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Noreen Chin -- September 2001 -- Walt Disney World (Offsite, ASSR)WHO ARE WE?
Paul and I have been to Disney World several times in the last few years. It has become our favorite Vacation. We went to Disney Land (California) for the first time in January 1997 and became engaged at Sea World. PLANNING Historically Paul and my vacation plans for any given year usually include two 10-day trips (usually 1 to Disney) and several long weekend trips. Normally during the Disney trip we would spend a week in our timeshare (Vistana) and several days at one of the Disney Resorts. This trip was originally scheduled for May 2001 but in March 2001 we bought a house so had to put the vacation plans on hold until September. Also, we recently got a puppy – a beautiful Akita named Kiki. We can’t bear to be away from her for 10 days so are going to take a slightly shorter trip to Disney this time – just a week in our timeshare. Normally, we used our timeshare from Saturday to Saturday, but since we need to get Kiki situated before we leave; we are going to go from Sunday to Sunday so we can bring her wherever we end up leaving her (we’re still debating on a Dog Camp vs a kennel vs one of the teachers from her obedience school that dog sits on the side) on Saturday and spend some time making sure she’s comfortable before leaving. We came up with a good idea. Although we’re checking into our timeshare on Sunday, why not fly out to Orlando Saturday night and just spend that night in a cheaper motel so we have all day Sunday? We decided to fly down Saturday after all and will spend that night in Disney’s All Star Sports resort. I will try to note the prices we paid for things throughout the trip but won’t be compulsive about it. I’ll know what we spent for a meal in a restaurant because we’ll have a receipt but for how many ice cream bars, bottles of water, etc that we buy during the day, I won’t be compulsive about keeping track of those. Lodging On 7/28/01 I booked one night at Disney’s All Star Sports Resort for Saturday 9/8/01. With the Disney Club discount it came out to $77.62 including tax. What’s a little odd is that when I called Disney looking for this night at All Star Movies they said nothing was available – only All Star Music. That’s fine, I would have taken it – it was $77 plus tax for the night. When I mentioned the Disney Club discount, they put someone else on the phone and I had my choice of All Star Music or All Star Sports at the discounted rate. I figured my husband likes sports so he’d enjoy that one. Car Rental On 7/28/01, I reserved the following rental car: On 9/7/01 Paul booked a few reservations on line with various companies for different cars and received better prices. We’ll keep the reservations and see which company has the shortest line when we get off the plane. Flight I think we are going to try long term parking at the airport this time. Since we’ve moved all the ads I’ve seen for car service to the airport is pretty expensive. Also, we did long term parking once before at LaGuardia airport and liked it since we got off the plane and were able to get into our car and go rather than waiting to be picked up and delivered. Attractions Food We find it hard making dinner and/or lunch reservations in advance. We’re usually very spontaneous with these things. I don’t know what I’ll want to eat two months later or even what time I’ll want to eat. We’ve also run into a few problems during our trips because we’ll run around at the parks and by the time we leave and are ready to eat dinner it’s late and many times the restaurants are closed by the time we get there. We’ve ended up with cereal, leftovers, or any 24hour place we can find for dinner several times during our last few trips. At least while we’re in the timeshare we will have a full kitchen which we will make sure we have some food in. It’s a great convenience (as well as a money and time saver) to have a regular breakfast right in the timeshare. During the last few trips, we’ve made a few priority seatings and they’ve worked out pretty well for us. We made a few priority seatings before leaving for Florida. The priority seatings we had are as follows:
Admission Media Other People Jennifer (my sister) and Kevin (her husband) were planning to join us during our May 2000 trip but weren’t able to make it after all. Then they were planning to join us for this trip. However, my sister is pregnant and due in November so Disney World is out for them this year. General Planning I’m also going to try to write down the tentative plan for the day and see how close we come to doing what was planned. I like to get the cute pressed pennies/quarters when I see ones I like. I read in a trip report that they have books to store them in. I’m going to look for those books. In the past, I just brought them home and threw them in a jar. DAY BY DAY The week before our trip The day before our trip – Friday 9/7/01 Saturday 9/8/01 I was up around 6 excited about our trip. Our flight isn’t until the afternoon so I had the morning to finish packing and clean up a little. I’m still not sure if I like leaving late like this. Historically, we’ve always taken early flights (the earlier the better) and spent our first day at Disney. With the later flight we aren’t going to arrive until late afternoon/early evening and not really going to be able to do much today. We dropped Kiki off at her obedience school where one of the trainers is going to bring her home with him and watch her while we are gone. It was very sad to leave her there. Since we got her (about 6 months ago), we haven’t spent a night away from her. She knows the people at the school so was happy to see them when we brought her there. I think leaving her there was harder for Paul and me than it was for her. We decided to use “Corporate Park” long term parking near Newark airport. Friends of ours recommended them very highly. We arrived at the parking facility around 1pm. It was very efficient. They