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Michael P. Wolf -- November 2001 -- Walt Disney World (CBR)November 22, 2001 - December 2, 2001 The Cast:
The History: Melissa and I went down to WDW for a week-long trip during the millennium celebration in September, 2000. It was during the planning (Melissa would say over-planning) of this trip that I became a Disney fanatic, i.e., checking out the websites, posting on discussion boards, etc. We stayed for the first three nights at Caribbean Beach and the final 5 nights at All Star Movies. As I would guess is the case with many Disney fanatics, I ended up making the trip a commando experience, which of course, I didn't mind, but wore Melissa out. We did all the WDW parks except AK as well as Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, and CityWalk. Despite my commando approach to WDW, I think Melissa became somewhat of a believer in the Disney magic. We both agree that off-season touring was for us, as even in late September, it was often too hot. The key though to our love of off-season touring is the lack of crowds. Trip Planning: At this stage in my life, I have no desire to go on vacation anywhere else but WDW. However, when it came time to plan our next vacation, it was Melissa's turn to pick the location and she was thinking of somewhere in the Caribbean at an all-inclusive resort. Knowing my growing love of WDW, Melissa came up with a great idea-go back to WDW, only not commando-style. She also one-upped the Disney-planner in the family by suggesting we go on Thanksgiving Day so we could have a week plus. I, of course, readily agreed and so WDW, here we come! As far as planning for this trip, the knowledge I had gained from the web sites and boards made it pretty easy. While I liked CBR, I wanted to try a different moderate resort, particularly the French Quarter section of the Port Orleans resort. However, Melissa loved CBR and given her desire for a beach area, I agreed to stay at the CBR for the whole trip. I booked our ten nights at CBR first using the Disney Club discount. Then, after I looked into the hotel discount offered annual pass holders, I cancelled the Disney Club booking, and did a new one with the annual pass. After doing the math, it was only $100 dollars more to stay at CBR with an annual pass then with the club discount and six day park-hopper passes for the both of us. Therefore, if we go back WDW in the next year (which I hope will be the case!), we won't have to purchase any new park admission media). Finally, since we live in St. Louis, the only nonstop flights to Orlando were through TWA and Southwest. We ended up getting roundtrip airfare for $208.00 per person. (The rate got as low as $180.00, but we wanted to wait until we were absolutely sure to go before booking). After our trip in 2000, I began reading more and more about how Disney does up Christmas. Our 2001 trip presented the opportunity to not only take in the 100 Years of Magic festivities, but also the Christmas fun as well, and (hopefully) during a slow time of the year at the parks (after Thanksgiving weekend of course). I purchased tickets for the first Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party (MVMCP) on November 29th as well as tickets for the Candlelight Processional (CP) at Epcot for November 27th. I chose the middle CP show for that night, as it was the only show that offered us the chance to have dinner at Rose and Crown with a chance to watch Illuminations from there. (We watched Illuminations from there last year and can't imagine watching it anywhere else). I got most of the priority seatings we wanted. Unfortunately, I was unable to get a PS for Cindy's breakfast on the day I wanted (after getting up at 6am and calling the second I was supposed to!!!), but did for the following day. The Revised (THREE TIMES) Schedule: As most people reading this are aware, in October, 2000, a series of changes were instituted at WDW. The changes that most affected my scheduling were the canceling of early entry days as well as the reduction of park hours, causing the forced cancellation of priority seatings. Once I modified our schedule the first time, we learned that the sea otter show at Sea World would be down for rehab. As that show was one of the major reasons we wanted to go to Sea World, we decided to postpone our trip to SW until a future date. Finally, by early November, I thought I was done with all of the pre-planning. That idea changed when I learned, less then TWO WEEKS before our vacation was to begin that Disney was adding an e-ticket night while we would be at WDW. This forced a new round of changes so the below is the (three times) revised vacation schedule:
Goals for this trip:
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 22ND (TRAVEL DAY) Parks Visited:None Dining: Polynesian Luau Flying from St. Louis to Orlando the day before Thanksgiving, we were more than a little concerned with getting to the airport early enough for holiday check in, so we got to the airport 3 hours before our flight. Ticketing took an hour and the security check 45 minutes. I requested security hand check my video and camera equipment in order to keep it away from the X-rays and was flatly told no. (Despite the fact that I was entirely within my rights to make such a request, as we learned on our way back home). There were no problems during our full flight. We met our Tiffany driver, Junior, at the baggage pickup area and he was as good as advertised. On the way to the CBR he told us some interesting Disney facts, like that the Osborne display has 5,000 Christmas lights (when it is actually 5 million!). He also asked us where we were from, and when we said St. Louis, he asked what other countries was St. Louis near to! On the way to CBR, we stopped at a local store to get some groceries (mostly breakfast foods). When we checked in at CBR, we got most of our room requests. I had requested Martinique buildings 24 or 25, but we were placed in building 23, which was farther away from the food court than I wanted. At Customs House, we had our first run-in would become a reoccurring problem, namely, inferior Disney service. The CM who was checking us in first didn't even know there was an e-ticket night scheduled for the 24th and also didn't know how to sell me the tickets. When I wanted to book the Fantasmic dinner package, she sent me to another CM, and that CM didn't even know what the package was! Anyway, we were more than happy to get out of Customs House and be driven over to our room. The room was much nicer than the one we stayed in last September at CBR. After unpacking and resting