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Laurie Lemley -- August 2001 -- Walt Disney World (ASMoR, ASMuR)Cast:
All WDW veterans, average of one trip per year since 1995. Where:
When:
Transportation:
We haven't been to WDW in a couple of years, so when Travelocity sent us an e-mail notifying us of a very good price on tickets to Orlando, we thought about it for five minutes and decided to jump on it. Round trip airfare from Manchester, NH, was about $130 apiece (we live in Maine). We decided to go at the end of August because the tickets had to be used before Thanksgiving but we didn't want to take our son out of high school for a long vacation - it's WAY too much work once they get past about fifth grade. Last time we went was in mid-August, and it was pretty crowded, but still a good time. We had heard that the end of August isn't that crowded, so we will see! By the way, we highly recommend this Travelocity service - you go on the site and sign up and it automatically notifies you when a great fare comes along to a place you want to visit. You can specify up to five destinations. That way, you can hop on a special fare early and stand a chance of actually getting a seat. Another tip: don't expect to sign up for the Disney Club at the last minute. They don't mention on their website that it takes 3-6 weeks to get your card, and they absolutely have NO POSSIBLE WAY to speed that up. We wanted to use the Disney Club to get a reduction in our All Star Music room rate once the value season kicked in, but no luck because I called only three weeks ahead of our trip and couldn't find a way to guarantee the arrival of our card in time. It kind of irritated me that you couldn't purchase one at a Disney Store or at a park, but you have to order over the phone or on line, and then wait for your card. That's how it goes, I guess. I did some calculations and figured out that annual passes would be the best buy for our ten days of park touring. Unfortunately, all the AP reduced-price rooms at the Movies and Music resorts were taken, so we didn't save any money there, either! I did manage to remember to make two reservations during our stay - one that ended on the last day of peak season and the other that began on the first day of value season, so at least we will be getting value rates for part of our stay. We decided to split our stay between the Movies and Music, partly because we haven't seen Movies yet and partly because last time I attempted to split a reservation at one resort, they kept trying to charge us at the peak season rate during value season, even though we had checked out and back in again when it flipped to value season. It was a real hassle that I didn't want to reprise. August 22, 2001 Wednesday We scheduled a departure time for mid afternoon (3:15 pm), which we have never done before, and it was fantastic. Absolutely fantastic - it will take a whole lot of convincing to get me to sign up for an early morning flight ever again. We had time to sleep in, work out at the gym, run some last-minute errands and I even had my teeth cleaned! We dropped our cat off at my parents for eleven days of fun and frolic and headed for Manchester (NH) airport. It hadn't really dawned on us yet that we were actually going to Disney! We'd all been working straight out - Brad had several pieces he was finishing up, and I had been technical director for a theatrical production my son was participating in, which had just closed. My son will be celebrating his birthday at WDW, so we had a family party to host on the day before we left, plus we had friends visiting. But now all our obligations were successfully fulfilled, all our responsibilities handled, and we were off for eleven days of vacation! When we got to the airport, USAir was announcing that our flight was overbooked. Drat! We're usually willing to take a later flight, but our flights are never overbooked. Except today. We thought about it for a second, but Tiffany Towncar was waiting for us, and there was no guarantee when we would get to Orlando, so we decided not to delay. We arrived in Orlando right on time (8:30 pm) and were met by Ali from Tiffany Towncar. We picked up our checked luggage and spent an enjoyable 20 minutes talking with Ali on our way to WDW. Ali had all of our information with him (including our change of hotels and return time) and Tiffany seemed very organized. We arrived at the All Star Movies around 9 pm and checked in. We received all of our requests (non-smoking, Love Bug) and had a very nice corner room on the first floor. As usual, we heard no noise from adjoining rooms. The All Stars are very well soundproofed. We just loved the Love Bug area, it was very cute and just a short walk from the food court. The room was clean and very colorful, bright and cheery. The carpeting had a repeating star motif, the curtains were camera and film icons, the bedspreads were blue, green, yellow and red with characters from each of the Movies areas, and there was a very cute accent strip around the top of the walls with pictures of Herbie from the Love Bug. There was a large poster on the wall that had been part of the release of the Love Bug movie. The bathroom was particularly cute, done in black and white stars. (BRAD NOTE: Perhaps the most impressive touch: when we checked in at night, we noticed nothing unusual about the wall light, but in the morning, we discovered that it was colored to emulate a box of movie popcorn! Turns out that when the light is on, the red-and-yellow popcorn motif vanishes through some clever backlighting effect.) It was all very theatrical. Boy, you know you are at a Disney resort from the first minute of contact with a cast member. The person who checked us in couldn't have been nicer. We unpacked in record time and dragged our now rapidly fading bodies over to the food court (USAir had not fed us supper even though we were in the air from 3 pm to 8:30 pm) and ran into another incredibly friendly cast member - this time an older man who was cleaning off the tables. Where do they find these people? Instead of a surly, slumping employee who hates his job and his life, we had the pleasure of conversation with a happy guy who appeared to just love being exactly where he was. It certainly started our vacation off right. Although Alex was all ready to spend some quality time at the arcade, I begged for mercy and we retired to our room for some TV and sleep. Have I mentioned how much we love the All Stars? August 23, Thursday (BRAD NOTE: A tip: bring a nightlight! If you tend to get up at night, a nightlight plugged in by the sink provides the perfect, soft lighting to allow you to maneuver. I always take one on business travel, and find it invaluable. I finally remembered to bring one on a family vacation, and found it just as useful.) (FURTHER BRAD NOTE: We woke at about 8:30 and immediately impressed the locals with how weird we are: we went for a roughly 1.5 mile run in the gathering Florida heat. At home, DW and I work out every day, so why change here? The jog got our hearts started, and also gave us a chance to check out the massive fiberglass icons of the All-Star Resorts [I think I like the Big Buzz best]. We always start the day at WDW with a short run. Once, at the former Dixie Landings, a chap observed: "You must be nuts!" to me as I lumbered past. Our neighbors here restrained themselves.) Actually, and this is how weird I am, I think the short jog actually HELPS my endurance during the rest of the day. It somehow flushes out all the creaks out of the joints. I also threw in some crunches and pushups in anticipation of how much I will undoubtedly tuck away at the food kiosks today. Anyway, this is the first WDW vacation where we did NOT plan anything in advance. This was at our son's request, who tends to be the spontaneous one around here. I thought it was only fair that he have his crack at things. I have to admit that I tried a little bit to talk him out of it, casually throwing in comments about early entry, crowds and priority seatings, but he would have none of it. He's too smart for his mummy now. Our son's spur of the moment decision was to go to EPCOT, thankfully not an early entry park. We picked up a quick breakfast at the food court and hopped on a bus (15 minute wait) to EPCOT. First order of business was to get three annual passes, which took only about 5 minutes. It would have taken much longer, except that we noticed that everyone was lined up in front of three windows, and there were many other windows with no one at them. Our finger scans worked right away, and continued to work throughout the day. Alex