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Ellen Pillar -- January 2004 -- Walt Disney World (CR)The Cast of Characters
Planning, October 2003: In 2000, my dad and stepmom treated the family to a few days at Disney. We were able to stay at Shades of Green thanks to my brother-in-law being retired Air Force. We stayed three nights and had a great time. Since then, two more grandkids have joined the family and a third is on the way! My dad had commented a year or so ago that we should do it again once all the kids are up and walking. Since my youngest (not counting the one due in March) is now 2 and my stepsister’s youngest just turned three, it was time! We were already planning on visiting my folks in Florida the week after Christmas. My girls and I spent a quick weekend visiting in September and it was decided that we should try to plan the trip for part of that week after Christmas and it would be our Christmas gift. Since Shades of Green (SoG) is closed for rehab until Spring of 2004, we weren’t sure what was available. At first, the SoG reservations clerk put us in the Hotel Royal Plaza near Downtown Disney. Not the Contemporary, but not too bad. After asking though, we did get three rooms at the Contemporary for the nights of January 1, 2, &3. The rooms will average $95 per night, including taxes. Much better than the $225 before tax rack rate! I was given the go ahead to make some PS’s, although we probably won’t do them all. The cost for 7 adults and 4 kids for a Character meal is a little outrageous. We don’t want dad to have to declare bankruptcy after this trip! I’ve made PS’s for dinner at Chef Mickey’s on Jan. 1st, breakfast at Crystal Palace on Jan 2nd (at 8:15am on a non-early entry day! Main Street all to ourselves!), and dinner at Boma on Jan 3rd. We’ll decide which to keep later on. My girls are thrilled (as am I!) and the countdown begins….. December 2003: Well, after several bumps in the road, we appeared ready to go. My Stepsis and her dh have been having some serious issues and it was on again/off again as to whether he was actually going to go with us. She called and found out her military spouse ID would work, so we could still have our Shades of Green rate at the Contemporary even if her dh didn’t come. All seemed fine, but on New Year’s Eve there was another fight and we didn’t know if he would be coming with us the next day or not. Thursday, January 1st The day is finally here! All is well in family land and all 11 of us are ready to go. We pile into three vehicles and hit the Turnpike at 9:03am. Two rest stops later, we arrive at the Contemporary at noon. My Stepbrother was in the lead on the Turnpike. All I can say is that I’m certainly glad his top of the line radar detector was in working order. I don’t think our minivan has ever gone that fast! We got off on 192 while the other two cars went up to I-4, I’m really not sure why. We arrived at the Contemporary about 20 minutes ahead, the other cars ended up in the MK parking lot before finding their way. One of the three rooms was ready so we dropped our stuff in 7265 (with a nice view of the parking lot and the Grand Floridian), ran up to buy our Stars & Stripes passes at the Shades of Green ticket suite and grabbed a quick lunch at the Food & Fun center. Welcome to Disney prices! Lunch for 11 wasn’t cheap. Thanks again Dad! We jumped on the monorail for the long ride to MK. After stops at the TTC, Poly, & GF we finally arrived at the gates at 2:45. We got to see the last three floats in the Share a Dream Come True Parade from the steps of City Hall and then headed to Adventureland. I grabbed everyone Fastpasses for the Jungle Cruise (gee, Fastpass time in 45 minutes or a 50 minute stand by line. That’s a tough decision!) and we had a short wait for Aladdin’s Magic Carpets. On to Pirates Of The Caribbean. Anabelle wasn’t real sure. She wasn’t crazy about it last May, but she decided if she could sit next to her Uncle Lee she would be all right. We had a 20 minute or so wait, both sides of the queue were open. I don’t know the last time I’d seen the left side open. We then went to the Tiki Room at Anabelle’s request. Now time for the Jungle Cruise. One of the downsides of going with 11 is that we invariably had to wait for the next boat, train, car, whatever. We had to wait for an extra boat, but were then able to sit in the front. Anabelle wasn’t interested in piloting, so Cassie drove the boat the whole trip! Adam was a great captain. One of the better ones I remember having. It was getting close to 5pm by then and we had 5:45pm PS’s at Chef Mickey’s. We hopped on the train by Splash Mountain (SM had a 120 minute standby, there