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Darsi Rueda -- May 2001 -- Walt Disney World (ASMoR)Click Here to jump down to the final report that Darsi submitted. The cast:
Trip dates: Saturday May 5 - Thursday, May 10, 2001 All-Star Movies Resort Background I've been to Disneyland in CA more than 20 times. My paternal grandmother lives in Riverside, and my family made annual trips from Oregon to visit her (and Disneyland) during spring break through my high school years. I snuck in probably 3 multi-day trips to Disneyland while in college, and have been able to get down there at least annually in the 10 years since I graduated. Living on the west coast all my life, I had always shrugged off a trip to WDW as too expensive and too far away. But as I started getting paid slightly more than a subsistence wage as the years went on, I started to think that making the trek to Florida would not be impossible. My partner Jill unwittingly made this small flicker of interest in WDW into a roaring fire of "I HAVE TO GO!" by getting me Birnbaum's official guide to WDW for my birthday in October 1999. From there I started checking out RADP, wdwig.com, Brian Bennett's trip report page, multiple other guide books and web sites, and anything else remotely concerning WDW that I could get my hands on. I had the disease, it was only a matter of time and saving money before I got to go. It was planned that Jill, myself, and her two daughters would try and make a trip in December, 2002. A long way away, but it would give me plenty of time to save up some money. In the meantime, I was driving Jill, and myself, crazy, looking at all the web sites and talking about something new I learned about WDW almost every day. It wasn't long before Jill suggested that I go to WDW earlier than December 2002 with her older daughter, and my good friend, Maya, so we could scope out the place and have a more well-planned trip for the 4 of us when December 2002 finally got here. I wasn't going to say no to that idea! The only question was how I was going to afford 2 trips now. This worry was somewhat eased when the younger of the 2 daughters announced that she didn't really have any interest in going. Well, her absence in 2002 will pretty much pay for my going in 2001! Hooray! In the summer of 2000, Maya and I started to think about how to do our trip. She teaches at Northern Michigan University, so we'd have to work around her academic schedule, and still try to avoid the crowds and the heat of summer. I had a conference in Alabama coming up May 1-5, 2001, and was hoping that I could somehow connect WDW to this trip. But would Maya be able to go that early in May? A quick check with her revealed that she would be finished with school on May 1st! Now we're getting somewhere. September, 2000 I called CRO and made reservations for the All-Star Movies resort for 5 nights starting May 5, 2001. There were no MKC discounts available at this time (and MKC was soon changed to Disney Club in any case, which did not offer discounts at the All-Star Resorts for this time of year in 2001). So I paid $99/night for the room, total with tax was $622.30. I also had them tack on Mears shuttle vouchers, $54 (obviously I had been bumped over to WDTC), and I went ahead and bought the Resort Magic Package for us, $573.70 with tax. I know the Unlimited Magic Passes are not necessarily the best value depending on what you are planning to do at the World, but I think we'll get our money's worth (touring plans sketched out below). November, 2000 My Thoughts on Touring plans Maya and I are going to go commando for this trip. The idea is to see as much as we can of the four main parks, plus DisneyQuest and Pleasure Island. The Downtown Disney activities will be a highlight of the trip for the 2 of us, because Jill is not going to be as interested in visiting either one in 2002. However, Maya is a big nightclub dancer type (yep, it sucks to be stuck in Marquette, MI if you're Maya), and we both enjoy interactive stuff, so we'll make sure and spend a lot of time dancing and playing our hearts out on this trip. I've made a calendar of the days we'll be there, noting which parks have Early Entry. We'll probably go with the "day before EE" strategy. Alternatively, if we rise early enough (not sure how motivated we'll be each morning after a night at DD), we'll consider going to the EE park and staying until it gets crowded, then move to another park. If crowds are thin we might not even have to switch parks! We'll just have to see what happens. According to Pete Werner's site, all the parks are projected to close at 8:30 or 9pm while we're there (AK at 7). I anticipate moving directly from a park to DD each night. We'll also take advantage of E-ride night at MK if they offer one during our stay. (Yes, I'm going to start working out so I have the stamina for this trip! I'm also considering walking to work all spring, the 3.5 mile one-way should be good training.) Eating We're going to eat quick and (relatively) cheap on this trip. We'll bring poptarts for breakfasts, and do counter service the rest of the time. The one exception might be that we'll use our flex feature provided with the Resort Magic Package to have a character meal. Also, I think we'd get a real kick out of the 50's Prime Time Café so I'm considering that. Flights to WDW Aside from more in-depth planning of the actual days at WDW, this is the only area that needs to be dealt with. Maya wants to use Northwest frequent flyer miles for her flight, but when she called in late-October, all FF seats had already been reserved. She was told to call back often, though, because they would probably add more FF seats to these flights. So that is an unknown. She'll buy the flight on her own if nothing opens up. Her plan is to get there sometime Saturday afternoon, get herself to All-Start Movies on Mears, and hang out at the pool until I get there. I need to wait a while before arranging my flights. I want to see the tentative agenda for the conference (Wednesday May 2 - Saturday May 5 in Huntsville, AL). I'm hoping that I'll be able to skip all the Saturday afternoon sessions and hop an earlier flight to Orlando. However, I'm not counting on being able to visit a park on Saturday, since I might not be able to get away from my conference until 5pm. We'll make it to Pleasure Island Saturday night for sure, though! Flight home I need to leave WDW early enough on Thursday, May 10th to make it to Portland, OR at a reasonable hour. I make an annual trip to visit my parents over Mother's Day weekend, and I promised myself (and more importantly, my mother) that I wouldn't sacrifice any of that trip for the WDW one (my Mom is already bummed out enough that I'm not inviting her to go to WDW with me!). I usually fly up to OR on Thursday of Mother's Day weekend and arrive around 5pm, so I'll aim for something similar this time. I'm not sure how much we'll be able to do at WDW on Thursday since I'll probably have to leave pretty early, but hopefully we can squeeze in a few rides at the EE park for that day. Maya will try to get a flight home to MI that's close to my flight time. April, 2001 OK, things are pretty firm now, and of course there have been a few changes. When trying to arrange my flights, I found out there was a $400 difference if I flew out of Orlando at 6am rather than 10:30am. As much as I hate the idea of catching a Mears shuttle at 4am, $400 is nothing to sneeze at! (My tickets are so expensive because I'm doing a 4-way flight... San Jose to the conference, conference to WDW, WDW to Portland, Portland to San Jose.) This 6am flight would get me into Portland, OR at 10:30am. So I decided to make a separate reservation at All-Star Movies for Thursday night. This works out nicely for our Unlimited Magic Passes that expire Thursday at midnight, we'll get to use them all that last day instead of having to leave mid-morning. The other change is that I shortened the package reservation at the beginning of the trip. Instead of starting the package on Saturday when we arrive, I took a hotel-only one night reservation for that first night, then the package deal with the Unlimited Magic Passes for Sunday-Wednesday. Maya had thought we wouldn't have enough energy that first night to take advantage of the money we'd spend on the pass. She's probably right! So, we've booked our flights, and we're both scheduled to arrive at 6pm on Saturday, May 5. Both leaving on Friday, May 11 (me at 6am, Maya at 8:30am). Here's the plan: Saturday, May 5
Sunday, May 6
From here on it's completely tentative Monday, May 7 AK
Tuesday, May 8
Wednesday, May 9
Thursday, May 10
Friday, May 11
