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Jennifer -- January 2001 -- Walt Disney World (ASSR)Jan 30-Feb 6 2001 PreTrip Report The players:
I've wanted to take Danielle to WDW for a while, because I wanted her to go in the off season before she started kindergarten and would only be able to come in the summer months. I've also wanted the chance to spend some time with my inlaws. Paul and Dan are only 2 years apart in age and have always been close, but we haven't seen them much since we moved to FL. Disney gave me the perfect opportunity when they advertised the All Stars for $49 a night for FL residents. I called and booked 2 rooms at All-Star Sports and then asked Dan and Amy what they wanted for Christmas! Our gift to them was park hoppers and their gift to us was that they agreed to come. Our ressies are for Jan 31 to Feb 6. I went to the Disney Store in December before my MKC card went away forever and got all the tickets. 6 day hopper plus tickets for Dan and Amy and a 5 day child hopper for Danielle. We only plan to go 4 days to the parks, we may go a 5th day or possibly go to SeaWorld or Universal or IOA. If the weather is nice, we may do a water park instead. We'll keep the unused days for another trip since everyone wants to visit when you live in Florida. Paul and I got FL resident seasonal passes. We usually go to Food and Wine festival and other friends of our got seasonal passes this year too, so we'll probably go a few times. We may use the Plus options for ourselves some other time... Paul has never been to PI or Blizzard Beach or Typhoon Lagoon. The day before I checking to the College Program we went to River County. We chose it because it was the cheapest and we were broke! So, the room is reserved, the tickets are bought; now we need to arrange transportation for Dan, Amy and Danielle from Kentucky to Orlando. The problem: none of them have ever flown before and Amy really has no desire to start now. Much debate over driving vs. flying ensues. The solution: tickets booked from Nashville to Orlando on Southwest Airlines for $79 one way. The silver lining: about 2 weeks after they booked the flights, I was searching SWA's webpage to get the exact flight times and found the same flight was now only $39 one way. A few quick phone calls to SWA and they have a credit for the difference in the prices to be used for another flight in the next year. The tentative plan is this: Wednesday leave Ft. Lauderdale and pick up Dan, Amy and Danielle at the airport stop at I-drive McDonalds on the way back to WDW check into All Star Sports and take a monorail ride, maybe go to the petting zoo at Ft. Wilderness, then head to Downtown Disney, play for a while and have dinner at the Rainforest Cafe go to bed early Thursday Be at Animal Kingdom at park opening and stay there until about 2 PM. I think we can probably see all we want in that time. Paul and I have been several times to all the parks, so the attractions we visit will be dictated by the others, and mainly by Danielle's tolerance level. I've been enough that I do know the normal wait times and what to skip and come back to later, so we should be fairly efficient in our touring. take an afternoon break, nap, rest, swim? Go to EPCOT for the evening. We have PS's for the Tempura Kiku in Japan at 5 PM. Paul really likes this sort of restaurant and I'm guessing the others have never experienced it. I've been there at least twice and always enjoyed it, Disney-style spend more time in WS and stay for TON and Illuminations. Friday Back to EPCOT at park opening and spend the morning in Future World. We have PS's for the Garden Grille at 11:30 AM and I want to be sure we go on Living with the Land before we eat see anything we might have missed the night before in WS, possibly try the Paragon Challenge take an afternoon break, nap, rest, swim? Go to Magic Kingdom and stay through E-ride night Saturday Be at Disney MGM Studios at park opening. We have PS's for 1950's Prime Time Cafe at 11:30 AM take an afternoon break, nap, rest, swim? Back to the studios and stay for Fantasmic Sunday We have PS at CRT at 9:05 AM. This is a suprise that we're not going to tell Danielle about. We're just going to show up! I'm hoping Fantasyland won't be too crowded when we get done eating. take an afternoon break, nap, rest, swim? We may go back to the MK after our break, or we can go to any of the other parks if we saw enough of the MK between Sunday morning and E-ride night. Monday flexible day... we have tickets to go to WDW parks if we want, or we can go to any of the other Orlando area parks. Tuesday take Dan, Amy and Danielle to the airport around noon and head for home. I've sort of combined the early entry and the day after early entry methods of choosing a park. I want to stay out of the MK on Saturday. Day One I got up about 5:30AM, about 