Mark L. Fendrick -- November 2003 -- Walt Disney World (ASMuR)
Dates:
November 7 – 11, 2003
Who: Mark, Sandy and Iris
Experience: Veterans (AP
holders), Cast Member
Stayed: All Star Music
Method of Travel: Song
Air/Personal Car
Prologue
This has become a
traditional weekend for us to travel to WDW. It started the first year that my
daughter moved to
Florida
to work in WDW, and I flew down this weekend to
help her buy a car. We attended The International Food and Wine Festival at
EPCOT, but I had to stay off property since Super Soap Weekend had caused all of
the rooms at the Disney Resorts to be taken. I bought my first AP that year, and
renewed it each year when it expired.
This year my parents would
drive us to JFK in NY as soon as my wife returned home from school on Nov 7. We
would be flying Song Air, Delta’s new low cost division. Like Jet Blue they
intend to have all their aircraft with built-in TV’s at each seat. This would
not be complete until January of next year, but today we got lucky to be aboard
the first of their aircraft to have the TV’s already installed.
The flight left on time and
was very comfortable. Song Air sells food onboard, in addition to the normal
free beverages. My wife and I shared a fruit and cheese plate, not wanting to
spoil our appetite for dinner with our daughter when we arrived in
Orlando
.
We landed on time and met
Iris in the lobby of MCO. We collected our one piece of luggage and headed to
her car and into the WDW area. She had already checked in to the room so we went
straight to Bahama Breeze, directly across from the entrance to WDW. After a
round of Ultimate Piña Coladas, we were seated and had a wonderful meal. I
could actually have enjoyed simply sitting outside at the bar, listening to the
steel drum player and had a drink and a few appetizers. That is now on the
calendar for our next trip down in December.
After dinner we head to our
room and get ready for our first day in the parks.
Day 1 – The Studios (
Sandy
) and EPCOT (Mark and Iris)
This morning, Sandy
will be getting up early to get to The Studios
well before it opens. She will have to redeem her AP voucher before she gets
into the park. We had planned on doing this during our last trip down in
February, but my daughter didn’t get a chance to get the voucher (discounted
of course) so she used her
Main
Gate
Pass
for my wife. We usually let her use her Main
Gates for friends and other relatives since we come so often, and often we need
to go to the parks without her and meet her later on. This time she picked up
the voucher and
Sandy
can redeem it this first day. The reason for
this separation and early morning arousal? It is the first day of Super Soap
Weekend, and Sandy wants to see as much of her favorite, Wally Kurth, as
possible. She manages to see him during his first autograph session, as well as
during the parade and the talk show with the General Hospital Stars. This year,
for the first time, they used Fastpass to enable people to be guaranteed to get
an autograph, but today,
Sandy
decided not to wait the 90 minutes to get a
fastpass to wait another hour to get the autograph.
Sandy
would stay until closing, taking in as many
events as possible, as well as getting the souvenirs she was afraid would not be
there the next day.
Meanwhile, back in the room, Iris
and I sleep until about 9:30
and then prepare to head out to Epcot, mainly to
take advantage of The Food and Wine Festival. As in the past, we would spend one
day here without Sandy
, and then come together with her on Monday. I
had also made the decision that although I was anxious to try Mission
:Space, since this was a short stay and we would
be back in only a number of weeks, that we would only ride it if it were
convenient. I didn’t want to ride before the Food and Wine Festival since if
it made me ill, I wouldn’t enjoy the rest of the day. I didn’t want tp
attempt if after a day of eating for obvious reasons. In the end, we didn’t
get a chance, but it will be high on our list in December.
By the time we got to Epcot,
World Showcase, and therefore the festival booths, would be just opening. We
stopped for Fastpasses for Test Track and it was timed well to provide us with a
break between what will be our lunch and dinner at the festival booths. We start
at Mexico
and work our way around clockwise. Each booth
provides a small taste of the named country and we are enjoying it as much as in
the past. Lines are not terribly long and the weather could not be better. It is
an enjoyable morning.
New this year, where
Spain
had a temporary pavilion last year, is
Australia
. We spend a bit of time here. We discover that a
wine tasting is about to begin, so we take seats and participate. Although it is
only
11:30 AM
, most of the other participants are already
showing the effects of having a drink or two. Needless to say it was quite a
rowdy affair. When it was done, an Australian aborigine named Turtle gave a
terrific demonstration of how to play a didgeridoo – a native instrument.