for a couple hours, we got a phone message to come back to Custom House to pick up our Luau tickets without any explanation as to why this wasn't dealt with at check in! I called guest services as was told we could pay for the luau tickets at the Polynesian Resort, so we decided just to handle it over there. Before we could have our "traditional" thanksgiving dinner at the Poly Luau, I first wanted to get our annual passes activated at MK so that there would be no hassle the following day at AK's opening. On the bus from CBR to MK, we had the best bus driver ever! The driver was cracking jokes and giving out WDW facts the whole ride, such as EPCOT really stands for "every person comes out tired" and that WDW had 80 miles of roads in the resort, so a person could drive the speed limit for over an hour, and still be lost. When we arrived at MK, we experienced our first security check point. I found the checks to be very uneven in terms of how thorough they were throughout our trip. I had a weird feeling being so close to a park and not rushing right in to attack it, so maybe I am learning how to enjoy WDW without being a commando after all! After we got the passes activated, we took the monorail over to the PR. On our last trip, we didn't take time out to check out the other resorts (blame the Disney commando in me!), but this trip that would change. We got to the Polynesian an hour-plus before the luau so we could check out the resort. There wasn't much in the way of Christmas decorations; however, we did like the new volcano pool. We ended up sitting on a porch swing on the beach overlooking seven seas lagoon, and that was a special moment. The Luau itself was great, if not a little bit long. We both like the main course, but not the appetizers or the desert as much. The show itself was good, especially the fire twirler/dancer. The band was good and the dancers were all handsome or beautiful. One male dancer seemed to have his own cheering section, straight out of Chippendales! After the show ended, we rushed back to the CBR to climb into bed and get some sleep, as the next day we were going to AK and we get our earliest wake up call for the whole trip. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23RD Parks Visited: Animal Kingdom Dining: Tusker House for lunch and Disney pizza delivery to CBR for dinner. I took the Mickey wake up call at 6 a.m. and found myself still happy to hear Mickey's little wake up speech even if it meant losing some sleep. We followed the practice we started last trip of me waking up first and then walking over to the food court to get us some caffeine via the refillable mugs before leaving for the bustop. We arrived at AK by 7:30 and were first in line at one of the ticket stands. I had planned to get there early so we could see the Sunrise character show that was supposed to start right before opening, but for some reason, the show never happened. Instead, someone let one line go into the park early, so we ended up getting in before the 8 a.m. official opening. Just like everyone else, we hiked all the way back to the Safari ride, only stopping to pick up a Safari fast pass. We were able to walk right on to our jeep with no wait, and the ride was as good as advertised. It was especially amazing to see how light shined through the vegetation early in the morning. After going on safari, we walked through the Forest Trail, where we saw hippos under water and gorillas up close. When we left the Trail, I suggested we use our fastpass, but Melissa didn't want to go back on the Safari so soon, so we looked at our park map and decided to try to catch the first Lion King show. On the way into Camp Minnie-Mickey, we saw Chip and Dale dressed for Christmas so I got a picture with them. We only had about a 5 minute wait before being let into the show, which easily was the best show we saw all week. After the show ended, I figured the character trails would be crowded, but was surprised to find Mickey's only having 5 people in it, so off we went to get our picture taken with Christmas Mickey! We then headed back into Africa to get some breakfast pastries and orange juice. While we ate, we caught both the African acrobat/tumbler and percussion street shows. We next went on the Safari for the second time. Contrary to popular belief, we saw many more animals later in the morning and had a much more animated driver for our second trip. We still had some time to kill before lunchtime, so we headed over to Asia to take on the Kali River Rapids. The standby sign said 10 minutes, and we actually waited a little longer, but I didn't mind, as we were in one of the best queue lines I had ever experienced. Luckily, our fears of getting drenched never were realized, in part due to fact that the ride is way too short. While the one hill is great and the scorched earth scene was incredible, the ride simply isn't in the same league as Popeye's at IOA. After Kali, we went through the Jungle Trek exhibit, where we skipped the bat room at Melissa's request. There were some interesting animal exhibits here as well, just like at the forest trail. Having dried off a bit, we headed back to Africa to eat at Tusker House, which we both liked. After lunch, we got fastpasses for the Its Tough to Be a Bug show before heading into Dinoland USA. On the way in, we saw a character trail at the old boat dock which had Christmas Pooh, Eyeore and Piglet there with no lines, so we got pictures with all of them. In Dinoland, we first checked out the new Dinorama area, which had just opened up a week before. Basically all it had was a carnival midway area and the dinosaur Dumbo ride. (The Mad Mouse coaster was still under construction). We next went to ride Dinosaur, which had a 20 minute standby time. We were surprised both surprised by how much we liked the ride, and Melissa said she actually was frightened in a couple parts. After getting out of Dinoland, we went to use our fastpass for the A Bugs Life show. The show was good, but we had bad seats, all the way on the aisle so we missed some of the effects. The other problem was the preshow area, which was overcrowded and claustrophobic. Once we turned in our 3-D glasses, we headed back into Dinoland to catch the Tarzan show. While I liked the music from the movie, the show itself was weird, as it couldn't decide if it was a rock show, an acrobat show, or and extreme skating show. We then walked back to the Africa gate to grab a seat for the Jammin' Jungle parade. Our 30 minute wait was worth it, as the parade was one of the better ones at WDW. After the parade ended, we joined the masses leaving the park and headed back to the CBR. That night we went swimming and relaxed. For dinner we simply picked up the phone and ordered Disney pizza, which we both love. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24TH Parks Visited: Magic Kingdom and various On-Site Resorts. Dining: Tony's Town Square Restaurant for lunch and Harbor House for dinner. Our wake-up call was for 9 a.m., but we were out of the room already by then in order to begin our Christmas decoration tour of the WDW. First, we went to the Grand Floridian Resort. Of course, the holiday decorations were beautiful. I thought we were going to be able to walk through the gingerbread house, but instead, only a CM works in there. I struck up a conversation with the gingerbread CM, an older man who happened to be named Claus! (Of course, I'm sure his real name was Jethro or something like that, but who cares?!?) Anyway, we checked out the new pool and then walked over to the Disney Wedding Chapel, which we were both underwhelmed with, but the framing of Cindy's castle through the wedding arch was a nice touch. We next took the MK ferry to the Wilderness Lodge Resort, which we both thought was beautiful as well. I think I liked the Christmas tree here even better than the one at the Grand Floridian, as somehow it seemed more like it belonged here. After taking the boat back to MK, we headed to Tony's where we had a 12:15 priority seating. Even though we were 30 minutes early, we were seated right away in the sun room. The food was good, if a bit overpriced for lunch. Melissa had a spaghetti plate and I had a calzone. We then walked around the expo hall and I took a picture of Cinderella, Jasmine and the Fairy Godmother together. As the park was very crowded (it was Thanksgiving Saturday after all!) we headed out to continue our sightseeing tour at the Swan and Dolphin. The Swan had little, if any, holiday decorations up, but the Dolphin had a great tree in its lobby. After seeing both hotels, I don't think I would stay at either one, as they both felt just like regular hotels and not Disney hotels. We had planned on going to the Yacht and Beach Club as well, but decided to go back to CBR for some more swimming. After swimming for a bit, we got dressed and headed back to MK to catch Spectromagic, as the only other day the parade was being held during our trip was our last full day at WDW. Our favorite spot in Frontierland was already taken, but we still found a good spot close by an hour before the parade. Melissa ended up discovering the tip of the trip when she figured out that the park benches could move. Therefore, we were able to move our seats right up to the rope line with no problem! While Melissa saved our seats, I went over and got a couple chicken finger meals from Harbor House and carried the tray back over to our bench. As for the parade itself, we both liked it, but we both like the Main St. Electrical Parade better. Spectromagic didn't make sense to me story-wise, as it just looked like images a person would see after taking a large amount of drugs as WDW. After the parade was over, we continued our tradition of going on the Haunted Mansion as our first ride at MK. The wait was only 10 minutes and the ride was great, as I had forgotten many of the little things that made the ride so special. We still had some time to kill before our E-Ticket night was to begin (9-12p.m.) so we went through Fantasyland to get to Tomorrowland (I didn't want to get land-locked by the 2nd Spectro parade, which was set to start at 9 p.m.) I wanted to try to go on Peter Pan, as we had missed it last trip, but it still had a 45 minute standby time, so we went on It's a Small World instead, as it never has a line. We then went on the People Mover in Tomorrowland to kill some more time, and then it was finally E-ride time. We first did Space Mountain three times in a row. The waits in line decreased each time, but were never worse than seven minutes. I know many people have Space Mountain as their favorite Disney ride, but it simply too jerky for my taste (but I will admit it has the best airtime this side of Tower of Terror). We next did one ride on Buzz Lightyear (5 minutes wait) and I shot while Melissa moved the pod. I then went on Alien Encounter while Melissa waited. As I sat down in the theatre seat, an older man next to me asked whether this was a roller coaster and how scary it was, as he had a heart condition. I probably ruined a couple of the show's secrets in talking to the man, but I didn't want to sit next to someone having a heart attack! After we both survived the encounter, Melissa and I walked through the hub, where the main characters were out for pictures and little lines to speak of. We went on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad twice with little to no waits. Once again, I had forgotten how great a ride this was and Melissa liked it as well. Finally, we went on our old favorite Splash Mountain three times in a row with no wait at all. After our second ride, a CM asked if we wanted to stay on and of course we said yes, which ended up being a major mistake. As our third ride was coming to an end and we were reaching the last animatronic scene, the ride stopped and we ended up being stuck for about 25 minutes in a less-than-comfortable log. When we finally got out, it was 11:45, so we decided to head back to the CBR, stopping along the way for ice cream at the Main St. parlor. SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 25TH Parks Visited: None Dining: Lunch at Planet Hollywood and dinner at House of Blues Given our late night, I had planned on us sleeping in for a bit, but once again, I was up well before the wakeup call. We took the bus over to Downtown Disney in order to have lunch and do some shopping. We had planned on going to lunch at Bongo's, but when we arrived, we were told that there was something wrong in the kitchen and they were not able to serve food at this time. This was despite the fact that there were already several tables full of people eating and a waiter carrying a tray of food right behind the hostess as she told us no food! I started to ask for a clarification, but decided we would probably be better off going elsewhere. We ended up eating at Planet Hollywood, where Melissa got crab cakes and I had a plate of incredible BBQ ribs. One cool side note was the fact we were seated next to a Marilyn Monroe exhibit with one of her dresses. This of course required a picture for Melissa, a big Marilyn fan. After lunch, we walked through an empty Pleasure Island (which provided a weird feeling) to get from Westside to Marketplace. We first went into World of Disney, where