loaded our bags into their van, asked when we are returning, gave us a claim ticket and we were on our way to the airport. We were checking in at the Delta counter by 1:05. Unfortunately, our flight was delayed and isn’t going to take off until 3pm. There was a medical emergency and the plane (while en route back to Newark) had to stop in Virginia. The plane finally took off at 3:45. We arrived in Orlando around 6pm. Paul went to get the luggage and I went to the car rental counter. Avis had the shortest lines of the different companies we had reservations with so I got into that line. By the time I was next in line, Paul showed up with the luggage. We got a White Chevy Lumina. Nothing fancy, a fullsize, but it will do. Our last few trips we’ve rented convertibles, but it’s such a waste of money. The car basically sits in a parking lot all day. So this time, we were smarter and just got the full size. We left beautiful sunny weather in New Jersey and landed in Florida to gloomy, overcast, and dreary weather. While driving towards Disney, there was a huge backup on one of the highways, so we decided to try a different way to get to the hotel. Well, we ended up going in a huge circle and were back where we started in the huge backup. We didn’t get to the hotel until around 7:30pm We arrived at Disney’s All Star Sports to check in. Our room was ready and we just drove right over. We were in the tennis building in room 4157. It was on the first floor. The room was very cute. For $75 a night it was definitely worth it considering you get all the perks of staying at Disney. I know people do it, but it would be very tight with more than just 2 people in the room. We didn’t unpack since we are only staying the one night. We purposely packed our carryons with what we’ll need for the one night and tomorrow so left our big suitcase in the trunk. I’ve heard rumors of the toilets being noisy and they are – we heard whenever a neighbor was flushing. It wasn’t horrible but you heard it. We decided after much debate to get the premium annual passes. While checking in I found out that we need to go to the park to get them, they don’t sell them at the hotel. So we drove over to Epcot to buy the passes. With our Disney Club discount, two premium annual passes cost $951.94. Now we’ll definitely come back within the next year to make sure we get our money’s worth. It was pouring rain. We didn’t go into the park, just bought the passes. Next up – what to have for dinner. We were starving by now. They didn’t serve any food on the plane (not that we would have considered that a good meal even if they had). We went to Ming Court on International Drive. We’ve never been here before but it looked pretty crowded. Paul was in the mood for Chinese or Sushi (this place had both). We started off with the Chef’s appetizer plate which came with a spring roll, a cheese wonton, a shrimp cake, and some beef. We also ordered the Seafood Wor Bar, Lo Mein, and a spicy tuna roll. The food and service were very good. We couldn’t finish it all so had the Lo Mein wrapped to go. Paul said Lo Mein is good cold. We’ll put it in ice overnight and I guess he’ll eat it for breakfast tomorrow. The meal with tax and tip came out to $61. Did we meet the tentative plan? Yes. Sunday 9/9/01 We signed up for Express Check out at Disney All Stars so didn’t have to go to the front desk to check out. We just had to be out of the room by 11. We didn’t charge anything to the room so didn’t even get an express check out envelope. We went to early entry at MGM. I was so proud of Paul for actually getting up and going. He’s not a morning person. We were at MGM by 7:35. It was really funny how I woke him up for Early Entry. I started jumping on the bed yelling “Early Entry Early Entry”. This came back to haunt him later. The first thing we did was to obtain a fast pass for Rock N Roller Coaster that was good from 8:30 – 9:30. Then we headed over to the Who Wants to be a Millionaire game. We went to the first show at 8:10. We didn’t make it into the hot seat but we were in the top 10 each time they showed the audience scores. At one point, Paul was in 1st place. After the Millionaire game, we got fast passes for the next showing at 10am; then walked over to Tower of Terror. No wait, just walked right on. Then over to Rock N Roller Coaster. We didn’t need our fastpasses, we just walked on this as well. It was about 9:30 now and we wanted to get something for breakfast. We went over to Starring Rolls Bakery. We bought a cheese Danish and apple juice for me; a croissant and coffee for Paul – total came to $7.11. We sat down and ate. We walked over to the 10am Millionaire Show (2nd show of the day) and watched that. These Millionaire shows are a lot of fun since you get to play along with each question. I’m surprised that the park isn’t more crowded. I expected the first hour or so to be empty while we enjoyed Early Entry, but I expected it to get packed by 10am. Everything was a walk on. The only waiting we did was for a show to start. When that ended, we walked right back into the 10:50 Millionaire Show (3rd show of the day). We still didn’t make it into the hot seat and this time didn’t even make the top 10. Paul decided to eat his left over Lo Mein from last night that we’ve been carrying around with us. So he sat on a bench and ate it. He was planning to eat it with breakfast, but was embarrassed to sit there eating Chinese food at 9:30 in the morning with other people around. We went to the Little Mermaid next. This is always cute. Then we saw the 12:30 Backstage Pass. We walked right into Drew Carey next. Our timing on this was perfect, just as we got there, we walked in and they shut the doors. I’m so glad we did early entry – we got so much accomplished in so little time. We decided against making the Fantasmic Dinner seating. We decided to just play the rest of the day by ear. We were getting hungry and knew we should decide on lunch. Our usual vacation dilemma is that we run run run and don’t eat until