We sampled a few more booths
and then took in a show of The American Adventure. This would mark the break
between lunch and dinner.
After the show we took a
Friend Ship back towards Future World and our Test Track return time. The
Fastpass line lead us right onto the attraction and when it was over and we
found ourselves in the gift shop, I decided to see if there were any nice Saturn
logo merchandise that I might get for my son, who had just purchased a new
Saturn Quad Coupe. Unfortunately the selection was poor and I didn’t find
anything worth purchasing.
We made a stop in Mousegear
to pick up the Finding Nemo DVD. (Gotta love those Cast Member holiday
discounts!) Now it was time to head back to World Showcase and continue our
eating around the world tour. This time we started working our way
counterclockwise.
After a few stops though, Iris
starts to get a migrane and we make the decision to head back to the
room since we both know that she would be in bad shape and it will probably take
a night’s sleep until she would feel better. We made a stop at First Aid for
some aspirin and then headed back to All Star Music.
Day 2 – The Studios and
Magic
Kingdom
Once again
Sandy
is up early and out of the room without
Iris
or I waking up. Happily when I wake
Iris
up to get ready for the day, she is feeling well again and both of us
are ready to face the day. While
Iris
is taking her shower,
Sandy
calls from The Studios to tell us that she made
the decision and got a Fastpass to get Wally Kurth’s autograph. She wanted us
to come take her picture with him at her Fastpass time of
11:05
. We change our plans from going straight to the
Magic
Kingdom
and head out to The Studios. We call her cell
phone when we arrive, but she is obviously in a place where she has the phone
turned off, so we decide to see the set from the Haunted Mansion Movie. From
there we see the Muppet 3D Movie after which we both have voice mail from
Sandy
. We will meet her at the Wally Kurth autograph
site. To make sure we get pictures,
Iris
and I get a spot in front of the stand and I
ready my camera as
Iris
learns how to use the camera in my cell
phone.
After the autograph is
gotten, we are all ready for lunch so we head over to the 50’s Prime Time Café
to see how long a walk-up seating will be. We are told that it would be 45
minutes and we agree to wait. As usual, the meal was superb and the atmosphere
fun.
At this point,
Iris
and I head off to The Magic Kingdom and
Sandy
heads back into Soap Opera immersion. We will
meet here later that evening at Cape May Café for dinner.
We arrive at The Magic
Kingdom and head for my all time favorite … as I always have … The Haunted
Mansion. There was a bit longer queue than I have seen in a long time, but it
was still just a brief wait until we entered the foyer. On past trips my son, a
former HM CM, ironically always seemed to call me when I was in the mansion, but
this time it didn’t happen. Unfortunately the in car narration is not working
for most of the trip through the attraction.
Now it was time to head to
Fantasyland and see Mickey’s Philharmagic. I had heard good things about this
new attraction and was anxious to see it. We decided that the standby line was
not too terrible and would perhaps get us in to the second show from the current
time, so we waited. The show is one of the best 3D show I have ever seen and is
quite impressive. My only regret is that it was too short. Also, a bit of a
preshow in the area just outside of the theater might have been nice rather than
just standing in anticipation while the area filled and folks started pushing to
get closer to the doors.
Next a trip down the rivers
of the world on The Jungle Cruise. Despite having ridden it more times than any
of us can remember, our skipper’s delivery of the old jokes – and a few new
ones – was wonderful and we had a terrific time. (Did you know that most of
the animals are the original ones from when the park opened … that’s right
… that is a ’71 Impala.)
At this point we decide that
it is time to head out so we can reach The Beach Club in time for our PS at Cape
May Café.
Sandy
has called that she has left The Studios to meet
us. At fist she was looking for a bus to get there, but was soon reminded that
you take a boat, and in the end she managed to get there well before us. No
matter, we get there with plenty of time to spare, and before long are enjoying
our dinner.
Another long day done, we
head back to the room to get ready for the next day … the first, and only one,
we will all be together all day.
Day 3 – Epcot
Super Soap weekend over, Sandy
now plans on hitting a few of the Food and Wine
Festival booths with us, so we head out to Epcot on what appears to be an
overcast day. In truth, the weather goes from sunny and comfortable to rainy –
back and forth many times.