spent most of his day at Innoventions. We saw the robot dogs in Innoventions West, although they were paralyzed by the ambient noise for most of the time. They were cute, though, and did manage to flick their ears, wag their tails, lie down, roll over, "fight" and play with a ball, although it took about half an hour to coax this out of them. They had sensors throughout their bodies that apparently processed light and sound and were supposed to direct their activities. Most of the time they just sat around, but they were cute. (ALEX NOTE: Frankly, I felt sorry for those Aibo dogs. They were programmed, probably, to recognize colors and shapes so they don't crash into things. That's all well and good, but they shouldn't put those things in Innoventions. I could tell right off that all the people and noise was overloading the dog's small sensory chip (kinda like some actual dogs I've seen). These things were meant for apartments, not crowded rooms with lights and sounds coming from all directions...they were cute, though.) We hit our favorite rides (SE, Maelstrom and Test Track) and wandered around the countries for a while. Probably the most amazing thing we saw was the Pu Yang acrobats in China. It was blazing hot, but these kids didn't flag a bit, jumping through progressively higher and smaller hoops, and doing the most incredible gymnastics. I also had the opportunity to take my All Star mug into Ice Station Cool and fill it to the brim with the Beverly drink. Yum, yum! My DH and I love the Beverly, and can't get enough. I carried my Beverly with me all day, sipping from it whenever the mood struck. It was wonderfully indulgent. I know pretty much everyone hates it, but it just means more for me! We also dragged Alex into the American Adventure and forced him to listen to the show. He said it wasn't as bad as he thought it might be. High praise indeed! There were all kinds of other entertainment around, and we heard the fife and drum corps and the Voices of Liberty while we waited. After the show, we passed the outdoor theater which was featuring a brass ensemble dressed in black dancing to Ravel's Bolero. Very conceptual. During one of our many miscommunications which resulted in all three of us waiting for each other at disparate locations, I had the chance to witness a small bird becoming addicted to Kaki Gori syrup. Someone has spilled some on the sidewalk, and this little bird flew in, drank some, flew over to a branch, flew back to the sidewalk, drank some more, and went on like this for quite a while. He just couldn't tear himself away from that spill. During that same miscommunication event, Alex discovered that the Japan store had lots of toys and posters from hot new anime TV shows. Keep your children away from there. (ALEX NOTES: Don't listen. THIS PLACE IS GREAT. I mean, I didn't even know that there were toys made for Gundam Wing. Not only that, but some of them were right from Japan (I think). You can also get some cool posters which hang down from the ceiling rather then on the wall. It's just so great.!!) Epcot's crowd level was light, so we stayed there much longer than we thought we would, leaving around 5pm. At that point, we decided to hop over to Magic Kingdom and see how the crowds were. This had been an early entry day for the MK, and you could certainly tell. Crowds were pretty heavy. Most of the popular rides had waits of about an hour, including Pooh, Peter Pan, Buzz, AE, and SM. We stopped for dinner at Tony's pretty much as soon as we got there. It was almost six, but we got right in with a five-minute wait and no priority seating. As always, we ordered two dinners and an appetizer for the three of us, and walked out full to bursting. The antipasto was a salad-like affair, the chicken Marsala over linguine was quite good, and the spaghetti came with a giant meatball that must have had nearly three quarters of a pound of meat. After dinner, Alex took off for the arcade near Space Mountain, and Brad and I rode the carousel. Everything was so crowded we decided not to ride anything else. We wandered around in Fantasyland a little, and noticed that Pinocchio's Village Haus has a bell tower with real bells that chime the hour, which had never happened in the many other times we've been to WDW. It was cool! At that point, we started missing Alex and walked back to Tomorrowland. We played with Alex for a while in the arcade, then I got bored and went outside to wait for the boys to finish. At that point, I witnessed an act of such sheer and utter self-involvement that it took my breath away. I was watching the "race cars" "zoom" around the Tomorrowland "speedway" when one of the drivers (a mother) stopped her car dead on one of the tracks, waiting for another car (driven by her son) to drive up in the track alongside her. It took him quite a while, what with him being small and unable to reach the gas pedal with any predictability. Once that was accomplished, HE stopped his car dead and she proceeded to take five or six pictures of him sitting at the wheel. All this time, about twenty cars were steadily piling up behind them. If they had had little horns I'm sure they would have beeped them. And I'm sure none of them had gotten into their little cars anticipating the equivalent of rush hour traffic. (BRAD NOTE; While Laurie was out, I observed a small, wonderful Disney detail. In the Tomorrowland arcade with Alex, I played pinball, which is one of my minor vices. The average pinball game in America is out of date, falling apart, and has its win-a-free-game score set so high no one over 14 can possibly achieve it. But when I played Phantom Menace - obviously a pretty new game - and turned in a mediocre performance, lights flashed and bells whistled. I win! Disney has clearly set these things to be within a mortal's grasp. I played for about 10 minutes, a pinball eternity, on 50 cents.) After another miscommunication event which resulted in Brad and I gazing off into opposite directions for each other (we really HAVE to work out a better system), we finally hooked up, grabbed Alex and made our way toward the exit. Just before leaving, we decided to buy some candy and watch the Spectromagic parade. The candy turned out to be a dud - some kind of grape foaming candy for $3.50 that Alex said tasted like fluoride. The parade was great as usual - we really love the Spectromagic song. We passed on the fireworks and headed home. We waited only 5 minutes for the bus, but tacked on another 8 to load a person in a wheelchair. There must be a less Byzantine way to strap in a chair. I thought it was somewhat ironic that they spent a huge amount of time securing the wheelchair, but the ambulatory passengers were left to cling, standing, to whatever they could grab. I imagine that securing the chair has to do with liability issues, but these apparently vanish when applied to standing passengers? Anyway, we arrived back at the Movies around 10:00, grabbed some drinks for our mugs and went back to the room (not before Alex spent some quality time in the Movies arcade, however). We crashed hard after a long but productive day. August 24, 2001 Friday Today my sister (Lisa) and her daughter (Zoe) came to WDW to spend the night. We'll be touring the MK tomorrow - their park of choice, at least at this point. They tried to get into the Movies, but had to take Music instead. It was another late start for us, with Brad and I going for a jog at 8:30, and Alex sleeping in until 9:30. We decided to try MK and see how the crowds were, then possibly split up (with Alex remaining at the MK) if crowds were too large. We were hoping that being the day after an early entry day would mean light crowds. After a nice breakfast in the food court (grits - yeh!) we hopped the bus to MK with a 2 minute wait. It was less crowded than yesterday, but I would still have to rate the crowd level as moderate. Most popular rides had a wait of 30 to 50 minutes. We got Fastpasses for Pooh, which was well over an hour wait at 11 am, and headed for Haunted Mansion. Alex decided he'd rather do the arcade yet again (is there any limit to a 14 year old's fascination with video games?) so Brad and I went on HM without him. It said there was a 13 minute wait, but in reality it was a walk on. Interestingly, it was a walk-on two years ago in August in the early afternoon, as well. Fastpass was up on Pooh, so we reconnected and rode it. Brad filmed the whole thing, which I continue to think is an unusual thing to do. Our Fastpass eligibility reclaimed, we hurried to Tomorrowland to get Fastpasses for Buzz Lightyear. The line to get in was LOOOOOOOOONNNGGG. Everyone