45 minutes earlier than I usually get up for work. I just couldn't stand it any longer! I'd woken up about 4 or 5 times during the night, I think I was more excited about the trip than Danielle was! Paul and I left Ft. Lauderdale at about 7AM as planned, glad I got up early, if not, we would have left about 30 minutes late. Paul required some extra prodding to get out of bed... It took about 3 hours up the Florida Turnpike to Disney Property. We took the Osceola Parkway all the way to All-Star Sports and went to check in. We got connecting rooms, as requested, and picked up all the maps and guidebooks. The CM checking us in was still "earning his ears", so it seemed to take a long time, but hey, I've been there too. Paul was embarrassed when I cut him off as he was explaining surprise mornings and refillable mugs, Paul said I was being a "know it all". One of our rooms was ready, so we dashed over to carry in a few bags before heading to the airport to pick up the Kentucky-based family. We were in the Football building and had room that opened to the football field courtyard. Cool! Off we went to the airport, finally parked in the garage and had enough time to wait at the gate. They ended up getting $39 flights from Nashville to Orlando, but they live about 3 hours from the Nashville airport. They had all gotten up about 4AM to get to Nashville in time for the direct flight. They were allowed to board early, since Danielle is not yet 5 years old and were able to get a seat near the front. We had to wait a while for the bags to come around on the carousel. In spite of some difficulties navigating the escalators and moving sidewalks for Danielle (a theme that was often repeated throughout the trip) we were on our way back to Disney fairly quickly. We carried all the bags in, but the second room still had not been made up. We brought a large cooler for the room with sodas, juice, milk. and water to go with the cereal, muffins and other snacks we brought with us. The Kentucky family claimed to not eat much breakfast, but the Florida family are used to having food before starting the day. We figured this would save some valuable morning time. We had lunch at the All Star Sports food court. Grilled chicken for me, grilled cheese for Paul, burgers for Dan and Amy, and chicken fingers and fries for Danielle. It was a little overcast but we were comfortable eating outside by the pool in shorts and t-shirts. Having most of the afternoon in front of us, we left the All Stars and headed over to the Ft. Wilderness campground. This is the only place Paul and Dan stayed at Disney as children and I wanted to check out the petting zoo, since I'd never really been there except on my way to River Country. We spent some time with the goats and other critters and Danielle got a pony ride on Snow, the white pony. We meandered down towards Bay Lake and played on the playground for awhile. Danielle really wanted to check out the pool back at All-Star Sports, so we went back to swim. It was about 3:30PM and the second room STILL wasn't ready. I called the front desk and they said they'd send someone out. Dan, Paul, and Danielle were the only ones brave enough to try the water. Amy and I weren't so excited about being in a bathing suit so soon after the holidays, so we just sat in the deck chairs and caught up a little bit on the family news. After everyone decided they were waterlogged, we went to the rooms (theirs was finally ready) and cleaned up to leave for dinner at Downtown Disney. We parked near the McDonald's and stopped at LegoLand and World of Disney before going over to the Rainforest Café to put our name on the list. At World of Disney we got Danielle some pink Minnie Mouse ears that she ended up wearing most of the trip! All of the fountains and lego structures that spew water were turned off because of the water restrictions in Florida. In Ft. Lauderdale we're on restrictions too, so we weren't surprised. A CM friend of mine who I still keep up with joined us for dinner. We were seated in the far corner of the mushroom bar, as far away from the rainforest action as possible. I was disappointed, but hesitated to ask for a different table since we were all getting hungry and I didn't want to extend our wait. We did walk around and see the animals during one of the thunderstorms, but it wasn't really the effect I was hoping for when I suggested the RC. Oh, well. After dinner we just headed back to the hotel and went to bed in anticipation of a full day the next day. Day Two Mickey called about 6:30AM to get us up and moving. We left by 7:30 for the Animal Kingdom. We were in the first 2 rows in the parking lot. I was really impressed with how quickly the group got up and moving and hadn't really planned to get there THAT early. Paul and I had to go to the ticket booth and exchange our seasonal pass vouchers