very odd times and screw up our meals. So this trip, we are trying to be more conscious of normal meal times and try to eat then. Normal for us is probably late for most people (our normal dinnertime is around 9:15pm at home). We took the Disney boat from MGM to the Beach Club to have lunch at Beaches and Cream. I had a single cheeseburger with fries and a sprite; Paul had a double cheeseburger with onion rings and water. The total with tax and tip came to $24. This place has the best burgers on Disney property. It was about 3pm when we finished so we decided to go get the car and check in at Vistana. Check in is 4pm and we figured by the time we take the boat back to MGM and get the car and drive over it should be just about 4. We decided to stop at Publix (a supermarket) on the way to Vistana to get our groceries for the week. We don’t need that much but like to have soda, chips, and breakfast food in the room. We spent $55.35 in Publix. This included a $13 water camera so our grocery cost was really only about $42. There was a huge line to check in at Vistana. I wasn’t at the counter until 4:40. I requested a top floor room when I made my reservation and was told it wasn’t ready yet. Hmmm – check in is at 4 and it’s 40 minutes later and it’s still not ready – that’s not a good sign. The clerk said it would be ready in about ½ hour. OK – we’ll wait. But what to do, we have perishables in the car. So we’ll just drive around and see what’s here. We came back to Vistana around 5:20 and the room still isn’t ready. The clerk checking me in this time was clueless. He said he has no idea when the room would be ready and doesn’t know why the first clerk told me ½ hour. By now I’m getting pissed off because we are wasting a lot of time. I purposely waited until after 4 to come here since that’s when the rooms are supposed to be ready. I would have stayed in a Disney park, played for longer, and came here later. The manager Jody came by to see what the problem was. She was very helpful – she took our cell phone number and said she’d call as soon as it was ready. She also made a few calls to housekeeping to look into it. She took our perishables and stored them in a refrigerator for us in the meantime. We drove around Vistana just browsing around. Paul’s cell phone rang at 10 to 6 and our room was ready. Yippee – so back to the front desk to get the keys and the perishables. We get to our room and what do we walk into – an oven. It was over 90 degrees in the room and the air conditioner was on. We immediately called the front desk and they said they’d send engineering over to look at it. The two bedroom condo has the following layout (sometimes a mirror image depending which side you are on). When you walk in the front door to one side is a kitchen with all the normal appliances – refrigerator, microwave, sink, oven, dishwasher, cabinets filled with pots, pans, dishes, utensils, etc. There is also a breakfast bar connecting the kitchen to the dining room. Just beyond the kitchen and over the breakfast bar is the dining room with a table and 6 chairs. Beyond the dining room is the living room with a couch, chairs, tables, lamps, an entertainment center with TV, VCR, stereo, etc. Beyond the living room is the balcony/patio with a table and 4 chairs. When you walk in and look straight through the condo you can see all these rooms – it’s an open floor plan. On the other side of the front door is the washer and dryer in a closet. Next to the washer/dryer closet is the guest bedroom with two beds, a dresser, TV, closet, and end tables. This bedroom has a door into one of the bathrooms. This bathroom has the toilet and shower in it’s own room, then the sink in another room. You can also access this bathroom from the living room/dining room area. So this bathroom has 3 doors – one from the guest bedroom, one from the living room, and one separating the toilet/shower from the sink. At the other end of the condo, off the living room, is the master bedroom. The master bedroom has a King size bed, closet with a safe, dresser, end tables, TV, Jacuzzi, sink and it’s own bathroom. In the bathroom is your standard toilet, sink, shower. So there are two sinks in the master bedroom (one in the bedroom by the door to the master bath and one in the master bath). There is also a door from the master bedroom leading directly to the balcony/patio. I know Vistana was recently bought by Sheraton and became part of the Starwood network. I’m hoping this is just a fluke that so far I’m not very happy with Vistana this trip – because of the delay getting the room and the fact that it’s an oven. We’ve stayed here several times in the past (we own our timeshare here) and always had great stays and nothing but positive things to say about this place. We even had friends of ours stay with us once and they were so impressed they bought one too. I’m hoping things will turn around and the rest of our stay here will be fine. If they can’t resolve their problems or are going to cut costs at our expense, we’ll sell our timeshare here and buy into Disney’s Vacation Club. I’m more upset about this waste of time than Paul is. He’s relaxing and watching football. He always complains that he gets so tired on our vacations because I like to run around so much. He says he never gets to relax. I wouldn’t call this relaxing – it’s annoying. Usually he gets to relax when we do get into our timeshare for a little while because I like to unpack and get things settled. Paul would be happy living out of his suitcase. Well the verdict is in from engineering – we have to move. The air conditioner compressor is broken. The bell services person met us with a new set of keys. The desk manager Jody also gave us $40 in Vistana dollars for all the hassles we’ve had today. Getting this decision from engineering and the keys for a new room took a long time. However, I’m glad so see they are working to try to make us happy. We were moved to the Cascades (the newest section of the resort). We own in the Lakes which