in line looked absolutely miserable in the broiling sun. Fastpass was for only a half-hour away - why would ANYONE wait in the standby line? We'd have come and gone on Fastpass before they got to the front of the line! Brad and I did Alien Encounter while Alex went back to the arcade for a bit. Here's a bit of advice - if you're not yet deaf, consider bringing hearing protection to AE! Last time I did it, I had to jam my fingers in my ears to maintain my sanity, and that was mighty uncomfortable in my harness. This time, we planned ahead and brought those bight orange foam ear stopples. They were GREAT!!! You could hear all of the conversation and ambient noise very clearly, but it cut just enough of the decibels so your ears didn't feel like they were bleeding at the end of the ride. I could actually enjoy this ride for a change and notice all of the cool visual effects going on around me. I plan to use these babies when I ride Dinosaur, and well as for Legend of the Lion King and Tarzan Rocks. We met back up and rode Buzz. As usual, my gun was broken and I received a predictably low score. Brad was over 100,000 and Alex scored 99,000 even using the lame technique of squeezing the trigger for every shot. We told him it would keep shooting if he kept his trigger squeezed. He'd have probably doubled his score if he did that. We quickly rode Carousel of Progress, which we really love, then headed to Adventureland to escape the hot breath of the mobs in Tomorrowland. We went straight for the new Aladdin's Magic Carpet ride, which is very much like Dumbo except with magic carpets. There was only about a ten minute wait even at about 3 pm, so the fact that it is hidden away in Adventureland obviously helps with respect to crowd control. While the ride itself was only mildly interesting (neither the up/down nor the front/back controls seemed to be very responsive) the sidewalk around the ride was another story. There are jewels, jewelry and broken crockery shards embedded in the concrete, shining in the sun. We topped this off with (of course!) a Dole Whip and then exited the park to meet my sister and niece at our room. After hugs all around, we bolted for dinner, which was going to be Planet Hollywood in Downtown Disney. The food here has really gone downhill since our last visit. We had no trouble getting in without a PS at 4:30 pm. The portions were much smaller than they had been, and the quality of the food was only adequate. Zoe's hamburger was dry and served on a McDonald's-style bun, and the fries were soggy and lukewarm. The rest of the food was worse, and to tell you the truth, I have blocked what it was out of my mind and honestly can't remember what we all had! My sister had some kind of tasteless wrap which dripped vinegar dressing and was a soggy mess. Obviously this is how they are getting their stock back on track, but I don't think I'll be lobbying to go back. Oh, and they still have that annoying person in the bathroom squirting soap in your hand in return for a tip. We walked around a bit, but it was hot and no one was in the mood for shopping, so we returned to the room for a swim and to watch the videos from the last few days. August 25, 2001 Saturday Today was a bit like the Bataan death march. Lisa and Zoe wanted to go to the MK, which was having early entry, so Brad and I got up at quarter to six, had a short jog, a quick breakfast, then we were all off (in Lisa's car) to the TTC by 7:00. We've never done the World in a car before, so this was interesting. It was easy getting to the parking lot, but the lot itself was VERY confusing. There were two signs pointing down separate roads indicating guest parking. We went down one, but it ended in pylons quite far from the TTC. We tried to get back to the other road but there was no way to do it without driving one way the wrong way for a short bit. Since there was no one else around, that's what we did (as well as the car following us), but it was strange and unhelpful signage. We finally got parked, and got on the MK monorail. There was a short wait at the turnstiles, and they finally let us in around 7:40 am. I won't drag you through every ride in order, but suffice it to say that we hit almost everything that day, sometimes twice. It was hot as Hades most of the day. Early entry is great - without it we probably wouldn't have had the patience to wait for Dumbo, Snow White or Peter Pan. We even rode the Tomorrowland Speedway. Again, the Haunted Mansion was a walk on most of the day. The rest of the rides had hour waits during the rest of the day. We had lunch at Columbia Harbor House, which we always like a lot. The hummus sandwich is fabulous, and the vegetarian chili in a bread bowl fills you right up. It's slightly spicy, but not too much for me, and I can't take much spice being a bland New Englander. We also managed to work in an ice cream at the Ice Cream Parlor on Main Street. I had vanilla with caramel syrup on a home-made sugar cone "plate" which tasted faintly of cinnamon. It was very, very, very good. Everyone else liked their floats and dishes of vanilla ice cream, although my son characterized the ice cream as "normal and uninspired". He should have had mine! One point of note, we happened to be in Frontierland playing the shooting range when the afternoon Remember the Magic Parade started. We were standing up on the raised platform just under the roof of the shooting range, and we had a perfect view of the parade with no crowd at all. After the parade, Lisa and Zoe began to flag, and decided to go home as they had a long drive ahead of them. Brad, Alex and I decided we wanted to have sushi at EPCOT in the Japanese Matsu NoMa Lounge, so we hopped over there using the boat from Future World to Morocco and then walking next door to Japan. The sushi was great as usual, as was the iced green tea. My son especially loves the sushi, although at almost 15 it is getting hard (and expensive!) to fill him up. So we decided to treat the sushi as an appetizer and went over to the counter service place in Japan for dinner. Alex and I had udon noodles in broth (Alex had tempura shrimp on top and I had beef), and Brad had the curry. All of it was good - the udon noodles were thick, chewy and delicious - although the tempura shrimp was a little tough. That's frequently a problem with the tempura process, especially with large shrimp such as the ones they serve here. But Alex managed to eat it all anyway. Alex and Brad went back into the Japan store again to continue yesterday's shopping spree while I waited outside and watched Tapestry of Nations, which I had never seen in its entirety before. It was very touching how all the little kids (and the adults!) were staring at the puppets, openmouthed. The parade goes only between Mexico and Morocco, so if you're in France or beyond, you'll miss it. [BRAD NOTE: We are not souvenir collectors - on a typical WSW visit, we buy only one or two take-home items, usually to give to Laurie's parents to say thanks for minding the cat. But at the Japanese store, I found an amazing find - top-quality Japanese loose green tea for $4.25 for seven ounces. This is an amazing deal; the cheapest price I can get back at home for bulk green tea is about $1.50 an ounce. As a green-tea addict, this was too good a deal to pass up!] We watched the woman make rice-candy animals for a while, then Alex really wanted to do some time in Innoventions, so we headed over there. Brad and I got a decaf and sat in the Fountainview restaurant, which is a very nice, cool, neon-lit space with a more urban feel. It sells what look like fantabulous desserts, but we were still stuffed. After about 20 minutes, we decided we wanted to go back to the MK and tape the last Spectromagic parade they'd be showing during our stay. We ended up getting a great spot at the circle in the beginning of Main Street. There has been an interesting change in parade seating happening that I really think is an improvement. People are starting to sit four and five rows deep, which means that more people can see. When we were here a couple of years ago, pretty much everyone just stood at the rope. Now many people are sitting on the sidewalk several rows deep. My husband tells me that this is how they do it in Japan (although they apparently ALL sit in Japan). It is really a much better system as many more people can see the parade from street level. Of course, all it takes is one person to jump up and ruin it for everyone else, since they start a wave of jumping up, so it takes a greater degree of self-control to make this system work. But our section managed to