Check my pre-trip report for all the planning that went into this trip. This was the rookie trip for each of us, and I think I put about 10 hours a week into reading guidebooks, trip reports, and web sites for the year leading up to this trip. I'm really happy I did that - I felt that I knew what there was to do at WDW while I was there, and so could make good decisions about what to do each time a choice had to be made. I planned this trip to be commando style for a couple of 30 year-olds that were almost as interested in the WDW nightlife as they were in the 4 major theme parks. We got Unlimited Magic Passes that covered the 5 full days we'd be at the World, and I think we got our money's worth out of them... you can be the judge of that! "Day 0:" The conference (Tues - Sat May 1 - 5) I had a conference in Huntsville, Alabama the 4 days preceding my trip. In fact, having the conference almost next door to WDW (hey, I'm from California, it seemed next door to me compared to all the way across the country) was the driving motivator in making it to WDW this year. I left for the conference on a 10pm redeye flight Tuesday, May 1. I had a few hours layover in Atlanta, and visited the Disney shop in terminal B once it opened for the day. Those CMs were SO much more awake than I was! I saw some cute Winnie the Pooh key chains, but didn't want to buy anything at that point. I never saw those particular key chains again on the trip, and didn't have time to visit the store coming back through Atlanta on later flight days. I thought that I would have a very difficult time concentrating on the conference with my dream trip to WDW right around the corner, but I did OK. I was all packed up before the Saturday morning sessions, and when 12:15pm came, I was out the door and on the hotel shuttle to the airport, Rita Aero's guidebook in hand for my flights to Orlando (connecting in Atlanta). Day 1 (Saturday, May 5): Arrival Maya and I planned to meet at the Orlando airport. She'd be coming from home, and was due to arrive at 6pm. My flight was scheduled to come in at 6:56pm. When I got to Atlanta, I signed up for standby on the flight prior to mine (which would have arrived at MCO at 6:07pm), and would have been the next person on the flight, but in the end had to settle for my original flight. As we approached Orlando, I tried to get a glimpse of the hidden Mickey formed by trees on the WDW property that I'd heard about, but couldn't see it. I think we were coming from the wrong direction for a sighting. My flight arrived on time. Maya met me at my gate, and after a stop at the Disney store (we didn't buy anything, but we picked up some brochures on the parks that we never read), we took "our first ride" to the main terminal. My bags were set aside at baggage claim, so I think they'd arrived on the earlier flight! Too bad I didn't make it too, we could have started our adventure an hour earlier! We bought our Mears vouchers without difficulty. I had been under the impression that cash was required at the Mears counter, but apparently not, so I paid with my VISA card. The agent gave us back one ticket for 2 adults, and Maya quickly requested that we be given separate tickets so she didn't have to ride back with me on the 4am shuttle! Pretty quick thinking on her part! Two tickets were issued without any problem. Then we lugged our bags out to the sidewalk. I just had to have my picture taken in front of the white Disney-themed wall there. After a couple minutes of standing around at the end of the line, someone came directly out of the building and up to the agent. That woke me up to the fact that all the people waiting there weren't waiting to check in, they were waiting to be assigned to a shuttle! So I checked in, and it seems we were the last two bodies needed to fill a shuttle, because within 2 minutes of checking in the van was fully loaded with people and baggage and we were on our way!!! We stopped at a non-Disney hotel, then a Downtown Disney hotel, the Boardwalk, Coronado Springs, and All-Star Music before finally getting to All-Star Movies. I didn't mind getting a glimpse of all those other resorts, I knew I wouldn't be taking any time to visit them later in the trip. We waited only maybe 3 minutes to check in, and it went very smoothly. We had continuing reservations for the 6 nights we were staying: 1 night, then 4 nights with the Unlimited Magic passes, then 1 night more. I had called in a few days before and had some room requests added to our reservation. We were hoping for an upper-floor Fantasia room, non-smoking, facing the pool. Well, we couldn't get that for the first night, and stayed in a Mighty Ducks building. But the CM counseled us to put our packed bags by the door of our room after the first night, and that guest services would transfer our bags to our new room during the day. Sounded good. We also bought E-ride night tickets for Tuesday night during check in. We'd have to check out and back in the following morning on our way out to the parks (the continuing reservation thing). We elected to lug our own bags to the room rather than wait, so we did that then came directly back to the food court for some dinner. It was after 9pm by this time (where oh where did the time go), so we had decided to not try to see something that night. We had considered DisneyQuest, Pleasure Island, miniature golf, or the Boardwalk, but in the end didn't even get in the pool! We grabbed two green salads and split a grilled cheese with fries, and sat at a poolside table. As vegetarians, this was practically our only semi-healthy choice, since they were out of veggie burgers. We also grabbed some fruit to eat in the morning, bottled water to carry into the park the next day, and purchased souvenir refillable mugs to satisfy our day-long need for caffeine! The weather wasn't nearly as warm as it could have been, I was a bit chilly in my pants and short-sleeved shirt. We hit the beds early, by 11pm, in anticipation of Early Entry at the Disney-MGM Studios for Star Wars weekend on Sunday. Maya LOVES Star Wars. The wake up call was set for 6:02am. Day 2 (Sunday May 6): Disney-MGM Studios for Star Wars Weekend I made Maya grab the phone in the morning. I could hear Mickey doing his thing. "Cute" was all she said. Hey, it was 6am after all. We were out the door and done with re-checking in by 7:15. Mugs were filled with diet-Coke to be sipped on the bus to help with the waking up process. There was a bus waiting for us to the Studios! On all these bus rides I was pretty impressed with how big the WDW property is. I knew it was big, but the numbers didn't really register - it took seeing it to understand it. Disneyland of course is now crammed into the major city that grew up around it. WDW has the luxury of being able to keep things spread out. And with the greenery everywhere you can't see for long distances, which to me made everything seem farther apart. We arrived at the Studios and were delighted to see stormtroopers patrolling on the entrance roof! "Cool!" says Maya (either she was more awake by now or Star Wars is cooler than Mickey...hmmm). We purposefully strolled (we had promised ourselves to not move faster than that on this trip) back to "Who Wants to be a Millionaire - Play It!", grabbed a fastpass for later, and walked in for the next show. At that time of day, it was only maybe one third full. It was great fun! Maya got to sit in one of the fastest fingers seats. When time ran out at the end of the show, I was next on the list to be in the hot seat! We had some time before our fastpass time, so we walked over to the Star Tours area. First we signed up for the Star Wars Trivia contest at 5:30 that afternoon, and grabbed numbered wrist bands that would let us be at the front of the line for autographs from Kenny Baker (R2-D2) at 12:15 and Doug Chiang (design on Episode I) at 1:15. Then we rode Star Tours. It's always a fun trip to the Endor moon! Then it was back across the park to Millionaire, grabbing a fastpass for Little Mermaid on the way. Millionaire was almost full this time, and I missed a question, so I wasn't on the leader board. Still fun, though! I just heard they are adding this attraction to California Adventure, so I'm looking forward to playing more often. We looked around the shop in the Animation Courtyard while waiting for Little Mermaid, and I bought a Disney-MGM Studios pin and pressed a penny. I'd decided to collect a pin for each park as a nice cheap souvenir. But I didn't want to get into trading them, I knew I could blow a ton of money that way. After checking out the shop, we still had a lot of time left before our Little Mermaid fastpass time. We decided to do the Magic of Disney Animation tour, even though it would end a few minutes after our fastpass time for LM expired. I thoroughly enjoyed the tour, everything was really interesting. Maya was traumatized when they showed Bambi's mother getting killed, that was an intense moment. After the tour we ignored the store and hopped over to the Little Mermaid, but we did end up missing our fastpass time. The CM was apologetic but I could tell he wasn't going to relent, and