is the 2nd newest. We have a top floor. The amenities are the same as they are in the Lakes but the room is smaller – it’s still a two bedroom condo but less square feet. At this point, I didn’t care. We finally were able to unpack and get a little settled. We didn’t have a regular dinner with all the check in hassles, but I had a bowl of cereal and Paul ate some chips. We went to Pleasure Island when we were done. We just made the 10:30 Comedy Show at Comedy Warehouse. This is always fun. I don’t know how these actors can do this – I’d be a nervous wreck each time it was my turn to make something funny up that quickly. We went to 8Trax after for a little while. We watched the Midnight New Year’s celebration. Mannequins is closed for renovations so we went into what used to be the Country Western Place, but they were playing regular music. Paul was hungry when we left Pleasure Island. Not much was open at this time. We found a Wendy’s right near Vistana that was still open so Paul got a chicken sandwich and fries. We got back to Vistana, used the Jacuzzi in the master bedroom and went to bed around 1:30am Did we meet the tentative plan? Yes, except for the Fantasmic Dinner plan. Monday 9/10/01 My waking Paul for Early Entry yesterday came back to haunt him today. In his sleep, he started yelling “early entry early entry”. This was around 5am. I asked him if he wanted to get up and go to the parks early and he said no, he must have just been traumatized from the day before. When I got up I did some laundry – I know it sounds like a chore to do on vacation, but I actually like doing laundry and the machine is right in the condo. I made breakfast for us – bacon, egg, and cheese omelettes with English muffins. This is about the extent of my cooking. Luckily, Paul is a very good cook. I called Sea World to check their hours. I found out some good news and some bad news. The good news is that they are open until 7pm (I thought it was 6) and they are offering the 2nd day free tickets. The bad news is Journey to Atlantis is down for rehab from today through 9/24. Paul is very upset about this – he really likes this ride. Because Journey to Atlantis isn’t working, he wants to change the plans and go elsewhere today. We went to Animal Kingdom around 11am. I was worried since we got such a late start, but it turned out fine. There were no crowds or lines. We went on Dinosaur without any wait. We haven’t gone on this since the first time we were in Animal Kingdom years ago. Since then, each time we were here the lines were always prohibitive so we skipped it. This time we just walked on. Then we went onto It’s Tough to Be a Bug – also walked right on. We walked over to Kilamanjaro Safari and had maybe a 5-minute wait. We saw two animals [I don’t remember for sure, but think they were monkeys] having sex. We walked through the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. We decided to head over to Epcot at this point. It was pretty hot in Animal Kingdom. We stopped at Red Lobster for lunch around 2pm. We had Crab and Lobster stuffed mushrooms as an appetizer, then Paul had Cajun shrimp over linguine, I had the Captains lunch platter which had fried shrimp, shrimp scampi, and broiled filet. It was a nice break from the park. Lunch cost $42 with tax and tip. It started pouring while we were at Red Lobster. Not just for 10-15 minutes but it didn’t stop. We drove back to Vistana to drop off our leftovers and to wait out the rain. We gave up and just went in the rain when over an hour went by and no let up was in sight. We went to Epcot. We started off in Spaceship Earth; then played in the Global neighborhood. By the time we came out of here, the rain stopped and the sun came out. We went into Innoventions and played here for a while. We had a new calendar made and sent a few picture e-mails. We saw a movie about radiation and how advanced it’s become. We played in Innoventions for over an hour. We went over to Test Track. It was still closed until they can be sure the tracks were dry enough to run. We decided to wait for little while because if we went off to do something else and it came up, the line would probably be huge. Finally, they opened up and in we went. What was really weird was that instead of bringing us into the normal queue where you see all the test equipment we went right into the short movie before going into the cars. The cars were going through not quite full. This was odd since they had a single riders line going as well. We went into Mousegear since the rain started up again. I found a Walt Disney World 2001 polo shirt for Paul. He has two from 2000. It was on sale for $24.99 – I guess since 2001 is almost over they want to get rid of them and bring in the 2002 ones. So we got that for him. We went into Ice Station Cool and tried the various drinks again. We even attempted the Beverly – yes it’s still as bad as always. Our favorite is the Watermelon. We went to look for our Leave a Legacy tile. We didn’t have our location with us and couldn’t find it at first. I asked one of the cast members who looked it up and gave me the location codes. Then it was easy to find. I guess these weren’t as big a hit as they hoped. There is still plenty of blank space. It doesn’t sound like we accomplished much at Epcot but it was already after 7 and we had to start heading out to get over to Animal Kingdom Lodge for our priority seating at Boma. I wanted to get there a little early to have a chance to look around. Animal Kingdom Lodge reminded us of the Wilderness Lodge. We were seated quickly at Boma. There were a lot of different dishes as well as some normal dishes. We tried a lot of the different things. The corn and plaintain soup, although it sounds weird, was very good. I liked the sweet potato mashed potatoes also made with plaintains. Paul liked the prime rib. Their dessert section was very good. The waitress even said make sure to leave room for dessert. We tried a lot of the little desserts. We stopped at the gift shop