for the actual passes. Then we got in line at the turnstiles. A talking trashcan was waiting with us, passing the time by making conversation with all the kids in line. It tried to talk to Danielle, but she was a bit shy and didn't want to tell it her name. However, she was quite impressed with it and asked for the rest of the day if every trash can we saw "talked like the other one did". They opened the gate at 8AM and we were able to see Safari Mickey and Minnie and a few of the other characters. Dan went to get a stroller, which ended up being the biggest attraction of the day, along with the talking trash can, in Danielle's book. She doesn't get to ride in a stroller at home, so she was thrilled that she got to ride now! As we came through the oasis, it started to rain and kept raining on and off all day. We headed straight to Kilimanjaro Safaris. I was going to get a fastpass and go through the Pangani Forest Trail first, but there was no wait and the CM's kept saying "there's no reason to get a fastpass, there's no wait". In my mind, that's not entirely true, but whatever... This was honestly the best safari I've been on, and I've probably been 10 or 12 times. We saw more animals up close than I ever had. After we saved Little Red from the poachers, we did explore the Pangani Forest Trail. Amy really enjoyed the gorillas. Danielle wanted to get back to her stroller. Next we went to It's Tough to be a Bug. We entered through the old entrance and eventually wound our way around to the new entrance. I guess they moved it to better incorporate fastpass, but the new line misses a lot of the carvings in the Tree of Life. The actual movie of It's Tough to be a Bug proved to be a bit much for Danielle and she and I ended up leaving before it was over. We weren't the only ones, I saw a few parents outside with small children who'd left when we did. After the others came out of the movie, we went to see the Tarzan show. I think we were at the first show of the day. While we waited (20 minutes?) for the show to start, we called the rest of the Kentucky based family to let them know that all was well. We have a Sprint PCS phone and had no trouble getting a signal in any of the parks. The most trouble we had with the phone was at the hotel, we always had to go outside and walk around to get a signal. Everyone enjoyed the Tarzan show; I'd never seen it or the Jungle Book show that was there before. When it ended, Dan, Amy, and I left Paul and Danielle at the Boneyard while we went back in time to see the Dinosaurs. The standby line took about 10 minutes. After we got Paul off the slides, we had lunch at Restaurantosaurus. Amy couldn't believe there was a McDonald's inside the park. Paul, Dan and I had burgers and Amy and Danielle had chicken nuggets. After lunch we went to the Maharajah Jungle Trek and got some great pictures of the tigers. The crowds were starting to pick up and we were getting ready to leave, but not without seeing the Festival of the Lion King. We started walking towards Camp Minnie-Mickey but took a detour to find the hidden pathway. We got to the Festival of the Lion King with just a few minutes left to spare and were seated in the "lion" section. Paul and I were lions last time too. After the show, we decided to leave and take a rest before going to Epcot for the evening. Things we didn't see at the Animal Kingdom: Rafiki's Planet Watch, Pocahontas, character greetings at Camp Minnie-Mickey, Kali River Rapids, and Flights of Wonder We went back to All-Star Sports and rested for about an hour and a half. Well, the grownups rested. Danielle was busy jumping on all the beds and wrestling with her dad and uncle. After she finally woke her mom up, we all piled back in the car and started for Epcot via the Boardwalk and the International Gateway. We parked at the Boardwalk and right about the time we got to the bottom of the stairs, I thought to ask if everyone had their tickets. Ooops! Amy switched bags and left the tickets in the room. No problem, Dan and Paul took off to get them while Amy, Danielle, and I spent some time exploring the Boardwalk shops and watching the seagulls. The guys were quick and we were back to the plan, with a quick stop to pick up a stroller. We browsed Morocco and the Exhibit at Japan (on the history of baseball in Japan) before going upstairs to the Teppanyaki Dining room. Paul and I have a favorite hibachi style restaurant we go to but he had been telling stories of his first visit to an all you can eat sushi place and the Kentucky family were a bit wary of what dinner would be like. We were seated with a mom and two kids who enjoyed listening to our accents. Paul, Dan, and Danielle did pretty well with chopsticks, but Amy and I stuck to our forks. I always make a really big mess with chopsticks! Danielle mostly ate the rice, but she did have the