we didn't press him. We came back to look around the Animation store before splitting a pretzel on our way over to get in line for the autographs. We spent the next hour waiting for Kenny and Doug. It was fun to meet them, and while waiting we listened to some serious Star Wars fans going on and on about pins and autographs and everything else related to Star Wars Weekends. By now it was almost time for our 2:15 PS at the 50's Prime Time Cafe, so we headed over that way. I got pictures of Maya with Chewbacca and a stormtrooper, and we had time to check out Drew Carey's Sounds Dangerous. We both thought the show was OK, nothing super. Playing with the sound stuff at the exit to the show was entertaining. We had SO much fun at lunch. I'd told Maya about the interplay with the servers, so while we were waiting for our table Maya made sure to ask when dinner was going to be ready to a passing hostess. When we were seated (by the same hostess) she warned our server Anass to watch out for us. So he did! He had to threaten us with the oversized fly swatter a couple of times. Then I went and told a little fib: "Maya's kicking me under the table!" Well, she had to have a timeout facing the doorjam, then she had to do the motions to "I'm a little teapot" while all the surrounding tables sang along. Too funny! Later, Maya volunteered to help, so Anass had her helping to bus and clean a neighboring table. It was a great experience, and the shakes were fantastic! We split some onion rings, Maya had a veggie burger, and I had some vegetarian pasta that was pretty good. We were definitely full! My feeling for the next few hours was that we spent a lot of time going back and forth across the park. We went to the Animation Courtyard to catch a showing of "Behind the Force: The Saga Continues" which was a preview to Star Wars: Episode 2. But they were having technical problems. So it was back across to Indiana Jones Stunt Show Spectacular. We walked in right before it started and sat pretty near to the front on the right. Some of that show is pretty funny! And seeing the market fight scenes was cool. Back to "Behind the Force" - still broken (and we had asked at the Star Wars information booth and they had radioed and been told it was working). Back across the park to the Star Wars trivia contest. We were both eliminated in the first round. Hey, I like Star Wars just fine, but there was no way I was going to know how many credits Han Solo was offered to take Obi Wan and the droids to the rebel base. Back to "Behind the Force" which was now working! Yea! It was pretty interesting, getting to see the Episode 2 set of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru's Tatooine farm that they made to match the set as it had been in Episode 4. You'll just have to wait for the movie to come out to learn more (since I don't remember any more). We caught the last Studios Backlot Tour, which was fun - I liked seeing all the cars in different states of destruction. The Catastrophe Canyon earthquake was just OK (I'm from California, I know what the real thing feels like). We had fun poking around the museum and shop at the end of the tour. Back to the Animation Courtyard, we finally got to see the Little Mermaid, which I really enjoyed. That was released on video when I was in college, and it got me started collecting the videos ... now I have over 30 Disney animated features. I know, I'm a sucker. It was now about 8:30, and the park closed at 10. We headed to Sunset Blvd. Fastpasses were out for Rock'n'RollerCoaster, and standby time was 60 minutes. No thanks. We tried the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, although I knew I wouldn't like it. That feeling of weightlessness before you get dropped is not what my prone-to-motion-sickness-stomach likes. But we went, and I liked the special effects. Afterwards Maya proclaimed she didn't want to go again, she likes getting dropped once, but all the up and down wasn't too hot on her stomach either. I hadn't warned her that it had multiple drops. We checked out our photo, and we had these completely calm looks on our faces. It was hilarious! I think perhaps the photo is snapped just a second before people realize they've dropped. We didn't buy it. We spent the rest of the evening looking at the shops on Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards. We were in the Villains shop quite a while, and I found the perfect Ursula pin for my partner Jill. She said she didn't want a gift, but she's really into Ursula and Cruella, and I found a pin of each of these "ladies" that were too good to pass up. We also looked at a limited edition watch of the Hundred Acre Wood gang that I really wanted to buy. One of my goals of the trip was to find a watch for myself. But I wasn't ready to spend $200 on a watch, especially on my first day. We stopped at guest services on the way out and found out our room number back at All-Star Movies. A bus was nicely waiting for us when we approached, and we were back at the resort around 11pm. We perused the gift shop, and redeemed our collectors pin that came with our Resort Magic Package. It was Goofy in a little green car. Destined to be traded! Maya discovered a 50oz bottle of water that sold for $1 more than one 24oz bottle did, so we bought one of those every day instead of two 24oz's. We grabbed some more fruit for breakfast and were in bed around midnight. I think I set the wake up call for 6:40 or so. Tomorrow is Animal Kingdom. Nighty-night! Day 3 (Monday, May 7): Animal Kingdom, Wolfgang Puck's Café, Pleasure Island I listened to Mickey this morning, I thought it was pretty cool, but way too cheery, even for me, at that time of the morning. Got me out of bed, though! I took my shower, but Maya was still snoozing away when I got out. Gentle prodding didn't help. So after a couple of minutes I told her I was ready to go. "Really?" Well, no, but it got her out of bed! A quick stop for water at the gift shop and we were ready to go, and the bus was once again waiting for us. Excellent! We arrived at the AK around 8am. We really enjoyed the animal parts of Animal Kingdom. We searched all the habitats on the left side of the Oasis as we went in, then got interested in all the paths around the Tree of Life. After spending probably an hour just looking at animals, we were ready for our first ride. We strolled through the line toward It's Tough to be a Bug but got distracted by a macaw doing his best imitation of a gymnast on the high bar. Around and around and around.... "MACAW!" became the theme word of the week after that. I'm sure some people found us simply obnoxious. ITTBAB was really a lot of fun. I hadn't warned Maya about any of the effects, and she got a kick out of all of them. So did I! I was tempted to sit forward for the bee bit, but remained brave. Didn't hurt much at all! And the bugs exiting the theater was not at all what I expected! ;) We then went to Dinoland and rode Dinosaur. This was a great ride, nice and bumpy! I wasn't too scared of that ole' carnosaur though. We hustled over to the 10:30 show of Tarzan Rocks after the ride and arrived just a minute before it started. The two of us were able to find an uncrowded space in the front row of the upper section, with a great view of the rollerbladers! I enjoyed the muscles and stunts. We then went back and thoroughly checked out all the dinosaur stuff at the Dinoland store, but we didn't buy anything. Walking by the Boneyard, we both wished we were a little shorter (and lighter!) Next we needed a bite to eat, so looked around Asia to no avail. Not much to eat there for vegetarians but ice cream! We picked up a fastpass for Kali River Rapids while we were there. On the way to Africa we found some vegetarian eggrolls. Very greasy, but tasty. Then we checked out the noon Flights of Wonder show. I really liked it. The beginning (when the tour guide shows up) was very cute. And I was really moved when they brought out the bald eagle. What a beautiful bird. I'd never seen one before, and living in the SF Bay Area doesn't give me too many opportunities, so I might not see one again until my next Flights of Wonder show. We backtracked to Asia for a bit of shopping, then KRR. Maya put her shoes and socks in the middle compartment, but I was too lazy. Silly me. Can you say soaked? My shirt mostly escaped, but my shorts, socks, and shoes were thoroughly drenched. Squish squish. To dry out, we walked through the Maharajah Jungle Trek. Beautiful tigers, and we really liked searching out all the colorful birds. I wasn't too impressed with sleeping bats though. Now over to Africa, where we took a break by having a vegetable wrap and side of rice at the Tusker House. They have some nice quiet seating outside in the back. Maya was somewhat overheated so we hung out for a bit (I was fine, guess that drenching was at least good for keeping me cool). Afterwards we checked