at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. I needed to buy a new rain poncho. I wanted to get the beige Animal Kingdom one with safari Mickey on the back. I found out they don’t make those anymore but they had the new Animal Kingdom one. It’s not as nice as the Mickey one but it’s beige so will be different from the sea of yellow ones everyone else will have. So I have a new poncho. After dinner, we headed back to Vistana. We did some laundry, watched TV, went in the Jacuzzi and went to bed fairly early – by 11:30pm. Paul was laughing at me because when we get back to the room I’ll fill the Jacuzzi and want to go in. Meanwhile, at home we have a hot tub and I hardly ever use it. Did we meet the tentative plan? We changed the plan since Journey to Atlantis at Sea World was closed; but we still made our dinner reservations at Boma Tuesday 9/11/01 We had breakfast at Vistana. A hurricane which may become a tropical storm (Gabrielle) is on its way to Florida. We put on the news before leaving to see what time the rain would start today. At first I thought it was a movie, but soon we realized it was real… We saw on the news that there was a terrorist attack against the United States this morning. A plane crashed into the Pentagon and two planes crashed into the World Trade Center. WTC 1 and 2 (or the Twin Towers) are no more. I work near the World Trade Center so tried calling some people at my office to make sure they are OK. Also, my company has offices in 7 World Trade Center (which later collapsed) and I know many people that work there – I used to work in that building myself until a year or so ago. All circuits were busy and we can’t get through. I’m hoping they were all evacuated and sent home. Various crises have taken place while Paul and I have been on vacation. John F Kennedy jr. died while we were in the Bahamas, Princess Diana died while we were at a wedding in New Hampshire, and now this. We spent the morning watching the news and trying to get through to New York on the phone. They closed the Disney Parks. This is only the 2nd time Disney had to close their parks since they’ve opened. The first time was due to a hurricane. Everything was closed – the 4 theme parks, the water parks, downtown Disney, Universal, Sea World, etc. So we spent the day at the Vistana Pool. We had lunch at the poolside place – chicken with potato salad, and a biscuit for Paul; and the kids hot dog meal (with fries) for me. Cost about $11. The tops of my feet got sunburned. After spending the day at the pool, we watched some more news. Another building at the World Trade Center - #7 has collapsed. My company is in that building – I used to work in that building. I work in another building a few blocks away but a lot of our company is in 7 WTC. Luckily, everyone was evacuated earlier in the day and the collapse took place around 5:30pm. I was finally able to get through to NY and check in with a few people and make sure they were OK. We stopped at the Buena Vista Outlets on 535. Most of them were open – although some were closed. The only thing we ended up buying was 2 pairs of shorts for Paul in the Reebok outlet. We went to the Polynesian for our dinner at O’Hana. We took pictures with Mickey, Goofy, and the genie from Aladdin who were all in the Polynesian lobby. O’Hana was pretty crowded. Luckily we had a priority seating. We sat in the Tambu Lounge and had a drink while waiting (Pina Colada for me; Jack & Coke for Paul) and watched the news. We waited about 15 minutes and were seated in the quiet room (kind of in the back away from all the activities). I guess since we don’t have kids, they figure it’s easier to put us back there. Most of the other people in that area didn’t have kids either. Our waiter was new – it was his first day. He was a little slow with getting things out to us, but he was trying. They changed the menu – they took off the spring rolls and the lo-mein with salmon that they used to serve. Of course, these were our two favorite items. But the meal was still pretty good. I don’t know if we’ll run back to it again that quickly. We didn’t know if Disney was planning to open their parks tomorrow. The security person we spoke to at the Polynesian said they weren’t planning to make the decision until the morning. It all depended on whether there were any further attacks. After dinner we watched some more news in the Tambu lounge – President Busch was addressing the nation. After he spoke we walked out to the beach and found a swing to wait for the Electrical Light Parade. We watched that. It’s very cute. We watched the people going down the pool slide – looks like fun. I really enjoy pool slides. Then we drove back to Vistana and watched some more news before going to bed. Did we meet the tentative plan? No, except for going to O’Hana for dinner. The terrorist attacks changed all plans. Wednesday 9/12/01 We had breakfast in the timeshare. The Disney parks are open. We decided to go to Magic Kingdom today since that’s what we were planning for yesterday. We left around 10 to go to Magic Kingdom. Security was heightened at Disney. They wanted to look in all backpacks, bags, etc before allowing anyone in to the park. We rode in the front of the monorail with the driver to get to the park. Unfortunately, my camera battery decided to choose that moment to stop working. Our first stop was the Camera Center to replace the battery for my camera. The battery was $9.54. We posed with Donald Duck and Dopey who were near the Camera Center. I went on the new Magic Carpets of Aladdin ride. It was only a 5-minute wait. Paul didn’t go on with me, he just took pictures/videos of me on it. It reminded me of Dumbo. Next we went into the Tiki Birds show. This is cute. It started raining so I put on my poncho that I bought Monday night at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. The rain was early today – usually it didn’t start until 3pm and it started around noon today. We went on Pirates of the Caribbean. We waited about 10 minutes. Since it was