fruit cup when we had salads and she got ice cream for dessert with the kid's meal. After dinner, we continued our quick trip around the World Showcase. We just missed a showing of The American Adventure but we did decide to go on Maelstrom. Big mistake! Danielle had been playing with my troll doll (similar to Kathy K.'s sock puppet - he always travels with us) in the room and wanted to go on the ride. There was no wait, so we hopped right on. Turns out the trolls and the drop were a bit too frightening and we actually sat and watched the movie to give her a chance to calm down. We moved on to Mexico and with some coaxing, got her to go on El Rio del Tiempo, which she enjoyed. It was getting dark and we headed on around to Canada and went to see O Canada!. I didn't know how Danielle would do with standing during the movie, but she had no problem and actually liked it. After Canada, we got a spot in the United Kingdom, on the way up the hill towards the International Gateway to wait for Tapestry of Nations. This turned out to be really good spot to see all the puppets, except that the ones who tried to bend down and touch Danielle got stuck in the tree and couldn't reach. After TON, we moved up to the bridge to wait for IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth. We were freezing even though we'd all changed to jeans and sweatshirts and pretty much stayed that way the rest of the trip. Paul and I had only seen ROE once before, so I really enjoyed it. As soon as it ended, we headed out the International Gateway and back to All-Star Sports to hit the sack. Things we didn't see in World Showcase: pretty much everything. We just sort of breezed through but didn't take the time to really stop and see much. We were only here about 4 hours, which were mostly spent eating and watching the parade and Illuminations. We could have spent a whole extra day here. Day Three Danielle, Dan and Amy's only child, will be 5 in March, never been to WDW before and doesn't really know what it's all about Mickey called again this morning about 6:30AM. Paul said some not so nice things before he hung up on my favorite mouse. After I got ready, I went to the front desk to get our E-tickets. All the information I had said that the MK closed at 8PM and E-ride would be from 8-11PM. We decided that we could stay up that late if we rested mid-afternoon. After I bought the tickets, I picked up some brochures to use for my scrapbook. When I got back to the room, I just happened to notice that the hours for E-ride that night were 10PM-1AM. Well, there was just no way that a four-year-old could stay up that long, and since she was already up at 8AM. I went back to the desk and they did allow me to return the tickets, and credited the cost back to the room. Disaster averted! We were out the door and in the Epcot parking lot about 7:40AM, again in the first few rows. Again, the stroller rental was the first stop. I had promised Paul breakfast at the Fountainview Café, he really likes to get a cappuccino there before starting the day. We sat and had our breakfast before moving on to Wonders of Life. We probably spent over an hour here, we all went to Cranium Command and Amy and Danielle played with the exhibits while Paul, Dan, and I went on Body Wars. Dan felt a little sick after the ride; he said he thought they raised the temperature, something I had never noticed before. After Wonders of Life, we picked up fastpasses for Test Track. I think it's a real shame that the standby line does not go through the building and the fastpass line whizzes by all the interesting stuff in the queue. While we were waiting for our fastpass window, we went in to Innoventions. Danielle and I played the tag game and she got to be Minnie Mouse! We sent a video home to my inlays and then Paul, Dan, and I went to ride Test Track while Amy and Danielle stayed to check out more of Innoventions. Dan really liked the Test Track, especially the high-speed loops. When we went back to find the others, Danielle was playing tag again, and she was Minnie Mouse again too. We walked across to the other side of Innoventions and spent a few minutes looking at the computer games and stuff in there, then moved on to the Land. We went first to the Circle of Life movie and then got in line for Living with the Land. The posted wait was 15 minutes, but it ended up taking close to 25 to get on a boat, making us late for our Priority Seating at the Garden Grille. No problem, we got seated right away, but they wanted to seat us on the higher, inside circle. Well, the place was deserted and I asked for the outside circle so we'd have a booth table and a better view down into Living with the Land. One of the servers tried to say that we'd have more character interaction if we stayed on the inside, but I don't see why this makes a difference. Pluto, Mickey, Chip