out the shops and walked the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail while waiting for our safari fastpass time (we grabbed it before eating). I loved watching the younger gorillas play. I had to tear myself away, the afternoon was slipping by. Again, the birds were very cool. But the hippos were the highlight. Well, one hippo was. We were viewing them from behind the glass, below the water level of the "river" they have there. One hippo decided to ham it up for the crowd that had gathered and it passed by three or four times. Then he passed once with his belly up, showing us ... well, he was definitely male. Then the next pass, he backed up to the window! "Hey, he's showing us his butt!" said one kid (OK, it wasn't a kid, it was Maya). He wasn't finished. Let's just say he turned the water a definite shade of murky brown right up against the window. A collective "eeewwwww" was heard from the crowd behind the glass. I think this might have been the highlight of the afternoon!!! After we stopped laughing, we headed to the safari. Our driver was from South Africa, and was really good. One man wanted to know if the hard-as-concrete termite mounds were real. "We are in Africa, Sir. In Africa, everything is real." Right on. Coming back into Harambe, there was a squirrel sighting. Maya exclaimed "Look, they have squirrels in Africa!" That cracked the driver up. I loved seeing all the animals, and it was really nice to see them out in the open instead of stuck in a concrete habitat! After the safari, it was just past 4pm. Time for a decision. Hustle to Camp Minnie-Mickey to try and see the last showing of Festival of the Lion King? I knew it was a very popular show, and I was worried that the complete lack of people in Africa might mean a bunch of people at the Lion King. So we decided to check out Rafiki's Planet Watch instead. We enjoyed the lemurs (I think they were lemurs, but my memory is a little fuzzy on that) on the walk down from the train station. What energy! At Conservation Station I especially liked the short videos about the different endangered animals throughout the world. Happily for both of us, we used the restrooms and got the "scoop on poop." Outside, we petted a couple of goats, then headed back to the train station. The CMs there were keeping the guests occupied with trivia questions while we waited for the train to arrive. When no child could answer the question about how many pounds of poop an elephant pooped a day, I went ahead and answered with what I had learned in my bathroom stall: 300 pounds! Astounding. I got a sticker for my efforts. The next question was "How do we get the animals to come in every night?" and Maya (the psychologist) answers "positive reinforcement!" Well, that "technically correct" answer got her a button! She was pleased with that and wore it on her fanny pack for the rest of the week. We strolled through the Safari Village shops on the way out of the park (it closed at 5, it was at least 5:30 when we made it to the bus). Then we took the time to hunt for animals in the Oasis again. AK took us all day, and I didn't think it would, but we really got into looking for animals and finding the different carvings in the Tree of Life from all different angles throughout the park. And I think we looked around in every shop we went by. And we still missed Camp Minnie-Mickey! I can see how people could hit "the highlights" and be done with AK in half a day, but I preferred taking our time and enjoying the atmosphere of the park. Back to the resort for a change of clothes and 10 minutes of putting our feet up, then it was off to Downtown Disney! A bus arrived pretty quickly after we were out front. (We had great luck with buses, I don't think we waited more than 10 minutes for one, with one exception when we left EPCOT at closing with the rest of the masses.) Can someone explain to me why the buses have to take you BEHIND DD on a 20 minute detour through the back roads of WDW before arriving at the Marketplace stop? Annoying. We got off at the West Side stop. This was a good thing, because I wouldn't have guessed that the Pleasure Island stop would be out in the middle of the parking lot, I would have looked for it right up against the curb. This knowledge was useful when we left later that night. We checked out a few shops, then tried our luck at the Wolfgang Puck Dining Room. They gave us a pager and told us 20-30 minutes. We went outside, I started to retie my shoe, and off went the pager! 20-30 minutes, 20-30 seconds, same difference. Great! This meal was excellent!!! I would highly recommend it to vegetarians. We could have come back here every night and eaten something different off their menu. Normally there are only one or two veggie choices on a menu. Having this variety to choose from was a very nice surprise. We shared potstickers as an appetizer, then I had the mushroom pizza and Maya a spinach, gorgonzola, and caramelized walnut salad. Everything was past delicious. We were too stuffed for dessert, but we promised we'd be back! But now, it was off to Pleasure Island! I'd heard too much about the Adventurer's Club to not try it out. Too funny. We heard from the Colonel, isn't he a raunchy fellow? He taught us a new song! Sing along with me.... Do, the stuff I buy beer with Re, the guy I buy beer from Mi, the guy I buy beer for Fa, the distance to the store So, I think I'll have a beer La, .... La la la la la la Ti... no thanks, I'll have a beer That will bring us back to do! No chance I will EVER forget that one! I've taught it to my parents, my sister, my GRANDMOTHER, everyone! Then we saw the show in the library. The female CM, after singing us a nice tune, went around asking where people were from. She started in the bar at the back (where we were sitting). "Where you two ladies from? California. Why did you come to WDW? Um, alcohol?" Nice one Maya. I must admit, though, the kungaloosh was rather tasty. Oh well, at least she left us alone after that comment! Most of the audience was there with a boyfriend/girlfriend/fiancé/spouse. Then some guy said he was here with his secretary. Oh boy, that went a long way. In fact, it carried the rest of the show. They made the guy come up and do a little cabaret dance. They tortured him so much, I wondered if he was a CM in disguise.... We stayed for the initiation in the main room, then snuck outside before anyone else could get in line for the 12:05 Comedy Warehouse show. We got the 2nd level up from the floor, right up against the right wall. I ordered a Bye Bye Blues in honor of my favorite trip report writer (if you don't know who she is, you haven't been reading trip reports for very long, because Sue Holland comes to WDW a LOT and always writes a super report). The waitress had never heard of it! But she managed to "make some calls" and came out with something blue, and it tasted nice. So I THINK I've had a bye bye blues! I warned Maya that she was sitting by the phone, and she should answer it if it rang. And it did ring!!! But she made the guy sitting behind her on the stool answer. Which was too bad, because a song about Maya's life would have been much more interesting than the one about the tech from the news room whose girlfriend lived halfway across the country. Oh well! The show was pretty good, but I've laughed harder at "Whose line is it anyway?" Still, it was worth seeing! The show ended a bit after 1am, and we stumbled for the exit. (Well, I stumbled anyway. Two drinks is enough to get to me. I think Maya was fine.) We got stopped for a survey, and Maya was a good sport and went through it. She got her complaint in about the circuitous route the bus took to DD! Good! We found the bus stops after a tiny wee bit of searching, waited on the bus for a while, then it mercifully went straight back to the All-Stars. Maya told me in no uncertain terms that EE at EPCOT the next morning was not going to happen for us. I relented, and set the alarm for around 8am. Day 4 (Tuesday, May 8): EPCOT, E-ride night The phone rang. I picked it up, put it down, and rolled over (I'd been getting up first so far). To my happiness, Maya got up! We didn't hurry, and decided on EPCOT for the day, and we'd go straight to E-ride night at the MK from EPCOT. So we stashed sweatshirts and jeans in my backpack and headed to the bus stop. A bus pulled up, and we were the 3rd and 4th in line when it was full. Well, it was almost full. Two more could have squeezed into the aisle, but the couple ahead of us, and ourselves, decided to instead wait for the next EPCOT bus (that was waiting to pull in), so we could sit down for the ride. A couple of guys went ahead and took the aisle places, and we happily sat down on our bus. But we came to regret our decision. It took quite a while to load two wheelchairs onto the bus. Then we stopped at All-Star Music since the bus wasn't full. Then it took a while to unload one