In addition to eating lunch
at the booths, this night we have PS’s for the hibachi restaurant in
Japan
.
We work our way
counterclockwise again, and pick up any of the countries which
Iris
and I missed the first day, while allowing
Sandy
to choose from a few of the stands which we had
partaken of earlier in the week. We dodge a few raindrops, but when we get to
The American Adventure, the skies open up, so we drop in and see the show …
certainly not something which disturbs us.
When we make it around to Australia
, we decide to take the Wine Walkabout … taking
in 5 different wine samples from 5 different areas in Australia
. The next wine tasting demo is still a while
away, and the entertainment is not performing since the ground is so wet, so we
make a decision. Rather than keep dodging raindrops, we would head to The West
Side of Downtown Disney where Iris
and I would see Brother Bear, and Sandy
would do some shopping.
When the movie was over and
we met again, we decided to eat at DTD rather than head back to Epcot for our
PS. We have a nice meal at Wolfgang Pucks and then head back to the room to
pack, although we would still have most of the day before we have to head back
to the airport.
Day 4 –
Magic
Kingdom
This day Iris
would have to work until about 3 o’clock
, and is due at the Caribbean Beach Resort at 7 AM
. Rather than keep our luggage at All Star until
we are ready to go, I get up early to drive Iris
to work, and then drive her car back, get a few more hours of sleep and
then move our luggage (and hers) to her car, drive it back to CBR (we know where
she parks when she is at work), and tale the bus to MK. She then will meet us
when she gets off that afternoon.
We get to the MK and as
always, the first thing I head to is the Haunted
Mansion
. Today, the narration is working
perfectly.
Next we head towards Sandy
’s favorite land, Fantasyland. We head towards
Mickey’s Philharmagic and decide to get Fastpasses. Our first attraction here
will be It’s a Small World. The queue was quite long, but we know how fast it
moves. While online we strike up a conversation with a woman in front of us.
This was the family’s first trip to WDW, and despite the late hour (about 11 AM
) this was their first attraction of the day.
Their 3 year old daughter had been stung by a yellow jacket on the way into the
park, and had been in First Aid since then. (I had commented that the yellow
jacks were more abundant this trip than I had ever seen them. At Epcot I
attributed it to the Food and Wine Festival, but it seems as if they were even
worse here at MK.) When she and her dad joined her mom in the queue I located a
Mickey pin in my assortment of traders (didn’t do too much trading this trip,
and only picked up a few new pins) and gave her one. I did manage to get a smile
from her. During out wait to get into the boat, we answered some questions they
had and made a few suggestions, and then wished them a good vacation when we
finished the ride.
It was now time for our
Fastpass return to Mickey’s Philharmagic, so we head over there and take our
place in the queue leading to the theater. Sandy
now got to experience this attraction for the
first time and enjoyed it as mush as Iris
and I did a few days ago.
While we were getting ready
for the movie to start,
Iris
called my cell phone (on silent of course) to
let us know that she was on her way. I called her back when we left the show.
She was on the monorail and we told her where to meet us.
We had time to do one
attraction and we decided to see The Tiki Room; Under New Management. Then we
had to decide where to eat and start to head out of the park and towards the
airport.
We had hoped that we could
do a walkup to The Liberty Tree Inn, but the first time they could seat us (it
was a very busy weekend and week due to a holiday and NJ schools being off for
the week) was too long to wait. Instead to decide to have our meal at Columbia
Harbour House … gotta love that breadbowl chowder!
It is time now to head out
and start the trip home. But it isn’t too unhappy since we know that Iris
will be coming north in about a week and a half for her brother’s
engagement party, and we will be coming back down in about 6 weeks for a longer
stay.
The trip to the airport is
uneventful, and all looks well, until we find out that our suitcase is
overweight. (We were traveling with only one suitcase as usual for this short
trip) We scramble to remove many of the books and pictures that Sandy
has collected from Super Soap Weekend, and place
them in large shopping bags which I had decided to save. We managed to get the
weight to 52 pounds, only 2 over the limit and they accept our suitcase.
Going home we have an
aircraft that has not yet been fitted with TV’s, but that is okay since I have
a book I want to finish, and since we arrive in NYC early, I almost get to the
end before we land. My son is waiting for us at the airport and soon we are home
and this is just another trip that is a memory.
Mark L. Fendrick
MarkLF@si.rr.com
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