I bought a couple things with my Disney Club discount. Next, while Melissa went into the Disney home store, I went into the Art of Disney store to see if they had the Hall of Presidents print I have always wanted, but was told they have never released that print for sale to the public. We both then looked around the Pooh store and the Christmas store before heading back to CBR for an afternoon swim. After we finished swimming, we got dressed for our night out at Pleasure Island. First, we went to the House of Blues for dinner. I was hoping we would be able to sit outside, but it was too windy so we stayed indoors, which was fine, as the room provided a great atmosphere. After dinner, we got in line (5-10 minutes) for the first show at the Comedy Warehouse. We both had a great time there and laughed our heads off. This was my first time seeing a totally improvisational show, but Melissa had been there before. Except for the last part of the show, which ran too long, you could barely tell the difference in the amount of laughs between this and a regular stand up routine. Next, we headed over to the Adventurer's Club, where we just made the first show in the library, which was the radio hour show. Melissa was a little nervous going in here, as while we had both read up on the Club, we still didn't know quite what to expect. Right before the show started, I ordered a Kungaloosh and soon after, Melissa wanted one too. The radio show was so hysterical we decided to stick around for the second library show, which was the new member introduction ceremony. After becoming members of the Adventurer's Club, we walked around for a bit and tried to catch a show at the Jazz Club, but no one was playing there for another 45 minutes, so we ended up going back to the CBR early. I think we were both surprised with how little there was for us to do at PI overall. Both of us ended up liking City Walk much better than Pleasure Island. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26TH Parks Visited: Epcot Dining: Lunch at San Angel Inn and dinner at Rose and Crown. I had trouble sleeping (just like the Disney commercial I guess - "we're too excited to sleep!!"), so I got up early to check out the Character Caravan, which came to the main pool area of CBR on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I had heard that it was mostly secondary characters, so I was shocked to find Minnie, Pluto and Goofy! While this is no way made up for losing early entry days, it was a nice feature to have. Anyway, I had planned a late arrival at Epoct past opening due to our late night, so we didn't arrive until 10 a.m. I forgot that park opening had been moved back an hour, so we actually arrived just before opening. Once the rope drop occurred, we walked over to test track, where the ride had a 65 minute standby time before the park was even open 10 minutes. I assumed that they were just stacking the line to keep people away, but didn't want to chance it, so we got fast passes and headed over to the main fountain area so we could get some character pictures from the first character bus stop. All the characters were dresses in their holiday gear, and with little crowds, it was easy to get lots of character pictures. After finishing with the characters we looked around Mousegears and then went into Innoventions. When we went back to Test Track, they had opened up the single rider line, so we did that two times before using our fast pass for our third ride of the day. We both love this ride, and thankfully, on all the rides on this trip I was able to get the seat belt in before the car started moving, something that happened to me last trip and really freaked me out. After test track, we walked over to do the Living with the Land boat ride. We were surprised to see a 25 minute standby time, but we got in it anyway, as I didn't believe it would take that long. Turned out I was wrong, but we still enjoyed the ride. Next, we headed over to the giant golf ball to ride Spaceship Earth. I really wanted to do this ride again because my only time on it was during our last trip, and on that ride I couldn't really experience the ride because the sound was so low in my vehicle that I couldn't hear the narration at all. After riding (no line) a second time, I figured out the problem was the narration often talked over the voices in the scenes. We also got stuck on the ride three or four times, but never for more than a couple minutes, unlike our adventure at Splash Mountain. As it was getting close to lunch time, we went into World Showcase for our PS at San Angel Inn at 1 p.m. We both had combo plates that we liked. After lunch, we ride River of Time boat ride with no wait and then watched the Three Kings talk about Christmas in Mexico. Next, we went into Norway and rode (again, no wait) Maelstrom, which I think has one of the coolest features of any Disney ride at any park when the boat looks like it is going to fall out of the hole towards the end of the ride. While I like the boat rides in Mexico and Norway, they are both way too short for my personal taste. Before leaving Norway, I got my picture taken with the gnomes/trolls, as I do on every trip now it seems like. Next, we walked around the different countries and checked out the holiday decorations and storytellers. Melissa got a glass of wine in France and then we grabbed a spot to watch the afternoon Tapestry of Dreams parade. On our last trip, we only caught a glimpse of the Tapestry of Nations parade, so I was looking forward to this parade. After seeing the new version, we were both highly disappointed, the parade went on way too long and there were several parts where it looked like they were missing floats as nothing would go by you for long stretches of time. When the parade finished, we caught the American Adventure show, which was good as always. We next headed back across the lake to get a seat for the Tree Lighting Ceremony. Before the tree (and the Lights of Winter) were lit, a carillon band played Christmas music. The main instrument the band used was a large organ-like instrument made up of different sizes of bells. After the ceremony was over we went on our first test track ride at night, once again using the single ride line for little waiting. We had some time to kill before our PS at the Rose and Crown so we looked in Canada, which we didn't see on our last trip. As Melissa hates the circle-vision movies, there was little to see, so we left and caught the end of the British Invasion show. (unfortunately, I continued my bad luck as far as seeing Off Kilter, which I still have not seen play). Before dinner, we had drinks at the pub where Melissa got a Back Widow, consisting of Guinness and champagne. Melissa received several comments on the drink, as the Guinness appears to float on top of the champagne so that the top of the drink looks like Guinness and the bottom like champagne. When we were finally seated, I was relieved to see we would have a waterfront table to watch Illuminations from. It turned out my seating fears were unfounded, as the outside tables were never completely full. Dinner at the R & C was great as always, with Melissa getting her usual of fish and chips and I got my usual R & C prime rib meal. After dinner, we sat for about 30 minutes until Illuminations came on. For some reason, it felt different to me, but it still is an incredible show. Afterwards, we joined the mass exodus from the park and were lucky to be the last two people on a bus headed for the CBR. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27TH Parks Visited: Magic Kingdom Dining: Brunch at Crystal Palace and dinner at Cinderella's Royal Table. Got up and headed over to MK for an 8:30 a.m. character breakfast at Crystal Palace. We both liked the food, but I found the character interaction to be lacking, as we didn't have any of the characters (Tigger and Eyeore) come to our table and Pooh was standing in the lobby and you had to go over to him, meaning a long line. I didn't worry too much about this however, as we had our favorite meal at WDW, dinner at crystal palace, booked for Thursday night. We had planned on going back to go swimming, but we ended up just going back to sleep. We then came back to MK to get a spot for the afternoon parade in front of the castle. Unfortunately, we ended up on the wrong side of the street, as we had the sun in our eyes and it was the hottest day of our trip, reaching in the low 80s. While Melissa saved our parade spot, I got us fastpasses for Peter Pan, which we did not ride last year. Once the parade was over, we still had a 5-10 minutes wait for Peter Pan even with our fastpasses. While we enjoyed the ride, it still is too short (like all the fantasyland rides) and I can't imagine ever waiting in a long standby line for it. After flying through Neverland, we went and saw the Legend of the Lion King show for the first time. We both thought it was great, but Melissa said it was just the cliff notes version of the movie. Next, we went on the steamboat and enjoyed seeing the park from a different perspective. As it was an hour before closing, we tried to catch a ride on the jungle cruise (which was the only ride closed for rehab on our last trip) but it had a 30 minute standby wait, so we did Pirates instead, which was a walk on, as we the Treehouse. The most surprising thing happened walking from Pirates to the Treehouse-we ran into Mickey just walking down the street! I had never seen that before so naturally we got a picture. We then caught the end of Cinderella's Surprise Celebration. This show is character heaven, as after the show is over, the characters spread out around the central hub and stay all for a long time. To end our time at MK, we had dinner at Cindy's Royal Table. Now I understand why it is so hard to get a table, as the room is very small. While we waited to be seating, Cinderella and Prince Charming posed for pictures, which I thought was a nice touch. Our meal was good and it was nice to watch the fireworks from inside the castle. By the time we left the castle, the park had cleared out quite a bit. I love those times when there is hardly anyone around and it feels like you have the place to yourself! Once we got back to CBR, we went for a swim and then headed off to bed so we would be well-rested for our favorite park, MGM!! WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28TH Parks Visited: MGM Meals:Lunch at ABC Commissary and Dinner at Mama Melrose's (as part of the Fantasmic dinner package). Given my success with the character caravan on Monday, I woke up early to see who would show up on Wednesday, but this time it was only Goofy, Captain Hook and Mr. Somme, or in other words, not quite the lineup Monday had led me to expect. No big loss. By the time I got back to the room, Melissa was ready for MGM, so we headed off. We were a little back from the rope drop when the drop occurred, but it turned out not to matter, as when we got to the Rock N' Roller Coaster, it was down. I picked up RnRC fastpasses and headed over to ride the Tower of Terror by myself for a couple of rides after 13 minutes waits (or actually, less than ten minutes). This is the only Disney ride I could not get Melissa to go on last trip, and that fact remained the same for this trip as well. I, on the other hand, love the tower, particularly both the themeing as well as the pre-drop ride section. I think ToT is one of the best examples of what Disney can do when they put their efforts behind a major e-ticket attraction. (of course, how long it has been since an original e-ticket attraction was built at WDW is whole other issue, and a trip report isn't the place for me to get on that soapbox!!). Once I finished ToT, I met up with Melissa and we did RnRC twice in a row. One of the major surprises for me last trip was that by the end of the week, Melissa's favorite ride was the RnRC. In fact, last year, we almost missed our Fantasmic dining package PS at the Brown Derby because she had to get that last ride in! This was particularly surprising given that Melissa is not a major coaster fan. After having our fill of coasters (for the moment) we went over to see the new Who Wants to be a Millionaire show. We waited maybe five minutes outside the building and then another 10 minutes once seated before the show began, even though the room was only 1/2 to 2/3 full. I had the third fastest time to the initial hotseat question, which was to put Spielberg films in order, but the hard part was I lost to a 12 year old. Melissa and I then each got onto the top ten score list, but neither of us got into the hot seat. We next saw the new One Man's Dream exhibit. I was dying to videotape in the exhibit area, but was not allowed to. The film was a shortened version of the recent ABC special and it was interesting to note that Michael Eisner got some boos from the crowd when he first was shown in the movie. Even though it was lunchtime, neither of us wanted to eat a large sit down meal, so we went to the ABC Commissary, where I had burger and fries and Melissa got fish and chips. Once we finished lunch we went on the Great Movie Ride with no wait, but before we went into the building, we had our picture taken with Snow White. Why she was there is beyond me, but