exercise the appropriate degree of self control, so congratulations to us! Being gluttons for punishment, we decided we'd stay for the fireworks. As usual, 99.9% of the people jammed themselves into the areas in front of the castle. We went back into Fantasyland in front of the Pooh ride (where there was ONE other family doing the same thing!) and watched the display with a completely unobstructed view. We even sat on padded chairs from the little tables nearby. And by the way, they DO pipe the music in back there, so you don't miss that, either. At this point, we exited the park and spent a zombie-like 35 minutes waiting for a bus. I was in such a tired state at that point, I will refrain from judging the efficiency of the bus system. Brad thinks it was pretty good. August 26, 2001 Sunday Today we packed up and moved over to the All Star Music. We got our request of Calypso, although our first room assignment in a non-smoking building reeked of cigar smoke. It was nauseating. We went right back to the check in desk, which was mobbed. Although they at first tried to tell me I'd have to wait in line again, I managed to find one of those employees with a cell phone, and she got me a new room in Calypso right away. But please, if you smoke, DON'T SMOKE IN THE NON-SMOKING ROOMS! For heavens sake, you make many other people's lives more difficult when you do that. It WILL be noticed, then some poor family will have to schlep back to the check-in with all their luggage, fight with cast members about waiting in line, make the cast members more stressed than they need to be, and so on. You set in motion a wave of misery down the line, so exercise a little self control. [BRAD NOTE: During our check-in at All-Star Music, I noticed the ultimate too-young-for-Disney child. I've always been mystified by parents who bring babies and toddlers to Disney; it seems only to scare the little ones and aggravate and exhaust the parents. But there at the check-in, I saw a mother with a premie so small it was still hooked up to some kind of electronic monitoring device - I'd guess the kid weight four pounds, max. Utterly amazing.] Our second room was a wonderful, sweet-smelling room, so we unpacked, I updated this report, and off we went to (by that time) lunch. Alex and I had individual pizzas, which we rate on the Dominos level but not as good as Pizza Hut, and Brad had something healthy. We decided during lunch that we'd try Animal Kingdom today. This is a park that only I like, but Brad and Alex decided to come long anyway, just to be nice. It was another hot day, but it was nice and shady and cool in Animal Kingdom. We spent a long time looking around in the entry section at all of the birds and other animals. We just loved watching the cute ducks. Brad and I wanted to ride the Dinosaur! ride so we got Fastpasses. Then we all just walked around, eventually finding a lovely spot with ceiling fans in one of the Flame Tree Barbecue's outdoor eating areas. It was deserted, so we took a table and just sat around enjoying the scenery until our Fastpass time was up. There was a calypso band playing near the restaurant. This is one of the reasons I just love Animal Kingdom. Normally when I go there (usually alone) I just sit in various spots drinking in the scenery. I rarely do an attraction there. It's just one of my favorite spots in the world for peaceful reflection. At that point, we went back to Dinosaur! and got into line. When we were about ten feet from entering the movie area, some guy in the standby line yelled, "Hey , bud (meaning the guy taking Fastpasses), how about us? We've been standing here for an hour!" Everyone turned around and looked at him, disbelieving anyone could be so dense, especially with all the giant, neon Fastpass instructions outside the gate. The Cast Member told him he needed to get himself a Fastpass, and that was pretty much all one could say when face to face with cluelessness of that magnitude. We used our earplugs again, which helped me to actually enjoy the ride this time. Instead of being hunched over with my fingers jammed deep into my ears, I could sit up and watch what was going on around me. It was a pretty neat ride! Brad was taping it for our son, who wasn't sure if he wanted to ride it or not, so he (Brad) was bucking around quite a bit since he was holding on to the camera instead of to the safety bar. I'm sure that was pretty exciting! At this point, Brad and Alex had exhausted their interest in Animal Kingdom, so we left and took the bus back to the room. We rested a little and Alex watched the tape of Dinosaur! He decided it wasn't for him. But he DID want to go over to EPCOT, so off we went, spontaneous as anything! This was the first time in a very long time that we had bus trouble. We waited 25 minutes for an EPCOT bus, and the wait was obviously longer than that because another family was already waiting when we got there and they were already impatient. EPCOT wasn't too crowded today -- I would rate it as light. Alex played around in Innoventions for a few minutes while Brad and I sat drinking decaf in the FountainView Café again. It was getting to be late, and Brad decided he wanted to eat Mexican, so he got takeout from San Angel Cantina. Alex and I said we'd meet him in Japan, so Alex could do a little more shopping there. While Alex was in the store, I staked out our Illuminations position on the deck of the Japan building facing the lake. The Tapestry of Nations came by, and Alex, Brad and I eventually met up on the deck, which turns out to be an excellent spot for viewing the parade, unless you want to be patted on the head by the puppets. As I said, we thought we would watch Illuminations from that position, but then we had the bright idea of going into the Matsu NoMa Lounge because one of the window tables had just come open (and Alex and I wanted sushi). We had sushi and eda-mame, which are soy beans boiled in their pods in salted water. You pull the beans out with your teeth and discard the pods, which are tough. The beans are salty and buttery and absolutely delicious. I could have eaten five plates of them instead of just one. It turned out to be a good spot for watching Illuminations, although you can't see the globe very well (it's blocked by the Japan Shinto gate thing) and you can't hear the music. I kind of like to hear the music since the fireworks are choreographed to it, so we'll hit Illuminations again over by England next time and watch it from outdoors. We took our sweet time getting paid up and getting out of EPCOT, including a stop at MouseGear, which was mobbed. As dictated by effective business protocol, there was frantic music playing over the loudspeakers and people were lunging at the merchandise. We clawed our way out of there and made our way toward the buses. By this time, the line for the Music bus was negligible. A bus drove up right away, and we had a comedian for a bus driver, so it was a quick ride back. We turned in relatively early, having had a restful and happy day. August 27, 2001 Monday Today was laundry day, so after our morning jog, we put two loads in around 10 am. There was nobody in the laundry hut at all, so 10 am on a Monday is obviously a good time. Wash takes 30 minutes and "dry" takes 30 minutes, so we worked in breakfast around laundry movements. As usual, the "dry" cycle didn't come close to getting our loads dry - and they weren't overloaded at all. This happened last time I did laundry here. I suspect the "dryers" aren't vented, because last time I ran them through three cycles and it still wasn't dry. In any event, I took the stuff back to the room and hung it up to dry by skillfully using the vinyl-coated shelf in the bathroom alcove. [BRAD NOTE: While Laurie and Alex ate and did laundry, I desperately needed to receive and respond to some work-related e-mail. A call to Resort Guest Information revealed that the "convention hotels" - that is, Coronado Springs, The Grand Floridian, Contemporary, and Yacht and Beach Club - have business centers with Internet access. So how best to get from All-Star Music to one of the above? Any unimaginative person could have taken a bus to a park, then a bus or monorail back to one of those resorts, but odd duck that I am, I decided to walk! I found that a motivated 46-year-old man can quick-march from All-Star Music to Coronado Springs in 34 minutes, which I believe was faster than any double-leg bus route I could have taken. I concede that I arrived so drenched in sweat that the business-center manager brought me a free bottle of water and no doubt put the paramedics on standby, but the walk was actually