of the wheelchairs at Blizzard Beach. So, instead of standing for 10 minutes, we sat for 45. Oops. Next time we'll stand on the full bus! We actually ran into the other couple that had opted to sit at EPCOT and we all shared a good laugh at ourselves and our bright ideas. I think we got off the bus after 10am. No early start today. We noted where the monorail station was on our way in to EPCOT. The Flower and Garden Festival was going on while we were here, and they had great topiaries all over the entrance plaza and Future World. We stashed our backpack in a locker and made our way to Test Track to get a fastpass. We had a couple of hours to kill. We backtracked to the Wonders of Life pavilion and proceeded to spend the rest of the morning in there! That wasn't the plan at all, but we ended up doing just about everything. We caught a performance of the Anacomical Players, it was very cute, but I don't think I need to see them again. We enjoyed Body Wars, and I thought Cranium Command was excellent! Hanz and Franz pumping the heart was perfect! We spent plenty of time playing with all the interactive stuff waiting to see The Making of Me. I had been really interested to see how Disney would handle the making of a baby, and it turned out pretty cute. Not too many kids in there though, actually. We tried out the vegetarian chili, it was quite good. And on our way out we stopped to watch the movie about Goofy and healthy living. I liked that a lot, it reminded me of the movies we used to watch in elementary school. Finally we made it out of the Wonders of Life and headed to Test Track for our fastpass ride. But, it was down! I made sure that we could return with our fastpass anytime later that day, and then we headed to the World Showcase for some lunch. We started in Canada, with the idea of going to Morocco for our meal, but starting off with a beavertail as a little snack. Actually, we started with some caramelized pecans at a little cart on the way to Canada! We ate a ton this day! Then we stopped at a pin cart. I hadn't seen a pin at Animal Kingdom that I really liked, and I was worried about not getting a complete set of pins for the parks like I'd planned. But at this cart I saw a set of 4 small pins, one for each park. I didn't like the MGM pin too much, but the rest of them were nice, so I went ahead and got it. Now I had two pins to trade, the Goofy pin, and my original MGM pin! But I swore to myself that I wouldn't buy any more. Once we made it to Canada, we split the beavertail with strawberries and cream, then looked through the shops and saw the movie. Even though the circlevision makes me queasy, I really like the vistas you get from the airplane shots. I was impressed with Victoria Gardens at the exit to the theater. Gorgeous. Next was the UK. Here is where we decided to eat our way around the world! We split some chips and a cider while listening to a small group playing the hammer dulcimer, flute, and recorder in the back courtyard. We were really into this country thing, so we walked the maze, then checked out the shops. I was about to succumb to buying some really expensive tea set when noise outside distracted me, and we watched the World Showcase Players do their rendition of King Arthur. Quite amusing. I avoided re-entering the tea shop, and we headed to France... We saw the film, walked really quickly through the perfume shop (I am really NOT into perfume), and rested with caffeine and sugar outside the patisserie. I wasn't as impressed with my chocolate mousse as I'd hoped to be. The reports of the goodies in France had me salivating, but this tasted a bit too much like pudding and not enough like mousse to me. Perhaps if I'd been hungrier... Next was Morocco. We enjoyed browsing through the shops. I almost bought one of the beautiful trays, but finally decided it wasn't perfect enough to blow that much money on. I just had to laugh at ourselves when we got to the Tangierine Cafe. This is where we'd planned to eat all along, and now that we were here we didn't feel hungry enough to buy something! I think mostly we were feeling a little tired and that was killing our appetite. We decided to move on to Japan and come back afterwards for the food. In Japan, we meandered through the big shop. I love looking at Japanese tea and sake sets, but I don't drink enough of either to justify ever buying anything. We looked around the gardens a little, then decided to have a rest upstairs in the bar. We split the cold tofu appetizer and an order of avocado sushi. Both were excellent, and we could relax for as long as we wanted, at the window, watching people pass by and just getting our energy back. Back to Morocco, where we went ahead and split some lentil salad and taboulleh. I don't think we were any hungrier than when we had passed by before, but I think we were feeling better from our rest and more up to eating! After this, we hopped on a friendship boat to get back to Future World. I have to say that the wind had really picked up this afternoon, and we were both very chilly in our tank tops! I was glad the boats were enclosed. We headed to Test Track, and it was up, hooray! I liked this a lot. It was really interesting walking through the queue. And the ride itself was very fun. I liked all the different tests as much as I liked whizzing around at 65 mph. We caught the fountain doing its choreographed thing on our way out of the park. We grabbed the backpack and headed to the monorail to go over to the Magic Kingdom for E-ride night. I couldn't believe that we'd been in EPCOT since around 10 that morning and had only seen 2 pavilions and less than half of the World Showcase. Well, I had to believe it, but I would never have guessed. I think it was because everything was new for us, and we both like to take our time and catch the details. We weren't just going for the highlights, we wanted the full experience. We navigated the TTC and got on the MK monorail. We made stops at the Polynesian and Grand Floridian on our way. I enjoyed seeing both of them, but I don't think either one is for me. We arrived in the Magic Kingdom just as it was starting to get dark, probably around 7pm. We stashed our backpack in the lockers, grabbed our wristbands, and made a stop for fudge at the Main Street Confectionary, then for popcorn at the end of Main Street. The castle was beautiful changing colors. And I love the lights of Main Street. We headed to Tomorrowland first and saw the next showing of Alien Encounter. I had heard it was really scary, so I had prepared myself. I found it more fun than scary, knowing I was supposed to be scared. I felt very very sorry for Skippy. I loved getting dripped on! Next was Space Mountain. I think I like the Disneyland version better, it seems faster with tighter curves. But it was still excellent fun. We went on Buzz Lightyear probably 5 times. Maya kicked my behind every time. I was surprised with how low my scores were, luckily I have forgotten what they were so I don't have to admit them. I still had fun though, trying to defend the galaxy. The Timekeeper was down, they didn't even have the sign up for it. After we'd had our fill of Buzz, we went to the other side of the park. We were still cold, so we decided we'd hit Splash Mt last, so if we got wet we could just go straight back to the resort. We found Haunted Mansion, it's pretty similar to the DL version, and very enjoyable. The CM stuck her head around the doombuggy and said "boo!" at us. Cool! Next was Big Thunder Mt RR. I really like this ride, but we had a car toward the front, so we lost some of the speed going down hills. At this point we were both tired, and I know I at least was a little crabby. So we decided to skip Splash Mountain and go back to the resort. We figured we could do Splash Mt during the day when it would be warmer. We justified our slightly early exit with the fact that we wanted to go to MGM Studios for EE tomorrow morning. On Sunday we'd missed quite a few rides and shows there in exchange for all our Star Wars Weekend activities. By the time we ambled back down Main Street and got our backpack from the locker it was almost 11pm anyway, when E-ride night ended. A bus was waiting for us and we stumbled into bed around midnight. Day 5 (Wednesday, May 9): Disney-MGM Studios, EPCOT With the idea of getting to Disney-MGM Studios early today, we set the alarm for 6:30am. We actually didn't have too much trouble getting up, and we arrived around 8am. We headed straight for Rock'n'RollerCoaster, grabbed a fastpass, and got in the standby line. We went on the ride 3 times in a row without using the fastpass, each time was a walkon. This was an EXCELLENT ride, we both loved it, especially the take off and first loop. After the loop I thought it calmed down quite a bit and that it just coasted from there through the end (well, maybe after the corkscrew it pretty much coasted...) When we