raining and we were already getting wet, we went onto Splash Mountain. There wasn’t any wait for this either. There was a 20-minute wait for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad so we decided to get a Fast Pass which was good for 1:55 - 2:55 (about ½ hour away). Then we took the raft to Tom Sawyer’s Island. We’ve never done this before. We walked through the mine and wandered around the island for a little while. Then we took the raft back. This was the first time we went to Tom Sawyer’s Island. We weren’t thrilled – I kept looking across the water and seeing all the stuff there is to do so wanted to head back. Fast Pass worked out well for us this time. We went over to Big Thunder Mountain and the standby line was 55 minutes now. We just walked right in and onto the train with our fast passes. We stopped at Peco Bill’s café to have lunch. We had the Double Cheeseburger with fries and a kids hot dog meal. The fixings bar here was very good – grilled onions and mushrooms - yum. Cost was $11.98. This is the first time we’ve eaten at Peco Bill’s. We both enjoyed it. For fast food it was fresh and cheap. After lunch we walked over to Haunted Mansion but it had a 45-minute wait so we decided to move on and come back another time. All the Fantasy Land rides had ridiculously long waits so we kept on going to Tomorrow Land. We got a fast pass for Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger spin. We went on Carousel of Progress which we both really like. Me – because I think it’s adorable; Paul to take a nap. Then we went on the People Mover. It was time for our Fastpass at Buzz Lightyear, so we went on. There wasn’t a line since many people were lining up to watch the 3pm Magic Moments Parade. I had 7,800 points (very high for me) so ranked as a Space Scout. Paul had over 200,000 points so he ranked as a Planetary Pilot We watched the Magical Moments Parade after coming off Buzz Lightyear. On the way out we stopped at the Main Street Bakery and picked up a banana nut bread to go. I’ve read trip reports where people eat these all the time so thought we’d try it. I picked the nuts off the top because I don’t like nuts, but do like banana bread. I wasn’t crazy about this one. It was kind of dry and tasteless. It looked like a mini loaf. We took the monorail back and drove back to Vistana. We changed for dinner at Emeril’s at Universal City Walk. Dinner at Emeril’s was delicious. We started off with a Mushroom Truffle Pizza as an appetizer. Paul had the veal chop; I had the land and sea special. We both had soda. For dessert I had the White Chocolate Bread pudding and Paul had banana cream pie. I really like the presentation here – both (or as many people in your party) dishes are placed on the table at the same exact time. The total cost with tax and tip was $131.71. We were stuffed after this huge meal. We walked around CityWalk for a while. There was a stage right near Emeril’s where they had shows going on so we watched. There was a guy riding a unicycle, someone juggling, and various other acts. We went to the Disney Marketplace to do a little shopping. Our first stop was World of Disney. It was so crowded here. We didn’t go crazy here just bought a few things and spent $79.19 with my Disney Club Discount. Then we went into the Disney Days of Xmas Store. We bought more stuff here and spent another $119.25 with my Disney Club discount. They already have some 2002 ornaments so I bought them as well as the 2001 ones. One cute thing they had was a box of Mickey Ball head ornaments in different colors. I have a few boxes of these in red already and thought it was kind of nice to get the variety of colors. What made it even nicer was that you could put names on the Mickey ball heads. So we bought a box for my sister Jennifer and her husband Kevin. The red ball with Jennifer’s name, blue ball with Kevin’s name, Gold ball with Jillian’s (their unborn child due in November) name, and the silver ball with Swade’s (their cat) name. We also bought a box for us – Red ball with my name, blue ball with Paul’s name, gold ball with Kiki’s (our dog) name, and the silver ball plain. The balls with the names will be ready Friday night so we’ll go back to pick them up then. Of course, putting the names on has an additional charge – I think it was $3 per ball just for the name. We got back to Vistana after 12. We watched some more news and used the Jacuzzi. We saw that all regular flights are suspended indefinitely. We aren’t scheduled to leave until Sunday but I wonder if we’ll be able to. I guess if you’re going to get stuck somewhere, where better than Disney? Did we meet the tentative plan? No, except our meal at Emeril’s Thursday 9/13/01 We changed our plans again. The weather has been pretty bad this trip. Not the normal 15-minute rainstorms we usually see in September; but we’ve been having torrential downpours that last for hours on end. We decided not to drive to Tampa since we expect the roller coasters to be closed in this weather. We had breakfast in the timeshare and did some laundry. We didn’t rush out because of the weather and because Paul is a big sleepyhead. We went to Epcot around noon. We started at the Imagination Pavilion and saw Honey I Shrunk the Audience. We’ve seen this many times and always enjoy it. Then we went into Journey into Your Imagination. I don’t know why this has gotten such bad reviews, I think it’s very cute. Once again, it started pouring so we went into Innoventions and tried the various attractions there. We waited to see the Home of the Future. When the rain let up slightly we took the boat from the beginning of World Showcase to Morocco/Japan. We watched Miyuki in Japan making candy. When her show ended we were starving and it was already about 4. We had a late lunch at the Matsu No Ma Lounge in Japan. We had various sushi rolls and shrimp tempura. Lunch cost $55. After lunch Miyuki had another show that we watched. We both even got a candy lollipop. I got a dog and Paul got a monkey. Very cute. We