quite pleasant. I saw not a soul on the sidewalk during my trek, and felt rather like Lewis and Clark opening the Northwest Territories. At WDW, walking outside the confines of a resort or park definitely feels like a radical act. Incidentally, Disney charges $10 for the first 15 minutes of Internet access, so no random surfing for me - I just downloaded and printed the relevant documents.] Oh, and somewhere in there Brad was wondering what the musical notation on the curtains in our room was, so I took a look at it. It's "Zip A Dee Doo Dah" in case you've always wondered but don't read music. It's kind of strange, though, because it faithfully notates the beginning section (the "A" section), the middle section (the "B" section), then only the first two measures of the recapitulation of the "A" section. In other words, you get two thirds of the song, but it stops before it finishes. We started in Downtown Disney today. We watched Rat Race at the AMC Theater, then wandered around a bit downtown while Brad conducted a little business at the public phones. We bought some treats at the Candy Cauldron, which has WAY too many good things on display. By this time we were all quite hungry for dinner, so we stopped at Wolfgang Puck's Café for dinner around 5:00 and had no trouble getting in without a PS. Brad had a Caesar salad with a very garlicky dressing, I had a burger with cheddar and apple wood smoked bacon (good, but too well-done, as are all the burgers nowadays) and Alex had a Chicken BBQ pizza, which he said was great. The iced tea was a pleasant surprise, with a peachy taste. We wanted to go to Fantasmic at MGM and considered what would be the best transportation option. We finally decided on a boat to Old Key West (which we had never visited before) and then a bus to MGM. The boat ride was fantastic - a long and very scenic trip up the Sassagoula River to a collection of pastel-colored cottages. It was relaxing and gave us a look at a part of WDW we never see. We poked around the check-in building at Old Key West, and thought it had a pleasant and homey feel, with overstuffed chairs and sofas and shelves of books. The bus stop was right nearby, so we waited a short time for the MGM bus. We got to MGM at 7:30 and hurried into Fantasmic, which was nearly full by then. In fact, we got what may have been the last three regular-seating spots in the amphitheater. They were in the second to last row on the extreme left of the stage. Nevertheless, they were great seats - every bit as good as the center seats we got during the show two years ago. Disney has staged the show so that every seat has a good view of both the water screens and the action. Alex explained what passes for the plot to me, which increased my enjoyment of the show substantially. The theater was absolutely packed solid, and we were as far from the exit as you could get, so we let almost everyone leave before we got up to go. We paid for this by being eaten alive my mosquitoes, however. This was the one spot in WDW where the mosquitoes were not under control. When we got to the bus stop, Alex suggested that we sit on a bench while the unbearably long line of All Stars guests filed slowly past. Patience is a virtue, because we got on what was probably the last bus out of there, and no one had to stand. It was quite pleasant watching the line for the bus go past, actually, especially if you like to watch the people around you. After seeing a lot of what came close to child abuse at the parks over the last few days, it was instructive to analyze the people who opted to stay behind while the mob fought its way onto the earlier buses. Most of them had sleeping children, and they obviously wanted to spare themselves and their children from the packed conditions of the earlier buses. I had the sense that they were less stressed out than most of the parents I had seen, and that this serenity probably stemmed from their tendency to think ahead, weigh their options and be willing to wait a bit for the payoff. I made a mental note to more frequently consider waiting as an option. August 29, 2001 Tuesday We've been in our teenager-friendly mode for most of this vacation - out of the room around 11am, in bed by midnight. It was no different this morning. Alex slept until 10:30, until Brad and I finally dragged him out of bed. Brad and I had already jogged by that time, so Alex took his shower and off we went to breakfast at the food court. We decided to go to MGM Studios, so we hopped on the bus. Once we got to the park, we all got Fastpasses for Star Tours, then I went to catch the last ten minutes of Hunchback of Notre Dame while Brad and Alex went to play the arcade games at Pizza Planet. The guy playing Clopin was the same as a couple of years ago and he is still very good. The new Hunchback is not that great - he really ought to walk as if he had terrible spine problems, but he jumps around like Peter Pan with a somewhat bulky backpack. Esmerelda was not the best I'd seen, either. After getting stabbed, she is required to painfully arise and show she is not dead, but this one literally popped up and strode to her mark, like she'd been faking the injury. But overall, the music salvaged the not quite adequate acting. Clopin is an especially fabulous singer, and fortunately he closes the show. We had some time before our Fastpass was ready, so we decided to go to a Millionaire show, which was just starting up. We got the guy instead of the girl host. He had his work cut out for him because they had a technical glitch with the computer, so the host had to do a little standup routine to kill time. It ended up being a twenty-minute delay, but he did an admirable job of thinking up little games to play with the audience. One little girl sang a rap song, he did Edith to a guest's Archie Bunker as the two sang the theme song from "All in the Family", and we played "Stump the Host" in thinking up theme songs to TV shows. Once the game finally got underway, I got into the top ten twice, both times in the number six slot, but never got to the hot seat. I'd have probably freaked out if I had, so it's probably better this way. They extended the game an extra 18 minutes to make up for the computer glitch, which was fun, but it also meant we had four minutes to get out of the show and over to Star Tours before our Fastpasses ran out. We literally ran over there, making it by about one minute. Poor Alex, who does not jog, was seriously overheated by the time we got there. He enjoyed the ride (it was his first time), but felt kind of sick - whether from the ride or the run is a mystery - so we decided to go back to the room and rest. After some rehydrating and a little TV watching, everyone was feeling refreshed. Brad gets a little motion sick on that ride, so he didn't mind the rest, either. We decided to do some mini-golfing at Fantasia, across from the Dolphin/Swan resort. We took the bus to MGM Studios and the boat from MGM to the Swan/Dolphin, then walked across the street to Fantasia Mini Golf. They have two courses, a mini-golf Garden Course and a short training course with sand traps and other hazards. We did the Garden Course and took our time doing it, letting several other parties play through. We like our mini-golf nice and relaxed. It was a beautiful time of day -- about 6:00 and the sun was beginning to set. It was too early for the mosquitoes and the crowds and we had a great time. Because we have annual passes, we were given a 50% discount, which means it cost only $16 for the three of us to play. Alex wants to go back and play the regular course, so we may do that later in the week. We've played both Winter/Summerland and Fantasia, and they are both great in their own ways. Both are pretty brutal during the heat of the day and are much more pleasant to play after about 5:00 pm. Fantasia is prettier, with lots of color and beautiful music from the movie, but Winter/Summerland is probably more inventive in terms of its hazards. My subjective impression of Fantasia is that it has more "impossible" holes than Winter/Summerland, but then I'm not a very good mini-golfer, so most holes are pretty near impossible for me! After our golfing adventure it was about 8:15, and we were starving. We headed for the ESPN Club on the Boardwalk, a five-minute walk from Fantasia. This was a surprise highlight of our trip. Both Alex and Brad loved watching the hundreds of TVs placed around the room, and the large screen with four simultaneous sports events on split screen was very cool. And yes, they do have TVs hanging from the ceiling in the bathrooms so you can view the game from your