it did add to the fun of always looking to see if you could spot a character outside of the posted areas. As for the GMR, it is still a great attraction in my book, especially the great collection of movie clips at the end. We still have only seen the gangster section of the ride, but maybe someday we'll see some cowboys. Next, we went to visit with Kermit and Miss Piggy over at Muppet Vision. There was a preshow area which the Muppets on TV monitors which I didn't remember from last year, but the show itself is still cute and I always love listening to the two old guys up in the balcony. We then went from Muppets to Ewoks as we took a trip to Endor on Star Tours. We waited 5-10 minutes at both Muppets and Star Tours, but for some reason, I wasn't as impressed with Stat Tours this time, even though as a kid who grew up on star wars, this ride does holds a special attraction. We next headed for the center of the park to grab a seat for the afternoon parade. We lucked out and found good seats at our favorite spot, on the steps of the ABC theater, where we waited for maybe 30 minutes. While the parade was good, I liked the AK and MK ones better, but the MGM parade still blows tapestry of dreams away!! After the parade, we did the Millionaire show again, only this time, we had a host who gave fakeness a new name. Melissa did better than I did this time around, but still, no hot seat for either of us. I then got my picture taken with Sorcerer Mickey (even though I was unable to find Movie Director Mickey anywhere that day, and that was the picture I really wanted from MGM!). We then crossed over through the back of the park to have an early dinner at Mama Melrose's. We had to eat early because the time for Fantasmic had been moved up to 6 p.m. The room reminded me of the Comedy Warehouse, but we both enjoyed the oven roasted pizzas we had, and this is a much cheaper way of getting the Fantasmic seats over eating at the Brown Derby. We still had some time to kill before we had to get into the Fantasmic theater, so we got in line for the Backlot Tour. As we waited however, I began to have second thoughts that we might be pushing the clock a bit, so we left the line and did some shopping in the front of the park before sitting down for Fantasmic. After waiting maybe 30 minutes we saw the show, which was great as always. After the show was over, there was still time before the park closed, so we got a couple more rides in on RnRC, including one of the last rides of the day. When then walked to the back of the park to see the Osborne lights, which were incredible. I caught both myself and Melissa saying different variations of "WOW" throughout the lights. As great as they were, I thought the actual display would be larger and longer to get through, but what was there still was amazing. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29TH Parks Visited:Magic Kingdom Meals:Brunch at Chef Mickey's and dinner at Crystal Palace. We got up early to first have our favorite breakfast at WDW, Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary. The food was great as before and we got pictures with all the characters. We then came back to the room and went swimming and then took a nap. We went back to MK for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party around 4:30 p.m. where they were already letting people go in with the party passes and we were given our MVMCP wrist bans. Once inside the park, we went over to get the park maps with the party info and got our picture taken with Donald at his Christmas tree lot. (Unfortunately, we never saw Daisy Duck, Melissa's favorite character, throughout our trip). From there we headed over to the Crystal Palace for our favorite meal at WDW. As expected, we loved everything we ate and this time, we had tons of interaction with Pooh, Tigger, etc. We left Crystal Palace around the park closing time of 6 p.m. We had been advised that Tomorrowland was going to stay open until the Party started at 7 p.m., so we went there next and had our Party Christmas picture taken with little wait and picked up our Party pins. We next went to ride Buzz, where I scored over 40,000 points despite the fact my gun didn't work. After that, we went to ride the AstroOrbiter for the first time. I was surprised by how much faster it went compared to Dumbo. They still were not letting people outside of Tomorrowland, so we sat down near the Indy Speedway where nearby all the princesses were present. Finally, at about 6:45, they started letting people into Fantasyland. We ended up being the first people to ride Snow White (a first and a boring last for us). Next we did Dumbo (who was all dressed up in his Santa cap) with no wait. We followed Dumbo with 1-3 minute waits for Peter Pan and two rides on Pooh. We also got pictures with Christmas Pluto, Chip and Dale in the old 20,000 leagues station. After that, we took pictures in front Cinderella's carriage, which was set up behind the Castle, next to a little group singing Christmas carols in full winter gear (despite it being in the seventies!). We then went over and rode the Doombuggies in the Haunted Mansion with no wait. As it was getting close to time for our first Christmas show, we headed over to the galaxy theater to catch the Mickey's Twas the Night Before Christmas show. We waited in line for maybe 5-10 minutes, but we were able to watch a second group doing holiday songs R&B style in front of the old Carousel of Progress. The show we saw was charming and had singers, dancers, as well as Disney characters. After the show we sat down near the moat in front of the plaza restaurant. The area was empty, as everyone was watching the end of the first Christmas parade on Main St. so I went got our free hot chocolate and cookies. After the parade was over, we waited 10 minutes before the holiday fireworks began. These fireworks were incredible, as it was not only the usual fantasy in the sky show, but then additional fireworks from other locations so that the fireworks were essentially "in the round." Simply incredible and our seats were perfect! After the fireworks, we caught some of the Christmas show in front of the castle before heading over to Frontierland to get seats for the second Christmas parade. After waiting 30 minutes, we saw the parade, which was great, except for the fact it needed more lighting either in it or on it. After the parade we started to head back to the CBR. It was starting to get a little chilly out so imagine our surprise when we get into our bus and the air is on full blast and the driver says he can't turn it off! After about five minutes, you could have sold us as