and Dale came around twice each while we were there, and they stayed a long time. Dale was with us almost 10 minutes, writing all sorts of bad things about Chip in Danielle's autograph book. Paul and I had been there before, in May 1998, when Minnie was still there. Danielle really liked it, and interacted much more with the characters since they were one on one and there wasn't a crowd of other kids waiting. The food was awesome too! We went next to the Living Seas and had a good time watching all the marine life. Paul and I are open water certified divers and sometime we want to go and dive there. Danielle was impressed most with the dolphins. After that we went to Journey into Your Imagination, where I've never encountered a wait since it reopened. It was dark and loud according to Danielle and she didn't want to go on it again. We decided to skip Honey I Shrunk the Audience based on her reaction to A Bug's Life. We had planned to spend more time in World Showcase, but it was raining and we were all getting tired, so we went back to the room for a rest instead. On our way out, we did do Spaceship Earth, again voted dark and scary by Danielle. We stopped in the bottom displays to use the giant phones to place a call to my inlays, Danielle's grandparents. Her report? DisneyWorld has lots of scary rides! Things we didn't see in Future World: Ellen's Energy Adventure, Food Rocks, and Honey I Shrunk the Audience. Paul thought that Danielle would be scared with the dark and loud noises in the Energy Adventure and after our experience in It's Tough to be a Bug he didn't want to try Honey. We also could have spent much more time in Innoventions. After about a 2-hour break in the room, we headed back out to the Magic Kingdom. We parked in the main parking lot and took the tram, then the monorail over for Danielle and Amy's first glimpse of the Magic Kingdom. After stopping on Main Street to buy a pink "Minnie ears" balloon, we went over to Adventureland. First stop, the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse, then on to the Tiki Room. Danielle really liked the singing birds and wasn't scared by Uh-oh-a at all. It was getting dark by now, so we decided to take a quick Jungle Cruise. We were able to walk right on through the standby line. After we returned to Civilization, we went over to Pirates of the Caribbean. The queue area proved to be too much for Danielle and she refused to get on the boat. Uncle Paul was going to take her outside to wait for the rest of us, but then Dan decided to join them, so Amy and I rode alone. I can't tell that there were any changes made after the rehab to this attraction last year, nothing looks different to me. We decided it was definitely time to eat, so we headed on around Adventureland and entered Pecos Bills by the back entrance. I'm always amazed at how big the quick serve food locations are in the Magic Kingdom. The dining areas just go on and on and on. I guess in the crowded seasons they really need all that room. Amy and I each got the awesome wrap thing they serve and Paul and Dan got burgers. Danielle had chicken strips. Amy and I soon realized that we should have only ordered one wrap and split it - this is a large meal! After dinner, we moved around to Frontierland to catch the parade. We picked out our spot about 7:45PM and the parade started at 8PM at the front of the park so we knew it might be awhile until it got to us. Danielle dosed off a bit in her stroller but quickly woke up when the music started. I really enjoy the Main Street Electrical Parade and always notice something new each time I see it. After the parade passed us, we moved up to Liberty Square by the Christmas Shop to catch Tinkerbelle's flight and the fireworks. We had a great view of Tink's flight, but a large tree blocked some of the fireworks. Oh, well. After a stop at the restroom, we were back on the monorail and soon in bed at All-Star Sports. Day Four The Disney MGM Studios is not the early opening park on Saturday, so we got an extra hour of sleep this morning. That extra hour didn't stop Paul from being rude to Mickey when he called to wake us up. We were in the parking lot at the Studios shortly before nine and there were some little green Army men there to make sure we boarded the parking tram in an orderly fashion. We entered the park, got a stroller, and headed for the Muppets 4D attraction. We stopped at Star Tours on the way and picked up fastpasses for later. I love the Muppets, and unfortunately, we missed a lot of the pre-show, which is the best part as far as I'm concerned. It was raining when we came out, and Star Tours was 101 (not operating) but they said our fastpasses would be good anytime during the day. WE saw Buzz Lightyear and Woody signing autographs. I really wanted to get in line, but Danielle didn't, so we moved on. We went to the