walked back towards Canada because I wanted to see Off Kilter’s show. We stopped in France at the pastry place and picked up a peach tart and a ham/cheese croissant to go for breakfast tomorrow. We saw Off Kilter’s show in the rain. They had a very short show – only 3 songs. We went into Ellen’s Energy Adventure next. Paul took a nap in here. Then we went into the Land to get Paul his ice cream. He’s been in the mood for ice cream since yesterday and we finally got some for him. We went on the boat ride next. There was about a 15-minute wait. Then we went into the Living Seas. We haven’t seen this in a while. The Manatees are huge. By the time we got out of Living Seas, it was 8:40 so we made our way over to World Showcase to wait for Illuminations – Reflections of Earth. We sat near the entrance to Future World so we’d be able to make a quick exit (hopefully ahead of the crowds) when the show ended. Our view of the show was pretty good considering we showed up a mere twenty minutes before it started. I know people like to stake their prime piece of sidewalk down for parades, fireworks, whatever – but I’d rather spend my time playing and not have as perfect a spot. After the show ended, we made it out of the park and into the tram fairly quickly. We went to the Pizza Hut in the general store at Vistana and ordered a pizza for dinner to go. We used the Vistana Dollars we were given after our check in hassles to pay for the pizza. We brought it back to the room and ate while watching more news. All three New York area airports (La Guardia, JFK, and Newark) are closed again. Several people were arrested tonight with knives and they are suspected to be part of the terrorist group from Tuesday and the fear is that they were going to continue to try to crash into something else. I don’t know if we’ll be able to fly home Sunday morning. Even if we can, we’re a little nervous about getting on a plane now. Did we meet the tentative plan? No, we changed the plans Friday 9/14/01 We woke up to pouring rain. Hurricane/Tropical Storm Gabrielle is on its way to Orlando. This is the worst weather we’ve ever experienced in Florida in all our times down here. We signed up for the Vistana Owner’s breakfast today at 9:15. We went to that. Of course, they tried selling us another time-share week. They also are using a new exchange company now – II (Interval International) instead of RCI. Several Disney Vacation Club resorts are part of that exchange company (Boardwalk Villas, Old Key West, and Wilderness Lodge Villas). At first the lady said you aren’t able to exchange within a 40 mile radius of Vistana. It turns out that isn’t true so we signed up for II. We can cancel our RCI membership when we get home. Or we can just keep it for now and make sure we like II. There are a couple of options with this II – it’s actually Starwood Vacation Network that we signed up for with membership in II. We have the option of using our regular week, exchanging our week with II, using Starwood Options, or changing for Starwood Points. There are a lot of choices so we have to read through the book some more. One thing I liked is that you can call and check for availability with II before committing your week. We came back to our villa after the presentation. It was pouring out. Hurricane Gabrielle hit Florida this morning. We made some calls trying to get through to NY. We also saw on TV a hotline number for my company that I called. My office building is closed until further notice. We ate our leftover pizza for lunch. We headed out to Disney Quest around 2pm. It was really crowded there. I guess everyone had the same idea we did – it’s pouring so we should find something indoors to do. We started off playing the car race game. We made our way around and played various games including the Pinball Slam, Buzz Lightyear’s Astroblaster, Magic Carpets of Aladdin, and various others that I don’t remember. We designed a roller coaster and went on the simulation of it. This was more fun than I expected. It’s nice that they give you a little locker to put your stuff in before you ride your coaster since you really turn upside down and everything would fall otherwise. Around 6ish we went outside because Paul wanted to have a cigarette. Horrible habit that I wish he’d stop. When we got out, the rain had stopped. I wanted to go to Magic Kingdom. Paul wanted to stay and play some more at Disney Quest. I took a Disney bus and we decided to meet back at Disney Quest after I saw Spectromagic at Magic Kingdom. From Downtown Disney, I took a bus to the TTA, then the monorail to Magic Kingdom. They were testing the emergency brakes on the monorail so it took a while to get to Magic Kingdom. I didn’t get into the park until about 7pm. I went to Haunted Mansion and got right on without a wait. Then I checked how Main Street and the parade route looked. It was pretty empty so I went into FantasyLand. Snow White had no wait so I went right on. Even Winnie the Pooh was a walk on – I did that next. It was about 8pm now and Spectromagic was scheduled to start at 8:15 so I made my way to the Castle. I found a spot right on the circle in front of the castle. There were people sitting on the curb but I was right behind them. Spectromagic didn’t start until 8:25. It reminded me of the Main Street Electrical Parade – just different music and different floats. After the parade, I made my way out of Magic Kingdom. I got right onto the Monorail and right onto a bus for Downtown Disney. The bus made several stops – Market Place, and Pleasure Island before it brought me to the Westside. This ride took about ½ hour. I got to Disney Quest around 9:25. Paul and I went to Wolfgang Puck Café for Dinner. We were seated immediately – no wait at all. That’s kind of odd for a Friday night. But I guess a lot of people stayed in with the rain. We started with the fried Calamari. Then I had the Spaghettini with Chicken and Paul had the Shrimp Pad Thai. I had soda and Paul had beer. We couldn’t finish our food and wrapped it to