Disney popsicles! FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30TH Parks Visited:Magic Kingdom and Epoch Meals:Lunch at Beaches and Cream and dinner at Chefs De France (as part of Candlelight Processional package). After going to MVMCP and not getting back to the resort until late, I thought we would be sleeping in the following morning, but there is something about being at the World that makes it impossible for me to sleep in at all. As it was a character caravan day, I went out to the food court to see which characters would show up for my final caravan event, but it was the worst group of characters of the three, even though of course I can't remember which characters show up! (As an aside, if WDW plans on continuing the caravans over early entry days, at least they could have more important characters than Mr. Smmee! (sp?)) After I was done with the characters, I struck up a conversation with the man working the vacation club stand inside the food court. I had been interested in the concept (despite the simple fact that there was no chance whatsoever I could afford to sign up for the foreseeable future) and had debated on whether or not to go onto the DVC villa tour, but once the rep offered a free lunch, I decided to go for it, as we did not have any firm plans anyway. After going back to the room to let Melissa know where I was going and to make plans to meet up back at the pool at noon, I was whisked away to the Boardwalk villas. My DVC van driver was super-friendly, as was my tour/sales person, to a lesser extent. After I listened to the sales pitch (which did not last more than one hour) and failed to sign up, I got my lunch coupon and was out the door. Since this was my first time at the boardwalk, I wanted to look around a bit before leaving to go back to the CBR. Unfortunately, since it was still morning, some of the shopping carts and stores were not open surprisingly. I wanted to take a peek at the ESPN club, but didn't, as I knew I would want to stay to look around for a while. I checked out the Coney Island themed pool, but I wasn't too impressed. When I got back to the CBR pool right around noontime, I talked with Melissa about what we wanted do with the rest of the day, as we had nothing firm planned until that evening at epoch. I had mentioned to her previously reading in another trip report about how good the burgers and shakes were at Beaches and Cream at the Beach Club Resort, and we agreed to go check the restaurant and the resort out. This of course meant that we had to get a little creative with our transportation use. Therefore, we ended up catching a bus to MGM and then taking the friendship boat over to the BCR. By the time we got to the BCR (after a stop off first at the Swan & Dolphin), we were both happy to be on land again. Once inside the Beach Club's main lobby, we looked over their Christmas decorations and saw one of the best-decorated trees on the property. We finally found our way to Beaches and Cream only to run into a rude hostess. Things started to improve once we sat down when I realized that I could use my free lunch pass here. We both had huge hamburgers and milkshakes as well as a side of a large onion ring plate, which we barely touched. (Our waitress insisted we get an appetizer as part of my coupon, even though I didn't read it that way). The bill ended up under $10.00, which was a miracle for Disney food. I think we ended up just sitting at the table for an extra twenty minutes or so because we were so full. We next walked around the BCR pool for a bit. By the time we were ready to leave BCR, we both agreed we had finally found our dream resort to wish to stay at on future visits. There were still a couple things left for us to check out at the Magic Kingdom, so we took a bus there. It was interesting to see just how close BCR is to Epcot along the bus ride. When we got to MK, we went over to see if we would be able to catch a ride on the jungle cruise. We caught a break as the ride was a walk on despite the fact the standby time was 15 minutes. It was a cute ride and the jokes were as corny as advertised. I had fun watching a fellow passenger mumble the jokes right along with out cruise-guide, so I guess they haven't changed much over the years. The ride did feel outdated however, especially in light of animal kingdom's recent opening. Given how much park space the cruise takes up, I am sure the Disney imagineers could come up with a couple better uses! Anyway, we next headed over to catch the hall of presidents. As a politics junkie, this exhibit holds a special place in my heart. Every time I walk into the lobby and see the print of JFK with his head down, I have to stop and look. This was the first time either of us would see the HoP with the new President Bush audio-animatronic. Naturally as a proud democrat, I would rather hear Clinton give a speech than Bush, but it was still neat to see and the show held a bit more importance after September 11th. We then headed over for our last attraction at MK, the Christmas Country Bears show. I think we were both expecting a little more, especially perhaps in the way of popular Christmas songs instead of originals. The other problem I has was the fact that in the regular show, at the end, there is a grand finale when you can take pictures. With the Christmas show, I was barely even to tell the finale had started and I could take pictures before the show was over. I did manage to get a picture of the talking moose on the wall that had magically been transformed to looking like Rudolph. We left MK to head over to Epoct taking the monorail. This was our first time taking the monorail between the parks, and we enjoyed the monorail ride through Epoct. As we still had some time to kill before our 6:45 candlelight show, we hopped over to Test Track to see if we could get one last ride in. Unfortunately, the stand-by was 45 minutes. I asked the CM guarding the line why the single rider line wasn't running and was advised that the stand by line wasn't long enough (despite the fact we used the single rider line when stand by was much shorter earlier in the week). What killed us was when the CM went on to state that we were better off in stand by anyway, as the single rider line always had hour-plus waits! WHATEVER!! Its one thing when a CM tells you something wrong because they don't know the right answer, but when a CM lies to a guest, that is a totally different story! With our test track dreams dashed, when we into mouse gears so I could use the candlelight discount. When I tried to by the 100 years park video, I was told I couldn't use the discount on that