stall and from the sinks. Brad says you can even see them from the urinals, which is probably more than you want to know. The food was pretty good, too. I had a Portobello mushroom wrap, which was large and stuffed with other vegetables. I had a choice between chips, fries and fruit (of all things!). How nice to have a fruit option! Brad had a Caesar salad, and while it could not compete with the one he had at Wolfgang Puck's (primarily in the dressing department - Puck's was thick, creamy and tasted of garlic and anchovy, while ESPN's was more like a ranch), it was perfectly acceptable. Alex had pasta with shrimp and chicken in a marinara sauce that was full-bodied and very flavorful. The shrimp and chicken were a little chewy, but not enough to put him off eating the entire, enormous plateful. Alex also had an amazing Oreo milkshake that he had to keep elbowing Brad and I away from. You must try it if you like Oreos, milk, vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce and whipped cream thick enough to hold a spoon upright! The EPCOT resort area really is second to none in terms of convenience to the major and minor attractions. You can walk to EPCOT (five minutes), MGM (15 minutes), Fantasia, and the Boardwalk. There are also boats to all of the above (except Fantasia), which are really relaxing. You can take the monorail to MK by walking through EPCOT (probably 10 or 15 minutes to the monorail), and the water parks and Downtown Disney are short bus rides away. It was now 9:30, and in order to get back to the Music, we had to catch a bus to Downtown Disney, then transfer to an All Star bus. When the parks close early, the only place to transfer to resort buses is DD. We walked to the Boardwalk Inn bus stop, and imagine our shock to see a bus drive up with "All Star Music, Movies & Sports" on its destination sign. It turned out to be a mirage, after all, because the driver had forgotten to change his sign and he was really headed to EPCOT. So we followed the original plan and made it back to the Music by 10:30. Our valuable lesson of the day was: if a member of your party is feeling poorly, going back to the room for some rest can salvage the day. The combination of sun, heat and rides can be too much sometimes, and dropping the commando mode can really help turn things around. August 29, 2001 Wednesday This is Alex' birthday! He turned 15 and is now solidly a teenager (and if I can be a proud mother for a moment, a very sweet-natured teenager, as well). We started off the special day by giving him one of those things you swing in a circle so the lighted-up end forms words in the air. Brad had quite a bit of work-related phone work to do this morning, but we finally got out of the room by 12:30. [BRAD NOTE: If you should ever need to receive a Fed Ex package at an All- Star Resort, rest assured that they handle it very professionally. I got two packages in two days - in both cases, guest services called our room as soon as the packages came in, and handed them over with no fuss when I went to the front desk.] Alex decided he wanted to go to the MK first. First stop was City Hall, where Alex received his "It's My Birthday" pin, which spent the rest of the day in his pocket. Then to the candy store where we watched peanut brittle being made. This was the first time we were there when the toffee machine had heated to the proper temperature, and it was neat to watch them pour out the brittle and spread it around on a giant, buttered stainless steel table. Unfortunately, I think peanut brittle is gross, so we didn't buy any. At that point, Alex took off for some quality time in the arcade while Brad and I rode the Tomorrowland Transit authority. We picked up some sodas (the Sprite mix was only fair, a little watery) and a strawberry smoothie (very sweet, but good) at Auntie Gravity's and headed to Frontierland for the Remember the Magic parade, which we watched from our favorite vantage point on the platform of the Shooting Gallery. This is really a very good parade with lots of characters and some pretty floats. There is really good character interaction because the parade stops every few blocks and the characters get off the floats and either shake hands or play games with guests. [BRAD NOTE: It always fascinates me that "face characters" such as the dancers who lead the Remember the Magic parade can wear heavy costumes and move energetically in the brutal midday heat and not sweat. Laurie tells me there is special stage makeup that helps them with this feat.] [Laurie responds: It's actually a face sealer. Greasepaint with lots of powder works, too.] EPCOT was next. Alex spent more time in Innoventions playing computer games while Brad and I did the Lucent tour of a home outfitted with state of the art lighting, video and sound. They've done a new movie for the end section where you sit in the home theater, so if you've done this before, you might consider doing it again. [ALEX NOTE: One thing I would like to note about Innoventions is that their Sega game section isn't keeping up with the times. As you enter the section with the Sega Games (which is tucked into a little walled-off area behind the computer games) you see a big banner with "Play the Future! The Games of Tomorrow!" or something like that on it. When you get in, however, you see that most, if not all of these games, are already out. Some (like Shenmue) have been out for quite some time. I heard that Sega is starting to go under, is that why they can't get any new demos in there?] Then it was on to our 5:00 pm PS at Alfredo's, where we all had pasta dishes. The food was adequate, but it is really the service and the beautiful room that delivers. We've eaten here twice and the service was impeccable both times (glasses instantly refilled, food served and cleared with competence, and the check taken care of efficiently). I agree with others that have posted that the tables are close together, but it doesn't bother us. The room is elegant and just a very comfortable place to be. Alex seemed to have a slight cold or maybe some allergies - a runny nose, slight headache and a little stomach woo, so we decided to stop briefly in the Japan store and then back to the room. Well, the brief stop turned into about an hour and a half and around $100 in damages, but we left happy with some neat stuff, including a very complicated Gundam model for the birthday boy. [ALEX NOTE: Okay, I think it's time to discuss my relationship with Japanese cartoons (for those who don't know, Japanese cartoons are popularly referred to as "animes"). I love them, but I hardly ever watch them due to my schedule. Still, I watch them when I can, and I love chatting about them on the web. (Oh, and despite the fact that I got a Gundam toy, I do not like "Gundam Wing". I saw it twice and both times I thought it was depressing and rather dull. I guess it was because I didn't know the characters, but it still seemed rather slow-moving. I love the toy, though!)] Back to the room where Alex pieced together the Gundam in an impossibly short period of time, and we all relaxed in front of the TV, making an early evening of it. August 30, 2001 Thursday Today we decided to take it easy and not visit any parks. The morning was typical - jogs, then out by 11 am and eat a little something in the food court. Brad and I had been wanting to see the Animal Kingdom Lodge, so we all decided to go over there. Of course there are no direct buses from our resort, so we went to the Lodge via Blizzard Beach. We were very much impressed by it. The drop off area in front of the Lodge is a giant thatched roof, and the thatch appears to be genuine! As others have said, the interior is in some ways similar to the Wilderness Lodge in that the lobby consists of several stories of guest rooms facing out into a large, soaring, rectangular space filled with couches and chairs. The feeling is quite different, though, with the emphasis in the Animal Kingdom Lodge being on leather, ironwork, and what looks like dried mud (but is, in fact, concrete), while the Wilderness Lodge is more wood and stone. All of the rooms appear to have some sort of view, whether of the very scenic pool area or the surrounding savannah. We saw several animals from the pool area, including lots of cattle-type animals, many birds and giraffes. [BRAD NOTE: I have read trip-report comments that the Animal Kingdom Lodge is "too much like the Wilderness Lodge," but having extensively poked around both, I must strongly disagree. The AKL has a more artistic feel - while the WL impresses, the AKL charms. Further, while both feature non-linear "organic" forms, AKL