Great Movie Ride and while we waited Paul and I had a little "discussion" about if the ride was too scary for Danielle. Amy settled it by telling us to warn her when the scary parts came, so our little mouseketeer hid her eyes during the Alien and horror movie parts. Then we trooped back to the back of the park for the Hunchback show. After seeing the shows at the Animal Kingdom, this show just didn't hold our attention. Danielle spent some quality time collecting confetti to keep in her pockets, which she later dumped out on the floor while we were waiting for her mom and dad to ride Star Tours. After Hunchback we checked again to see if Star Tours was open. It was, so we went through the fastpass line and "swapped" Danielle. While we were waiting, a woman came through with a small girl and was quite irritated with the CM's because her daughter was refused even through she had been tall enough to ride the previous day. Five gold stars to the CM here who was able to apologize to her and then spend some time playing with Danielle. We attempted to see the Indiana Jones Stunt Show, but the dance team competition was taking place there and the show was not playing that day. I was disappointed since I thought this was one attraction Dan would really enjoy. We didn't really have time for Indiana right then anyway because it was time for our priority seating at the 1950's Prime Time Café. I thought it was strange that the line was all the way out the door and then I quickly realized that we had a dance team in front of us with NO priority seating and the ENTIRE team had decided they needed to stand in line together. To make a long story somewhat shorter, because of 20 girls with pink yarn hair and their families, we were 15 minutes late for our priority seating. It turned out okay though, because we were seating within 5 or 6 minutes despite having missed our time and the restaurant being fairly crowded. Amy really enjoyed the entire experience here; right up until the time Cousin Lydia used the "airplane" technique to get her to take the last bite. Dan had barbecue chicken, Paul had the pot roast, I had a pasta dish, and I've forgotten what Amy had. Danielle had chicken strips. Paul got a sticker for being a member of the clean plate club! It was raining when we left the restaurant and the stroller was wet. We moved over to the Doug Live show. I couldn't get Paul or Dan to volunteer to be one of the Beets. I've never seen Doug, but I've seen this show before and I think it tells the story pretty good, even to the uninitiated, like me. It was still raining when we left Doug but we went over to the backlot tour anyway. I'd never seen this done, but during the water tank part of the tour, they had dummies set up where they usually use volunteers. I don't know if this is permanent or just the "foul weather plan". After we made it back from Catastrophe Canyon, we picked up fastpasses for the Little Mermaid show, caught the Mulan parade, and backtracked to the Backstage Pass, now featuring the set from Home Improvement. This is a good thing, since I've seen the guy ride the bike in 101 Dalmatians about a million times now. Danielle was allowed to stay in the stroller, also a good thing. We saw the sets for Sheena and the set they're building for the Millionaire attraction. I couldn't hear a lot of the explanation, because the lady behind me was talking quite loudly on her two-way radio to her husband who was over at the Tower of Terror. We saw the Pooh characters here signing autographs, but Danielle wasn't interested in meeting them. It was exactly time for our fastpasses at Little Mermaid, so we headed that way. I wasn't sure where the fastpass line went, not having been there since fastpass was added. I asked the CM at the beginning of the line who answered "right here". So we parked the stroller and got in what turned out to be the standby line. It turned out not to matter since everyone was admitted for the show but I thought this was pretty bad show. After the Little Mermaid, we agreed to split up. Amy and Danielle were going to catch the next Bear in the Big Blue House and Dan, Paul and I headed over to the Rock N Roller coaster and Tower of Terror. As we walked down Hollywood Boulevard, there seem to be large crowds of people running the same way. I grabbed some fastpasses for Tower of Terror for about 45 minutes later while Paul checked out the situation. Turns out that Aaron Carter (a backstreet boy's little brother?) and Samantha Mumba were performing out in front of the roller coaster. Well, we just wanted to ride... so we finally got through the crowd into the standby line, which ended up taking about a half-hour. I really love this coaster, but it's much too short! We moved right on to the Tower of Terror and ended up behind a group of dance team mothers. They got split up since some of