIS coaster impressed me! I wanted to do it again, but we didn't have enough time - we needed to get to Fantasmic!. Fantasmic! is The Disney-MGM Studios' big finale. It is a stage show where Mickey fights the Disney villains. It uses fireworks, and lasers project images onto huge water fountains. There is a moat-type thing surrounding the stage and boats carried performing characters around it. It was amazing! After Fantasmic!, The Disney-MGM Studios closed, so we headed to Pleasure Island for some adult fun. We saw a live band (I think they were called Radio Daze) performing dead-on covers of Top 40 songs and then walked around a bit. The clubs weren't really our type of scene (especially since a bunch of college teens were there on Spring Break) so we headed to The Adventurer's Club where we had some mild drinks and interacted with the performers. We saw a hilarious comedy/music routine- done by the maid, of all people! By 1:00am, we were feeling like old tired fuddy-duddies, so we headed back to the hotel. March 24th (Friday): Kell & The Dolphins, Epcot Pt. II, & The Magic Kingdom, Part III Kronos, being the wonderful husband that he is, paid for me to do a special program in Epcot's Living Seas as a wedding present. First thing in the morning, I had to report to Epcot to learn about and then interact with the dolphins. I was in a group of six people. We were given lab coats and a tour "backstage". We were able to see the Living Seas area from behind the scenes and were shown the various marine research projects that they have going on right now. One of which is a program where they are trying to teach the dolphins an abstract language, in order to be able to communicate with them. We were taught the anatomy of the dolphins, and how to tell the two dolphins, Toby and Bob, apart. We were then given wetsuits to put on and then brought to the top of the tank where we could interact with Bob and Toby. We were able to touch them, play with them, and watch them do tricks. The program ended with a short presentation on appropriate ocean contact with dolphins. We were then given a T-shirt, a program book, and a video of our time with the dolphins. The program lasts about four hours and was one of the best things I have ever done. (It makes me want to go back to college to become a marine biologist, so that I could do this full time!) Once I was done there I met up with Kronos (who had spent the morning at The Haunted Mansion, of course) and we went to Restaurant Akershüs in the Norway area of World Showcase. They had some strange things to eat (like the ice-cold scrambled eggs and smoked salmon that tasted raw), but most were VERY good (especially the goat cheese... and the dessert- YUM!). Since we didn't get to do the entire World Showcase on Wednesday, we decided to spend the afternoon going through all of the countries. We didn't spend a lot of time there, so we didn't get to go in all of the shops, restaurants, and presentations, but we did get to see the outside displays, landscaping, and buildings (in China, we even saw Mushu and Shan-Yu from the Disney film "Mulan", and got our pictures with them). We took tons of pictures here, our favorite being a view of Spaceship Earth, with the giant 2000 and Mickey arm, through an archway in Japan. Once we got back around to Canada we tried to see Off Kilter one more time, but learned that it was their day off (Boo-hoo!). We then got on the Monorail (since I hadn't been able to ride it before now, and since Kronos told me that no trip to Walt Disney World is complete without it) and headed back to the Magic Kingdom for another go at E-Ride night. We did do the Haunted Mansion again, but we didn't spend all night there this time. We actually spent most of our time in Tomorrowland. We went to see the CircleVision 360° show The Timekeeper where Robin Williams played the title character. The show was gorgeous, but like the motion-simulator shows, it made me sick. I spent most of this one with my arms over my head so that I couldn't see the screens. Kronos and I then went to ride Space Mountain. The lines were thinning up so I decided I wanted to do Space Mountain as many more times before the park closed as I could. Kronos, on the other hand, wanted to go do Alien Encounter again. So, we decided to split up and then meet later. I got to ride Space Mountain two more times -- it would have been three if I hadn't encountered a VERY rude castmember. It was sad that my last memory of the parks was being accused of (essentially) line jumping by a castmember. Luckily, I had spoken with another castmember right before the incident occurred and she was later able to verify that I hadn't line-jumped, and another castmember who saw the rude one yelling at me came to my defense and reported the rude one's behavior to the manager. I did not know this, however, until later when Kronos and I went to Guest Relations to report the incident. I explained to the girl what happened and she called the manager of Space Mountain to report what happened. She came back to us and said that the nice castmember had already reported him and that the manager had already "dealt" with him. Since yelling at guests is considered a MAJOR offense, the castmember was fired. That wasn't what I had in mind when I went to report him to guest relations, but that just goes to show you the strict standards that Disney enforces. They want everyone to have a good time, no matter what. March 25th (Saturday): The Worst Part Of The Trip- Going Home This was our last day, and it was a sad one. We spent the morning packing in a frenzy and taking pictures of the hotel, which was decorated with scenes and characters from the Disney movies. We then got on the shuttle bus to the airport. I hated to leave, especially because, even though we spent a week in WDW, we didn't get to see and do everything. Before Kronos and I got married, we had planned on a Disney honeymoon. But after hearing about Disney non-stop from Kronos for a year and a half, I was NOT looking forward to going. I thought I was going to be driven nuts the whole time. I also thought that we would not be able to go because of the cost. A month before we were to leave for Disney our lives were turned upside down. We were both under a LOT of stress. I began to crave going to Disney just to have a chance to get away. We were both in desperate need of a vacation. The whole thing did not seem real until I saw Cinderella's Castle. Even as we were getting on the plane, checking in at the hotel front desk, and then unpacking it still did not hit me. As I sit here, eating my foot for lunch, I must say I can't wait to go back to Disney. I miss it. I still can't think about it without getting teary-eyed. I had a WONDERFUL time! -Kel Tim & Kelly McKenny hauntedmansion@mail.com Mail a Comment to Tim & Kelly McKenny |
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