takes the concept further. The layout of WL is strictly rectangular, while the hallways of AKL meander off in odd directions like rabbit burrows, and the mezzanines step down like waterfall terraces. We would love to stay here someday!] The restaurants here were particularly lovely, with high-backed chairs, lots of dark wood (trying for a mahogany look) and several fire pits and water pools. Although Alex felt that their arcade was only adequate, we all gave a thumbs-up to the food court, which offered a very nice assortment in a much nicer than usual dining area (with leather and metal chairs). It is nice to see that Disney is finally recognizing that people who can afford deluxe accommodations don't necessarily want to spend a fortune every time they get hungry. When we were at the Polynesian, we were aghast at the lack of choices in their "food court". The Wilderness Lodge had a similarly pathetic set-up. I've never seen the food court at the Grand Floridian, but the Contemporary used to be the only deluxe we had visited with a decent fast-food venue. They also have a GREAT arcade at the Contemporary, by the way. We hung out in the room for the rest of the day, eating dinner at the Music's food court. It was quite a change, spending only $20 on dinner! I really have to recommend taking a day to unwind, read, watch TV, watch thunderstorms rolling over you, or whatever, in the middle of your vacation. It's no good coming back from your vacation exhausted. And we would NEVER take a whole day off to read and lay around if we were home! Another quick note - as Alex is fond of saying, the Japan channel never disappoints. We found ourselves tuning into channel 59 and watching it for long periods of time, choosing it over "The Golden Girls" time and again. Channel 59 is Japanese programming, in Japanese, much of which is for children. I'll admit I had a special interest since I will be appearing in The Mikado in November, and was interested in both physical presentation and conversational style, but this aside it was STILL quite an interesting channel. It is amazing how different the Japanese style is, and it gives you an insight into that culture which we had never had the opportunity to explore before. August 31, 2001 Friday Today was devoted to EPCOT, our family's favorite park. Again the jog, the leaving at 11:30, the "breakfast" in the food court, and a quick bus to EPCOT. We've had, overall, very good luck with buses this trip, waiting an average of 10 minutes. It's really not luck, though, since the All Stars are very good at planning buses. We arrived at EPCOT around 12:30 and began by walking around to our possible dinner destinations and looking at the menus. It was between Garden Grill, Coral Reef, Le Cellier and the San Angel Inn. Of these four, we had previously eaten only at the San Angel Inn, and we really wanted to try something different. Alex wasn't interested in Garden Grill or the Coral Reef, but the menu at Le Cellier won him over, so we made a PS for 6:20. Alex spent his entire afternoon at the Sega game section of Innoventions (he claims that he really enjoyed this vacation!) while Brad and I hit Spaceship Earth, Ellen's Energy Adventure, the Mexico boat ride, Maelstrom, Journey Into Your Imagination, The Land and The Living Seas. We had a GREAT time, which was enhanced by the fact that it rained for a good deal of the afternoon, off and on. The cloud cover and the intermittent rain really cooled things off and made park exploration a real joy. Ellen's Energy Adventure was as loud as I remembered it, and I spent most of it with my fingers jammed in my ears. A cast member was telling a little kid who was apprehensive about going on this ride that it wasn't at all scary. I really disagree, and parents should be aware that much of this ride is in the dark (some of it pitch black) with loud dinosaur roaring and pounding dinosaur footsteps that shake your vehicle. I think most adults just disregard all of this, but children won't. The Mexico boat ride is always a gamble. Depending on our mood, sometimes we feel it is endearing and romantic, and sometimes annoying and offensive. Today we thought it was endearing and romantic. Journey Into Your Imagination was, if possible, even more lame than the last time we saw it. Maelstrom, on the other hand, was fabulous. This is one of Epcot's finest. If only Splash Mountain could be like this. The Land and The Living Seas were both great, as usual. The Land ride is always interesting because they are raising different things every time, and the things that are the same are in different stages of growth from visit to visit. Today, for example, the cotton was all puffy and white, and they had some brand new crops in there that we had never seen before (anywhere!). At The Living Seas we got to see the dolphins doing tricks. I don't think we'd ever seen the dolphins at all, much less doing tricks. We were watching from the bottom of the tank, so we didn't see the handler at all, but we saw the dolphins twisting around and shooting up to break out of the water, then diving back in and going all the way down to the bottom of the tank. We were noticing how similar their spinal articulation was to the way a human would swim if he had a mermaid tail on. We also saw their two manatees, who were very sweet. One kept stealing lettuce from the other one's feeder, but it didn't look like either of them missed many meals. We asked if they'd be returned to the wild and the answer was "maybe". It always makes me sad when a big animal doesn't have much room to move around, but I suppose there's not much you can do. One of these was severely injured by the propellers of three boats, and the other was injured when she washed up on some rocks at 8 weeks old, having apparently been orphaned. They say that both of them are doing really well, but the orphan is 7 years old now, so maybe she won't be going back. The Cast Member said it is up to the National Park Service, not WDW, and that WDW just agrees to care for them until the NPS determines they can go back to the wild. You've still got to feel sad for the manatees, though. After this very full afternoon, we met up with Alex and went through the House of the Future in Innoventions West. This hasn't really changed a lot in the last couple of years, but it's still a neat display. Then over to Le Cellier. It was early (5:45 instead of our 6:20 PS, but the boys were hungry!), however they decided to let us in anyway. This is a very restful place with faux stone walls, faux candles on the mantle places and walls, a faux gas fire in the fireplace, and lots of presumably real wine bottles stacked around. The menu is heavy on meats, but also has a couple of vegetarian and seafood offerings. My penne with cream, shallots, asparagus and huge sea scallops was perfect. It is so easy to destroy scallops, but these were seared and succulent. Brad had rosemary grilled chicken, which was good, but would have benefited from brining and spit roasting. But then, I am hard to please on the chicken front. Alex had a perfectly done pork loin, which was served on a puree of parsnip flavored with apple and raisin in a maple and balsamic vinegar reduction. I was transported by it (I LOVE parsnips), but Alex was not excited, although he ate all of the pork loin. We also tried the cheddar cheese soup and were pleasantly surprised. It appears to consist of heavily smoked bacon, onion, shallots, beer, a nicely sharp cheddar cheese and, I would guess from the consistency, cream. It is nicely balanced and not overly thick. The three of us shared one cup, which was just the right amount. The portions were not enormous, unlike many restaurants in WDW. We found them to be just right in that each of us was pleasantly filled without wasting any food. We did not have room for dessert. After this wonderful meal, we walked up to Japan and Brad and Alex did a little more window-shopping in the store. Alex bought a bag of kiwi gummies that were fabulous! That store has loads of interesting and delicious snack foods. I did a little filming of some of the countries we had missed on previous trips. At around 8:00, we began to look for a place to watch Illuminations. Alex really wanted to watch from the UK, so we headed over there, but couldn't find anything that wasn't already taken or was blocked by trees. We went on to Canada and found a great spot tucked in beside the drink stand looking over the gray, weathered fence. We had a completely unobstructed view of the whole lagoon and no one was standing there yet! We sat down on the ground there with our backs to the lagoon and