were in line for the 2nd ride, I realized that one of my pins was missing! I had them on my fanny pack, and the back was inside my pack loose. I figured it was gone for good, but Maya thought it was worth asking inside RnRC. So after the 3rd ride we did. And amazingly, the CM said "Well, we have one pin, but it doesn't have a back..." and it was my pin!! Hooray! We decided that 3 rides on RnRC was quite enough, both of our stomachs were protesting. So we went on the Great Movie Ride, got the gangster side. This ride was fun, but neither of us thought it was anything too special. Next was the Muppets3D, with a stop beforehand for a bottle of Sprite for Maya - her stomach was still pretty queasy from RnRC. She recovered quickly and we went in to the show. I showed her the key under the mat and the a-net-full-of-jello. I really liked this show! And I have always liked the TV show, so it was nice to see all those Muppets again. We thought we were ready to leave the park now, but we were hungry, so after perusing the Muppet store, we grabbed pizzas and a salad from Toy Story Pizza Planet. After we ate I wanted to just walk through the New York Street area, and on the way we saw that Hunchback of Notre Dame was about to start, so we watched that. I thought the acting and singing was good, but it didn't do a whole lot for me (reflection on me, not the show). Then we took a quick look at NY Street. I hoped we'd find the Singing in the Rain umbrella, but we didn't see it. Now we decided to leave the park. It was after 1pm, and I had thought that we'd be done by, oh 10 o'clock. I guess we were just following the trend we'd set in Animal Kingdom and EPCOT! We decided to take the boat to EPCOT since there was one at the dock. On the way I realized that we could get off earlier and walk around the Boardwalk to get to EPCOT, which was great because I thought I wasn't going to get a chance to see the Boardwalk and was disappointed in missing it entirely. So we did that... at that time of day it was deserted. I didn't see much that would have held our attention for long even when it was busy, but perhaps at night with all the lights I would have liked it more, and there would have been more entertaining things happening. Next time... We continued on toward EPCOT, and I realized that this was a great opportunity to get some of the ice cream I'd heard about at Beaches and Cream at the Beach Club Resort. Maya didn't have to have her arm twisted too hard at the idea of excellent ice cream, so off we went! After a bit of wandering we found it... gee, the theming of the Beach Club was just a little different than All-Star Movies! I think if I could afford to stay at a deluxe resort I would choose the Yacht or Beach Club, or the Boardwalk for their proximity to EPCOT. Needless to say, our ice cream was scrumptious. We split a 3 scoop hot fudge sundae, and Maya had a chocolate coke. When the server brought it and Maya tasted it, she remarked to me that it was too chocolaty. I told her to tell the server and he'd make her another. I don't think she believed me. But when the server came back to ask us how things were, he specifically asked how the chocolate coke was. So Maya admitted that it was a bit too chocolaty and he whisked off to make another. Hey, Maya, this is Disney!! He offered the first coke to me, but I was set with the ice cream. I was really impressed with the service here, even though I expected it to be wonderful, it really was wonderful. Happiness. Finally we got to EPCOT sometime after 3pm. We decided to continue on our tour of the World Showcase with Japan, where we had left off the day before. The candy lady was out when we got there, I was so happy to get to see her. She's amazing, and her spiel was entertaining to boot. She stopped making candy when the taiko drummers were set to begin, so we watched them. Leaving Japan, we couldn't resist sharing a kaki-gori. Very good. We moved on to American Adventure. We weren't too impressed with the stuff to buy in the store, but I'm not sure what we would have chosen to sell that represented America instead of what was there. We went inside to see the show and caught the end of American Vybe. They were terrific! I was sorry we hadn't come in at the beginning of their performance. The American Adventure show itself was pretty much as I expected, a Disneyfied version of American history, with the ugly bits glossed over. I liked the snapshots at the end, and was very happy to see "people of color" given some space, e.g. Cesar Chavez. We listened to a bit of the Voices of Liberty after the show, they were also excellent, but I think I liked the American Vybe even better. We decided we didn't need a snack in America, since we'd just had that most American of snacks at Beaches and Cream. Next was Italy. We checked out all the shops. I bought Jill two flavors of nougat, and we shared a gelato while we watched a fashion show of ball gowns. This really cracked me up: 5 women in very fancy ball gowns were strolling around to techno music, and when one passed us by I realized that the gowns were on casters! I wonder how heavy they were.... And then, after not paying attention to the women for a few moments, I looked up and they had all shed the hoops of their gowns and were walking around in fancy leggings instead! Really, this show was something else. On to Germany, where we enjoyed a wonderful brew and pretzel. I really liked the German pretzels. I marveled at all the clocks, I love to look at them but couldn't justify actually buying one. We wanted to get some sauerkraut, but were disappointed to find out that it was cooked with meat. Oh well. Time was passing by, so we went on to China. We looked at the displays of wedding outfits for both bride and groom from various regions of China until Wonders of China started. I really do like these circlevision productions, motion sickness or not. Then we checked out the store; wow, what a lot of stuff. I lost Maya for a time, and my calls of "Macaw!" were not answered, but I found her again and we escaped the temptation to buy a $4000 jade carving by deciding to get something to eat. We split the two vegetarian noodles dishes from the Lotus Blossom Café, and sat down to watch the acrobats. Those are some talented kids! On to Norway! We went straight to Maelstrom, which was a complete walkon. We shared our boat with two others, and the multiple boats both behind and in front of us were empty. I wondered how bad it would be going backwards over the falls, but hardly noticed that we'd done it after it was over. We watched the movie, which was cute. Maya, who has some Norwegian blood in her veins, was disappointed that there wasn't more actual information in the movie. We browsed through the shops while Tapestry of Nations was passing by outside. Maya recognized a lot of the Christmas ornaments for sale as those that had been on her mother's Christmas tree all these years. She'd never realized that they were Norwegian! We watched a bit of ToN, then stopped at the bakery. I got 2 almond cookies to go and had a rice cream. Fabulous!!! It was now very dark and almost 9 o'clock. We motored on to Mexico, but only took a quick look around the plaza before heading back outside. We wanted to make sure we'd have time to buy the Mexican contribution to our culinary sampling! We split a plate of nachos (hold the meat) and watched a very tree-obstructed view of Illuminations from a table back by the promenade. I couldn't see enough of the show to make a judgment on it. After the show we finished up our nachos before joining the tail end of the masses on our way out of EPCOT to the buses. The plan was to go to DisneyQuest. But when we got to the buses I realized that none of them went directly to Downtown Disney, that we'd have to go on the monorail to the TTC, then get a bus to DD from there. Well, yuck. We were too tired to even want to walk back to the monorail. I very briefly thought about miniature golf, but the course we wanted to play was Fantasia Gardens, which was by the Swan/Dolphin. To get to that we'd have to go back through EPCOT to the International Gateway, then take a boat or walk to the Swalphin. Yuck again. Maya very wisely said that we should just forget it and go back to the resort, get a few more hours of sleep, and go to EE at the Magic Kingdom in the morning. I quickly agreed. We had to wait a bit for a bus to arrive for the All-Stars, but made it back by 10:30 or so. I went to the checkin counter and got an itemized list of room charges since we'd have to checkout and check back in before going to MK in the morning. We hit the bed around 11:30. Day 6 (Thursday, May 10): Magic Kingdom, Downtown Disney, DisneyQuest, Pleasure Island The alarm went off at 6:30. My body protested, but there was no way I was going to stay in bed on my last day at WDW! But I was so tired. Usually I'm an 8-9 hours of sleep a night kind of