because the discount excluded film (as in Kodak camera, not VHS!!). This in turn led to the manager coming over and asking if he could Xerox my candlelight badge so they would know what the discount excluded. Maybe it's just me, but after having candlelight shows running for over a week, shouldn't the shops know the discount exclusions by now? Needless to say, we were both growing frustrated and impatient. We took a friendship boat to get to the candlelight theatre and got in line where we waited for about 30 minutes. It turned out the wait was well worth it as we got great seats and saw an even better show!! As I discussed above, we had changed our original candlelight date away from Marlee Matlin, and I am so glad we did. Watching and listening to Robby Benson's narration, you could just tell how much he was enjoying himself. Our conductor, the choir and the orchestra were all incredible. I got goose bumps several times throughout the show. Simply put, the candlelight processional was the highlight of my trip (and Melissa loved it too!). After the show, we went over for an 8:20 PS at Chefs De France. This was our first time at this restaurant, and while we liked the atmosphere, we weren't as thrilled with the food, as it was too fancy for our tastes. One funny thing happened when Melissa ordered a seafood casserole dish and she only got one shrimp. We would do the CP package again for the shopping discount and the good seats, but we would try a different restaurant. After dinner, I had planned for us to try to watch Illuminations again somewhere, but we were both tired and decided to head back to the CBR to avoid the Epoct exit rush. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1ST Parks Visited:MGM Meals:Lunch at CBR food court and dinner at California Grill We got up early to head over to MGM to get more Millionaire and RnRC time in before we left to go home. We got to MGM in time for opening and rushed to get to the RnRC. I got fast passes for 9:45 and we got two rides in back to back with little lines. By the time we tried for a third ride, a 20-30 minute line had arisen, so we waited five minutes for our fastpass window to open and got a third ride in with Aerosmith. After that, we headed over to do Millionaire again, as we were both determined (especially Melissa) to get into the hot seat. I had planned to get fast passes for the second show and do stand by for the first, but a funny thing happened, namely, REGIS!! It turned out the show was closed as Regis was using the set to tape actual Millionaire shows at MGM!! We were both disappointed, but what could we do? We ended up getting fastpasses for RnRC and then going over watch the Indy stunt show. When we saw it last year, the last stunt with the airplane didn't work, so I wanted to see it again. Melissa was able to stay awake barely and I enjoyed it. After the show, when went for our final ride on RnRC and then left MGM to go back to do some swimming after eating pizza for lunch at the CBR food court. As our PS at CA Grill was not until 8 p.m., we even had time to get most of our packing done before leaving for our last WDW meal! When we got to MK, Melissa suggested we walk over to the Contemporary instead of waiting for the monorail, and it was a good idea, as the monorails looked full of people leaving the MK. I was wowed by the view the CA Grill provided, particularly outside on the observation deck. I waited outside to try to video tape the MK fireworks from the deck, thinking they were set for 8 pm, but they never went off. (I never did figure out what I did wrong!) Dinner was nice, but again, too fancy and expensive for our tastes. (Funny how we both don't like foo-foo meals!) After dinner was when our final adventure in sub-standard Disney service occurred. We got on the monorail at around 9 pm to head back over to MK to catch our bus, as we didn't feel like walking after just having eaten. When the monorail got back to the MK, the doors only opened to let people on, but not off. I asked a CM why we couldn't get off, and he said the MK busses had stopped running! When I asked how we were to get back to CBR, and offered Epcot as a solution! As we left the MK station, we clearly saw busses still running, so we got off at CR and ran to catch a bus. We told our story to a manager, who didn't look like he cared at all, and we finally caught a bus alone back to the CBR. All in all, not the way we wanted to end our time at WDW!! SUNDAY, DECEMBER 2ND (TRAVEL DAY) Our travel back to St. Louis went off without little trouble. We had a different Tiffany driver who didn't say one word, but we were both too tired to care. Contrary to the ticket and security lines in St. Louis, we spent less than 30 minutes in both lines in Orlando. As a St. Louisian (sp?), it was interesting that we were flying back on an American Airline flight on the first day when there were no TWA flights after the TWA/AA merger. We had the Grinch movie on the plane, but again, I was too tired to watch it all the way through, and what I did see, didn't impress. The only problem occurred when we tried to get our bags back home in St. Louis, as Melissa's bag was damaged on the luggage carousel. FINAL THOUGHTS I have to admit that I did enjoy this trip a lot more than last year's, and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I did not push us to go all out commando-style. I did enjoy simply relaxing at Disney, a fact which surprised me, as I thought before that I had to spend every moment in the parks. As for my fears of the cutbacks ruining the trip, I will admit that I was able to do everything I wanted, but that was only because I paid more in terms of E-Ride Night and MVMCP tickets. I think where the cutbacks came into play was with the standard of service we received throughout the trip. Other than that one bus driver, I can't think of any examples of the Disney magic service from CMs, yet I can recall many examples of inferior service, too. As far as things we would change in the future, I think we are at the point where we could do AK and Epcot together in one day. Overall, we were both disappointed in AK, and could take only a couple hours to do the park in the future, as we would only do Dinosaur, the lion king show and the safari ride. In addition, I think while we loved touring this time of the year, we could have shortened the trip by a day or two, as we were both ready to come back home by the end of the trip. I hope reading this report will be helpful for those planning future visits! Michael P. Wolf mwolf1972@msn.com Mail a Comment to Michael P. Wolf |
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