watched the crowd go by. [BRAD NOTE: This spot, which is on the Future-World side of the Canada popcorn stand, was simply ideal for watching Illuminations - no obstructions overhead, off the beaten path, and close enough to the exits to beat the rush. Highly recommended!] Illuminations was great, as usual. The way they get those fireworks to sync with the music is amazing, and it was a definite improvement to listen as well as watch. Because we were toward the front of the exodus, having watched in Canada, we managed to get onto what looked like the first bus out of the park at the All Star Music spot. We spent the rest of the evening watching TV and smiling about our wonderful day at EPCOT. September 1, 2001 Saturday The best part of an eleven-day trip is that we have plenty of time to explore WDW, and when the last day of the vacation comes, we're ready to go home! Our plane didn't leave until evening, so we had a little extra time in WDW. Our Tiffany driver was scheduled to pick us up at 4 pm at the All Stars. Checkout went smoothly - we had automatic checkout where the bill is left hanging on the doorknob. You just check it for any mistakes (there were none on ours) and you can leave at any point after that. We were planning to be out by 11 am, and had requested a Mickey wake up call for 10:07 for Alex -- something we hadn't gotten around to doing yet! Well, Mickey called right on time, and he urged us all to get up and at 'em. We had heard that if you ask Mickey to call just after or before the hour, you're more likely to get his voice. I guess the theory is that on the hour, there are too many calls to make, so they just play music. I don't know if that's true or not, but we did get Mickey's voice at 10:07! Brad and I went out for our morning jogs, and then we all got ready to start our day. We managed to pack everything into the same suitcases we came with, and gave them to bell services to store until we came back to meet our Tiffany driver. All Star Music had what they called a "cage" where we could have left our laptop, but we decided to carry it around with us anyway. Off we went to the Rainforest Café at Animal Kingdom. We arrived at 11:30 and got right in with no PS. We sat in the gorilla room next to the giant fish tank, which was a great section of the restaurant - out of the way and (except for the gorillas) quiet. As usual, the portions were enormous. We were all very hungry and (stupidly) broke our rule of ordering two entrees and one small appetizer. We ordered the Maya mixed grill, the fried catfish and waffle fries plate, and an entrée-sized chicken Caesar salad. With the three of us eating as hard as we could, we barely finished it all off and poor Brad was walking like Pooh afterwards. We received a 10% discount with our annual passes, and were very happy with our meal. We had a very friendly server and the food was all very good - better chain food than a person expects. The mojo ribs and waffle fries were big hits, and the Caesar salad had nice shavings of a good grade of parmesan. I wish they had offered an un-fried version of catfish, but you wouldn't have known that by looking at me stuff down what I ordered. We had time for one more thing, so Alex chose to play a couple of rounds at Winter/Summerland. We took the bus from AK to the All Stars, then transferred to the EPCOT/Blizzard Beach bus (Winter/Summerland shares the entrance to Blizzard Beach). We played the summer course first (getting 50% off with our annual passes). It was about 1:15 and about 95 degrees, and poor Brad, being so very full of waffle fries, barely made it through the 18 holes. By the time we reached the end, he was sweating like that guy in Broadcast News, so we let him sit out the winter side of the course while Alex and I played. But even we had to bow to Mother Nature and order an iced tea halfway through. Both Alex and I think the winter side is harder than the summer side. The holes on the summer side seem to be sloped more, so your ball goes into the cup without as much prompting. But both sides are fun, and the winter side compensates for its higher degree of difficulty by being a more imaginative course. We finished our game at 2:20, and hopped on a bus back to the All Stars, arriving in plenty of time to claim our bags from bell services and meet Ali from Tiffany Towncar at 4:00. The ride to the airport was uneventful, as was check-in. We were on our way home, a little sad to leave, but full of happy memories of our trip, and with lots of exciting things on the horizon. General Notes Crowd levels felt like they had been dropping slightly all week since about Tuesday the 28th. They were still in the moderate/low vicinity - but nothing like the truly low level we experienced a few years ago in early November. We are really curious about whether crowds are still that low at that time. It was great - no lines for anything. Even Peter Pan was a complete walk-on. As far as the resorts went, the All Stars seemed to be booked pretty full through the duration of our visit - lines for the All Star buses at the parks were definitely the longest, and not because the buses were running behind. There was just nobody staying at the other resorts, particularly the deluxes. I know that some people drive, but we have been to WDW quite a lot, and I've never seen the deluxe and moderate bus stops so deserted. I don't think THAT many guests have switched to driving! This was confirmed by our visits to the Animal Kingdom Lodge and Brad's stop at Coronado Springs. We noticed that both places were pretty close to empty. I would hope that Disney is picking up on the fact that their rates at the moderates and deluxes have obviously outstripped peoples' willingness to spend. All Stars are having no problem at all attracting guests. I'll be watching closely to see if rates at the high priced resorts are reduced, or if they come out with some worthwhile special rates. We thought the general level of upkeep, both at the resorts and at the parks, was very good - especially given that we came at the tail end of the crunch season, before they had had time to spruce it back up. Some of the fiberglass icons are fading a bit, but that's going to be a huge expenditure to fix, so I can understand them wanting to get a little more wear out of them. Cast member friendliness was generally high, certainly much higher than in the world at large. As usual, the only attitude I encountered during this trip was with housekeeping (our first room didn't have a "Do Not Disturb" sign, and our housekeeper wouldn't believe me and wouldn't give me one!) and with the check-in desk when our initial room assignment developed a problem (someone had been smoking cigars in a non-smoking room). I find that the check-in people at resorts in all categories at WDW are great unless a problem develops. The woman troubleshooting with the cell phone was a godsend. If you can ever find one of those Cast Members when you have a problem, jump right out of line and make a beeline for them! Also, (without boring you with the details) the Guest Services person at the All Star Music was not really up to the job - knew very little about WDW's general business services and botched a relatively simple request that eventually required them to run something all the way over to the Magic Kingdom. I have found that, generally, Cast Members are big on generic friendliness while coming up short on problem solving and organization. However, if you are persistent with them, you can almost always solve the problem yourself and convince them to help you accomplish whatever it is you need. This is obviously assuming that you aren't asking for something outrageous or unfair. Unlike previous trips, I used my laptop to write this report while we were on vacation. This was a vast improvement, at least for me, because it freed me from having to take notes. With a little self-discipline, I was able to type a summary at the end of each day while my memory of the events of that day was still clear. This allowed me to relax and enjoy my days without having to break the flow by hauling out my notepad or tape recorder, and gave me a productive way to unwind at night. It also means that I will not have to feel guilty about procrastinating about writing this huge report when I get home! Yay! We had a great vacation, with manageable crowd levels, nice warm weather and all the entertainment we could handle. As we were waiting for Tiffany Towncar to come whisk us away to the real world, Alex said he couldn't wait to come back. I must say, I agree! Laurie Lemley |
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