them pushed ahead of us on the way to the basement and then the rest who got left behind wanted to get in front of us too. We let them go, since we didn't want to ride with them anyway. I don't think these people were intentionally rude, they just don't realize how big of a group they are and are so busy talking and enjoying each other that they are oblivious to others around them. We were seated in the front row and after they shut our elevator doors something didn't work right and the CM had to open and shut the doors again before we took off. Dan was pretty speechless when we got off the ride... We were back in a little more than an hour to meet Amy and Danielle and take the animation tour. We had a few minutes before the next one started and snacked on the chips and crackers we'd brought with us. I knew Amy would really enjoy the tour since she's a pretty talented artist. I was just sorry that we were there on Saturday when no one is really there working. After the tour we walked on over to get seats for Fantasmic. We got there about 45 minutes before the show and were seated about 2/3 of the way back in the exact middle section. I've only seen this show once and I really enjoyed the chance to see it again. It was pretty cold and the water screens were blowing on us. On the way out of the park after Fantasmic, Dan and Amy decided to stop and buy sweatshirts since it had turned out to be so cold and was supposed to stay that way. We decided to leave WDW property and go to our favorite pizza place, Giordano's, for dinner. It's on 535, just north of Crossroad's shopping center, in the plaza with Steak and Shake and the small post office. They also have a location out on 192, almost to 27, near a Goodings. I highly recommend the pizza here! Danielle fell asleep before the pizza came and stayed that way until we got back to the All Stars. Things we didn't see at Disney MGM Studios: Sounds Dangerous (total darkness wasn't going over well), Beauty and the Beast (closed because of the Rosie O'Donnell show), and the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular (closed for dance team competition) Day Five This was the morning of the big surprise. We had Priority Seating at 9:05AM at Cinderella's Royal Table that I'd been keeping a secret from the others. We were up and ready early, so we left early for the Magic Kingdom. I was hoping we could get seated early and I was right. We parked in the first row of the main car parking lot around 8AM and were admitted to the TTC when I said we had priority seating. I also told the CM there it was a surprise and not to say anything to the group, but then his partner at the other gate yelled, "have a great time at Cinderella's breakfast". Oh, well, Danielle wasn't really paying attention anyway. That early in the morning only the resort monorail was operating. We got a stroller and headed up Main Street and took advantage of the light crowd to get the "castle picture" of each family. We were admitted to CRT almost immediately and went right upstairs. We were seated at the first table, right by the elevator. I was hoping for a table with a better view, but we were seating almost an hour early, so I didn't really care. Unfortunately, Danielle wasn't feeling very good and didn't seem to care much about meeting Aladdin, Belle, or Snow White. They talked to her anyway and tried to cheer her up and signed her autograph book. She had perked up by the time that Cinderella came over and did get her picture made then. The Fairy Godmother was downstairs when we left, but Danielle didn't want to meet her. We headed out into Fantasyland about 9:15AM and it was raining, as usual. Danielle and Amy decided to get in line for Dumbo before it got really crowded. It seemed to be taking a while so I walked around to see how far they had moved. They were just starting to go up the ramp part of the line and Amy said Danielle wanted to ride with me because she thought it would be too scary for her mom. I felt bad about pushing past the other people in line, but when I explained that we were just switching riders, they were okay with it. We had to try hard to get a pink elephant, but were successful. Paul and Amy took pictures, but I don't think they came out very good. Next Danielle and I rode the carousel while Amy went to buy a hat. She'd given up on fighting the rain and just decided to wear a hat like the guys were. When she came back, she and Danielle rode the carousel again. We got on Peter Pan with only a 4 or 5 minute wait, and then It's a Small World. We hurried over to Snow White, which of course Danielle decided was scary. Having had such good luck with short lines, we went and got fastpasses for Pooh and rode the Teacups and Speedway during our wait time for Pooh. Danielle chose to ride with me on the Speedway and we were stuck behind her parents, who were