girl, and we were surviving on 5-6 this whole week. But we were having so much fun, and we knew that there was so much we weren't going to be able to do as it was that we didn't want to waste any time sleeping. We didn't come in thinking we were going to relax on this trip, and we sure weren't! I don't know about Maya, but I survived on early morning caffeine, mid-day caffeine, and evening caffeine! The crazy plan for this, our last day, was the following: EE at the MK, going on the rides that were different from those at Disneyland, then head for EPCOT around 10am to see the parts of Future World we'd missed. Maya was especially interested in getting a look at Innoventions. Then we'd go to the DD Marketplace to check out the shops. Then DisneyQuest, leaving in time to get to Pleasure Island before midnight, when our Unlimited Magic Passes would expire. At PI we were going to dance to 80s music until closing. Think we managed to do all this? Read and see... We got out of the room pretty quickly, even though both of us packed some of our stuff up. Maya went to buy our water while I checked out and back in. Then we went to the food court so I could get an egg sandwich (I'd been craving one the whole week, and this was my last chance.) We head out to the bus and it pulls up before I've had a chance to start on my breakfast! That had me more than a bit cranky. So I stash it in my backpack and satisfy myself with sips of diet-Coke until we arrive at the MK. We hang out on the benches by the lagoon so I can eat before we go in. I got over my crankiness while I ate, thank goodness (guess this lack of sleep was getting to me). We go in and head for Fantasyland. We got a fastpass for Pooh, then went on Peter Pan, Snow White, and the Carrousel before using our fastpass. I really like all these Fantasyland rides! Pooh was very cute, and I liked the MK Snow White better than the Disneyland version. But I prefer the Disneyland Peter Pan to the MK's, at least I preferred my memory of DL's to MK's Peter Pan. It seemed to me that DL's PP has stars in the London sky, and MK's version has none. (If I'm wrong about the DL version then I'll eat my hat.) We also went on IASW and the Teacups, and saw Legend of the Lion King. We LOVE to spin on the Teacups! LK was alright, but I don't think I need to see it again. We next went and grabbed a fastpass for Space Mountain, then came back and rode the Speedway. Maya bumped me and bumped me! Her car was much faster than mine (but I would have waited for her so she could bump me even if mine had been faster). We went on the other side of SM than what we'd been on during E-ride night. Both sides were fun, but I definitely like DLs SM better. Now we got a fastpass for Buzz, then went on the TTA and Carousel of Progress. I liked the CP quite a bit, amazing imagination to make all those scenes in all that detail! We still had time before Buzz, so we had veggie burgers at Cosmic Ray's Starlight Café, and sat outside. We got to see the moving, talking garbage can! "My name is PUSH!" Too funny. That little garbage can drew quite a crowd. We shopped in Star Traders for a bit and I picked up some post cards. PUSH was coming in for a break, and Maya asked him how he was doing. He was pleased that someone would think to ask after him! Maya stomped me one last time on Buzz. Then we decided to check out Toontown Fair. (So much for getting to EPCOT early.) I really like all the theming in this land. We went on Goofy's Barnstormer, which is a lot of wait for a very short ride, but it's a lot of fun. We visited Mickey's house, but skipped the chance to see him. There was a line for Minnie's house, so we skipped that, and decided we could pass on Donald's Boat. We caught the train around to Frontierland. During E-ride night I'd wondered where the entrance to Splash Mountain was. This side of the park is a bit different than Disneyland, and in the dark my tired mind hadn't quite navigated everything. But today we saw that it's right down by the train station and the entrance to BTMRR. Fastpass times were for 3:30-4:30, and we decided to skip it and head out of the MK. We walked through Adventureland and couldn't pass up the chance to go on Pirates. Always fun. Here again I think I like DL's version a little better. After PoC we SWORE we were really leaving. We continued on toward Main Street. We grabbed two more water bottles from a cart, and one of them was leaking! Maya went back to return it, and they gave her another bottle but told her to just keep the leaking one since they couldn't resell it. Good deal! We saw where they were constructing Aladdin's Magic Carpets, too bad they weren't ready for our trip. Back on Main Street we once again visited the Confectionary, and I loaded up on various forms of chocolate as gifts to my family in Oregon. Chocolate pretzels, Mickey Mints, chocolate in the shape of characters... lots of chocolate. Finally, we headed to the buses. By now it was after 2pm and we reluctantly admitted that we didn't have time to go back to EPCOT if we were going to see all of Downtown Disney. And since one of my priorities was to spend some time in DisneyQuest, I really wanted to go straight to DD. So we did. We got off at the Marketplace and started checking out all the stores. I looked through the binder of limited edition animated watches at the Art of Disney store, but didn't like the looks of any of them enough to spend $200 on them. All I wanted was the watch, I wasn't really interested in getting the framed artwork. I figured I'd find a watch in the World of Disney. When we got near the marina we thought about renting water mice for a half hour. We still had our one flex feature each that came with our Resort Magic Package, and this was our last day to use them. One of the options was a half hour with a water mouse. But when we got to the marina somehow it didn't appeal, so we moved on. We spent a long time looking around the stores, OK, I spent a lot of time looking around and Maya was nice and stayed with me. I was really in a looking mode. But my family had said not to get them anything big, so I didn't have anyone to buy for. I'd already bought them chocolates. And I couldn't justify buying myself a whole bunch of stuff, especially because I knew the fun would be in the buying, not really in having the stuff (that's just the way I am). So I resisted the temptation to buy buy buy. We had a snack at the Gourmet Pantry... we split some tortellini salad and some potato salad. Not bad. Then we got to the World of Disney. Wow, what a huge store. I could no longer keep from buying a lot of stuff, I decided that my family was just going to have to accept some gifts! So I got pajamas for my mom, Pooh slippers for one sister, a Pooh nightshirt for the other sister, a huge Goofy t-shirt for my brother, a cool tie for my dad (I know, dads always get ties, but my dad actually likes to wear cool ties), and an Eeyore mug for my grandma. I managed to pick out a cool Mickey watch for myself before I suddenly went from wanting to buy buy buy to being sick of shopping. Good thing I got my watch before I hit the shopping wall! Maya had been so patient with me doing all this shopping. But now it was time to have some fun, so it was off to DisneyQuest! We were worried about all the bags that we were now lugging around, but we asked a few different places and got the same answer: There were no lockers at DD. Well, there were some lockers at the marina, but they were tiny, no way would they hold even half the stuff we now had to stash. So we just decided to go to DisneyQuest with all our stuff. Well, when we got there the CM asked if we'd like to check all our stuff! Cool!!! So, not really lockers, but with the same result. Now we had our hands free for virtual reality! DisneyQuest was so much fun! It was probably around 5pm when we arrived, and not crowded at all. First we went to Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride. It was OK, but I somehow got myself stuck up by the ceiling. Oh well, don't ask me how that happened! I could tell that these virtual reality games were going to make me feel extremely sick to my stomach, but I didn't have my Dramamine with me, so I just decided to do as much as I could for as long as I could. We did Virtual Jungle Cruise, don't even attempt this if you have motion sickness. Ugh. It was difficult to steer the raft, and we couldn't figure out where we should be going in any case. I don't think I'll play that again. We had a lot of fun with the Magic Mirror. Maya looks really good with pink hair and an elongated nose! Or was that blue hair and a hairy nose? Next was CyberSpace Mt. We decided to ride a pre-designed ride first. The ride was fun, but I was feeling super queasy. When we got in the simulator the CM explained that we could hit the red button if we needed to stop the ride. I kept having to tell myself it would be over soon, that