go. The total with tax and tip was $58. We walked around the Westside for a little while. We spent a while in the Magic Shop. Paul is into magic tricks. Once before he bought a bunch of Magic Tricks – he hasn’t used them and they’ve been sitting in the closet for 2 years and now are in one of our unpacked boxes. So I talked him out of buying more. We went back to Vistana around 11:45pm. Did we meet the tentative plan? No, due to Hurricane Gabrielle Typhoon Lagoon was closed Saturday 9/15/01 We had breakfast in Vistana as usual. Breakfast is where we really make use of the kitchen facilities in the timeshare. Although I like to have a breakfast out once in a while, it wastes so much time when you are trying to get to a park to play. We spoke to some more people back home. We’re seriously considering driving home instead of flying. We went to MGM around 1pm. We saw the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire show at both 1:15 and at 2:20. We really enjoy playing/watching this game. We went onto the Backlot Tour after. We were both chosen as volunteers. I was the Captain and Paul was the Mechanic. To the audience it looked like we both got drenched during the water scene. In reality, the rain gear they give you keeps you very dry. I wanted to see the Hunchback show which was scheduled to start at 4:05. Paul wanted to play in the arcade. So we were going to meet up after. He ended up walking the wrong way and going into the Millionaire show instead of the arcade. We went into the Muppets show when we met up. Then we went into both the 6 and the 6:50 Millionaire Shows. I made it into the Hot Seat during the 6:50 show. It’s really different playing from the Hot Seat than the regular audience seat. I didn’t do very well. I was wrong on the 1,000 question. Logically, I should have known the answer, but I was nervous up there and ended up getting it wrong. I received a button that says I made it to the Hot Seat. We went to the Cape May Café at the Beach Club for dinner. We made a Priority Seating as we were leaving MGM for 7:50. We got there and were seated immediately. This meal is one of our favorites at Disney as well as a very good value. We went back to Vistana and reserved a rental car to drive back to NY. Avis, the company we had the current rental car with wasn’t offering any one way to NY trips – they didn’t want their cars going to the NY area. So we have a reservation with National. So we’ll have to go to the airport and return the Avis car then pick up the National car before beginning our drive home. Delta was very good. They would have let us change our ticket to any other day/time to come back without a charge. Since we decided to drive back, they will refund ½ the price of the ticket to my credit card. We went to Pleasure Island next. We saw the 10:40 comedy show which was funnier than the show we saw earlier in the week. Then we watched the New Year’s show at midnight. We stopped at a WalMart and picked up a cooler, soda, and snacks for the ride home. We even bought a new doggie bed for Kiki. We went back to Vistana after to pack. Did we meet the tentative plan? No, we changed it again. Sunday 9/16/01 We checked out of Vistana around 10:20. Our long distance calls were about $150. We should have used our calling cards. I assumed that since owners had free local calls, we would be charged reasonable rates for long distance. I was wrong. Today was sunny and beautiful. We stopped at the Marketplace to pick up the ornaments that we ordered with names on them and to buy a few more souvenirs. We decided since we were driving anyway, we may as well go to Typhoon Lagoon for a few hours. This was the first nice day we had. So we stayed at Typhoon Lagoon until about 3:30. We showered there and changed then decided to have lunch at Bill Wong’s on International Drive. We used to come here each trip – it’s a Chinese buffet and very good. We drove to the airport to switch rental cars. That was a bit of a hassle. We drove to the Avis return area but had to park off to the side. I waited with that car while Paul went to get the National car. He got a nice white (again) Buick Regal with nice leather seats. We moved the luggage and stuff from one car to the other. When you fly it forces you to consolidate all your stuff into your luggage. With driving we had tons of extra stuff shoved into the car. We finally started the long drive home around 7:30pm. This was a very long drive. We stopped here and there. Did we meet the tentative plan? No, except for checking out of Vistana our plans totally changed with the decision to drive instead of fly back. FINAL THOUGHTS Driving vs flying. I definitely prefer to fly and get where I want to go faster. However, driving wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It gave us the flexibility to go when we were ready to and stop when we wanted to. One thing I don’t like about a plane is the lack of control you have as a passenger – you can’t even see out the front window. I’ve always felt this way, even before the attacks of September 11, but even more so now. I am now an even more loyal customer to both Delta airlines and National rental cars. Delta went out of their way to make sure we got home safely – even though we decided to drive. The fact that they were willing to change our flights without a charge and that they ended up refunding ½ the price of our ticket when we decided to drive instead really went a long way. When we are ready to get on a plane again, they are the first airline I am going to call. I’ve always been an Avis fan, but they wouldn’t let any of their cars go one way to the NY area. What’s their problem – people were traumatized by the events of Sept 11 and all they were worried about was their precious automobiles? Meanwhile, National had no qualms about letting us drive to NJ with their car and even gave us a good rate. Until the next Disney Trip… Noreen Chin Noreen.s.chin@citigroup.com Mail a Comment to Noreen Chin |
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