stuck behind a slow driver. Paul had his own car on the track next to us and zoomed off, we didn't see him until the end. We went back for our ride in Winnie the Pooh's honeypot. I am not a Pooh fan at all... I think he's over licensed and overmerchandised and I'm pretty sick of him. It all started with a mouse! But I do think the attraction is cute, especially how the honeypot moves. After Pooh, we headed for the main attraction. When her grandparents asked Danielle what she was going to see at DisneyWorld, her answer was "Minnie Mouse's house. It's Pink!" She also said that Mickey Mouse had a house there too, but she didn't think they let you go inside. Well, we proved her wrong about that in Mickey's Toontown Fair. She moved through those houses so quick we didn't really get any good pictures, but we did get some on Donald's boat. After that we went on the Barnstormer at Danielle's request, which she turned out not to like, so we knew that Big Thunder Mountain or Splash Mountain were both out of the question. We took the back pathway over to Tomorrowland and picked up fastpasses for Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear. We went on the Carousel of Progress (Please, Mr. Eisner, don't close this one, it's a classic!) and the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. Amy and Danielle took another spin on the carousel of Progress while Paul, Dan, and I rode Space Mountain. This is the first time that fastpass really had an impact on Dan. He remembers waiting two hours for Space when he was younger and to just walk all the way through to the front of the line was pretty amazing! We had to wait a little while for the Carousel of Progress to let out and then went over to Buzz Lightyear. Danielle didn't want to go, she was afraid it was scary, but ended up enjoy it after all. An older man in the car in front of us somehow managed to drop his cane over the left side of the car when he got in and we ended up getting stopped in the first target room while the CM's retrieved the cane. Paul found a high point target and maxed out his score here. He won't tell me where it was, since we always compete on Buzz! We had lunch at Cosmic Ray's but ended up eating outside in the cold when we couldn't get a table inside. We went to Liberty Square after lunch for a ride on the Liberty Belle. I picked up fastpasses for the Haunted Mansion and we caught the Country Bear Jamboree and the Magical Moments Parade during our wait time. During the Country Bears, Danielle asked Paul if they were real bears. He said, no, they were just animatronics. She immediately turned around to inform her mother they weren't real bears, just ANIMALtronics. Dan, Amy, and I went on Haunted Mansion while Paul and Danielle headed back to Fantasyland. They ended up spinning on the teacups twice while they waited for us. We met back up at the Sword on the Stone just in time for Merlin to choose a Queen for the Day who was able to remove the sword. He didn't choose any of us to be involved, though. I knew I couldn't leave the Magic Kingdom without a Dole Whip, so we started moving that way, but stopped to watch the DisneyMania show in front of the castle. By the time we got to Aloha Isle about 6PM, it was closing. We could see people inside but the windows were shut. Danielle wanted to see the Tiki Birds another time, but they were closed too. More disappointment! We went all the way around to the candy shop next to the Country Bear Jamboree where Amy got some chocolate covered pretzels and Paul got a candy-coated apple. As we went back down Main Street, I look in the Ice Cream Shop, but I was really craving soft serve, so I didn't get anything. We went into the Chapeau to see if they would charge us for sewing Danielle's name on her Minnie ears. The CM said, "no problem", but when I handed them over, she said, "These are dirty", and tossed them aside and picked up a brand new pair for the other CM to put the name on. Amy couldn't believe it! Another piece of Disney magic that really made an impression on one first-time visitor and a veteran visitor too. Before we left the Magic Kingdom for good, we took a round trip on the railroad. Then we said goodbye to the MK and got back on the monorail to the parking lot. For dinner that night we left WDW and went to Joe's Crab Shack on 535. Having been so impressed by Disney magic that day, we were disappointed when we were quoted a 30-minute wait and weren't seated for over an hour. Things we didn't see at Magic Kingdom: Diamond Horseshoe Saloon Revue, Hall of Presidents (only the gallery was open), Legend of the Lion King, Alien Encounter, Astro Orbiter, Timekeeper, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Tom Sawyer's Island, and Mike Fink Keelboats. We could have spent a whole extra day here. Jennifer |
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