I could hold off five more seconds, then five more, before hitting that red button. I made it, but I told Maya she'd have to ride her designed roller coaster alone. She opted to do other things instead of designing her coaster. So we checked out Treasure of the Incas. This was a lot of fun! We both took a turn driving and calling instructions, and afterwards we both decided we liked calling the instructions better! When we came back a little later to do this game again, it was much more crowded and almost impossible to hear the instructions when you were driving. It was just a bunch of voices calling "left, right, no no no, backwards!" in one impossible to differentiate voice. We ended up giving up, it just took the fun out of it. I really liked the Mighty Ducks Pinball Slam. The first time through I tried to play with my arms doing most of the work and came out exhausted. After that I figured out that rocking with the legs was much more effective, and easier to boot. We played this maybe 4 times, it was probably my favorite thing to do. We also tried Buzz Lightyear's AstroBlaster once. I drove since I was feeling so nauseous. It was fun, but we weren't very good at hitting our targets! I was a big video gamer as a kid, and we both really enjoyed the Classic Games section. I think I spent half an hour on Qbert. Playing these games didn't make me nauseous, so taking some time here helped calm down my stomach. Sometime during the evening we went up to Foodquest and Maya had a slice of something. My stomach wouldn't allow me to even look at it, but she enjoyed it. We sent a goofy form email to Jill! Maya also did Ride the Comix, but I knew I couldn't handle another virtual reality helmet or I'd toss my potato salad. Around 10pm we'd had enough, and Maya wanted some real food. So we grabbed our bags from the coat check, and looked in the DQ store. If we'd been smart we would have redeemed our flex feature for a DisneyQuest backpack, but I had completely forgotten about that option. We did both buy a DisneyQuest shot glass. They were in really cool metallic colors with the DisneyQuest logo etched all over it. I've given up my shot glass drinking days, but this was too neat looking to pass up. We headed to Wolfgang Puck's again for dinner. They seated us on the back patio this time. The first thing I thought of to ask our server was for the t-shirt we could get for our flex feature. But apparently you get those at the Café, which had just closed. Bummer. We split a salad, the butternut squash ravioli, and the chocolate soufflé for dessert. Everything was delicious, and by this time my stomach had settled down enough for me to enjoy it! One not so nice thing about this dinner... when our server came out he told us that the back patio had actually been closed before we arrived, but since we'd been assigned here he would serve us. Seemed to me he didn't have to mention it, it wasn't like we'd insisted on being seated in an already closed area. And then, in the middle of dinner, the sprinklers went off! I would have been slowly but surely soaked sitting at the edge of the patio, so we scooched the table in a couple of feet toward the center of the patio. When our server came out, he helped us move the table to even safer ground. There wasn't much of an apology for this, just friendly surprise that it had happened, "this has NEVER happened before." So, although the service wasn't quite as excellent as it had been earlier in the week, it was still friendly, and the food was wonderful. I'll definitely be back. By now it was 11:45pm, and we had to get to Pleasure Island before midnight so our passes would still be valid. Unfortunately for us, the entrance closest to the West Side was closed for the New Year's Eve fireworks! So we hustled, with all our bags, to the PI entrance and got through the rather long lines on time, apparently. We went straight to 8Trax to catch the rest of 80s night. Maya is a BIG 80s music fan, and I love it too. We sat upstairs, me sitting and she alternately sitting with me and having to hop up and groove to a particularly great song. It was a lot of fun, and the place was packed with other 30-somethings with excellent taste in music. Around 1:40am it was announced that the club was closing, and we were encouraged to leave as the Muppet Show Theme music played. We headed for the buses. Man, were we exhausted but extremely happy. We waited on the bus for maybe 15 minutes before we took off, one last time, for the All-Star resorts. We got back around 2:30am I would guess. What a fabulous last day at WDW it had been! Day 7 (Friday, May 11): Departure Hard to say when this day started and yesterday ended. Maya lay down for a couple hours sleep. I packed up the rest of my stuff and tried to stay awake by reading Maya's book. When my lids started to droop I took a long shower. Then I figured if I was going to doze it should be at the Mears stop out in front of the resort, and not in the hotel room where I would surely miss my pickup time. So I wished Maya a happy trip home (she woke up when I opened the door, I didn't wake her up) and lugged my two bags out to the shuttle stop (funny, they were a lot heavier leaving WDW than when I arrived!). They had music playing out there, so I wasn't completely alone while I did indeed doze at the curb. The Mears shuttle was right on time at 4am, and I snoozed all the way to the airport. I woke up to take my bags in, and didn't really want to fall asleep in line at the Delta counter. So I got my postcards addressed and even wrote four of them. Checked in, dropped my postcards off to be mailed, and made it to the gate just in time for boarding. (I have to admit I still haven't written the rest of my postcards. Bad me.) My flight to Atlanta was non-eventful and I slept the whole way. When I woke up on the descent I felt like I was trying to swallow over a golf ball in my throat. I guess not getting enough sleep for 5 days is a good way to get sick! The flight from Atlanta to Portland was non-eventful also, I slept the whole way but didn't feel like I'd slept at all. I was so tired and now, feeling sick. My mom actually seemed to enjoy me being under the weather and being able to take care of me all weekend! I mostly slept the weekend away and felt mostly recovered by Monday afternoon, when I flew back home to San Jose, CA and officially ended my cross-country adventure. Back to the real world (which probably explains why I haven't been in the mood to write the rest of those postcards). I hope something I've written gives someone an idea of what they want to do (or not do!) on their trip to WDW. I sure had a lot of fun, but got not nearly enough sleep. I have no regrets about the lack of sleep though, even if I did get sick. I loved every waking minute! The next time I go I'll probably do things differently, but mostly because I'll be traveling with Jill, who will enjoy the parks and nice restaurants more than Pleasure Island or DisneyQuest. That's one of the great things about WDW, I've decided, it can be a million different vacations! A few words about eating as a vegetarian ... I read "Vegetarian WDW and Greater Orlando" (in the Vegetarian World Guide series) before going on the trip to get an idea of where to eat. But since we didn't plan many sit down meals it wasn't as necessary as it might have been. It did help me to know to look for food in Africa instead of Dinoland in the Animal Kingdom, for instance. And if I can get to the California Grill at the Contemporary I know I'd love that as much as the Wolfgang Puck Cafe at DD. It seemed that those were the two really excellent choices in terms of sitdown restaurants for vegetarians. Otherwise, just eating small meals at counter service places served us well, just about everywhere had something we could eat. And a few words about going at this time of year.... The weather was really nice. On a couple of days it approached hot, but I think it was mostly in the high-70s or low-80s and it didn't feel humid at all. In fact, on a couple of breezy afternoons, we were cold in our tank tops! The crowds were not very thick, my only memory of crowds was after Illuminations. And the lines... well, we didn't stand in any! We used fastpass when we could, and otherwise the only time we waited in lines was when it was a show-type attraction and the group was waiting for the next show. We were able to walk on to almost everything we went on (I think Goofy's Barnstormer was the only line over 5 minutes). We went on the popular rides either during Early Entry or E-ride night. So, the combination of fairly low crowds and planning for off hours worked extremely well. Thanks for reading this huge report! I'd love to hear from you if you'd like to discuss anything, including the vegetarian eating we did. Darsi Rueda dlrueda@stanford.edu Mail a Comment to Darsi Rueda |
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