were people everywhere in the queue!). Actually, we got on the third train so we could all ride together. In line, I called and got the other two room numbers. My Dad, stepmom and Lee were in 7269 and we were in 7255. We had a nice bay view. Very quiet. We could also see the tennis courts. We rode the monorail back to the Contemporary (thankfully, the short trip this time!) and checked in at Chef Mickey’s right on time. They said it might be 20 minutes as the tables weren’t moving very fast. It ended up being closer to 50 minutes. At least we had plenty of time for bathroom breaks, drinks from the bar, getting our picture, and getting autograph books & pens from the gift shop. Lee even had time to run back to the room and get our camcorder for us. Dinner was yummy and the characters were great. Minnie just missed our table before she left for the napkin waving (this was right after we were seated) and we ended up having to tell our server that we were still waiting to see her when we were done with dessert 45 minutes later. Minnie did make it back over so all the kids were happy. We made a quick stop in the room to put our stuff in and change the kids into pants. Lee stayed at the hotel to watch his beloved Seminoles succumb to Miami (sorry, Lee!). We decided to walk to MK. I thought the walk was fine. I don’t think it was that much longer from the North Wing than it was to walk all the way to the monorail and then from the monorail station to the gate. I think it was faster considering the three monorail stops on the way. We got back to MK around 8:30pm and headed through the crowds and crowds of people waiting for Wishes to go to Tomorrowland. We took a quick spin on the TTA (I love that thing!) and the kids announced they wanted to go on “Goofy’s rollercoaster!”. I think this is the ride my two were most excited about. They spotted the Teacups first and were about to get in line when Wishes started. We watched it from right between Pooh and the old 20,000 Leagues queue. We had some fireworks on the left and some on the right. We didn’t get the effect of seeing the castle, but it was still awesome. The kids and their dads hopped right on the Teacups and had a great ride. On to Toontown, which at 9:30 at night was deserted. Everyone but me rode the Barnstormer. Ted and Laura took Marcus over to the Indy Racers. The girls and the rest of the adults explored Minnie’s house, Mickey’s house, Donald’s boat (no water, too chilly), and the playground. John and the girls also rode the Barnstormer again. Once we met back up, we headed over to get a spot for Spectro. We had a front row spot right by Sleepy Hollow snacks. Rebecca and Marcus had conked out by then but Cassie and Anabelle really loved the parade. Despite our many combined trips, no one had ever seen Spectro! It was great! By the time it was over, we were all exhausted. John and I walked back with our girls while the rest of the crew took the monorail back. We collapsed in bed by 11:30. We had an early morning coming up, breakfast with Pooh! Friday, January 2nd. Up and at ‘em at 6:30. Boy, that’s early after a late night! We let the girls sleep as long as possible. Our room had double sinks in the vanity with the shower, which was a real time saver. The toilet was in it’s own little room with a counter that looked like it could have held a sink, but didn’t. It was quite the convenient place to store reading materials! There was also a mirror over the counter, I guess so you could have conversations with yourself while on the throne! Anyway, my dad, stepmom, and Lee weenied out on breakfast and slept in. That left eight of us. We walked over to the MK and got to the Crystal Palace right at our PS time of 8:15. On both our last visit in May and this visit, I was able to get early PS’s in the MK (last time at Cindy’s) hoping to stroll an empty Main Street. No such luck either time. In May, it was an EE day (we were only there one day, so I had no other choice). This time, MK was open at 8am to the general public each day we were there due to the holiday weekend. Oh well! Something to shoot for next time. We had a wonderful breakfast with Pooh and friends. I hadn’t been in CP for many years. It used to be a cafeteria back in the day. My dad and stepmom would often make us eat there because it was about the only place to get a salad or some vegetable back then (I’m talking in the 70’s, early 80’s). I never liked it then, it took too long and I was forced to get something unfried. But, I really enjoyed it this time! We headed into the park shortly after 9 and jumped on the carousel. One of Anabelle’s only requests was to see Ariel in her grotto. Last May it was our longest wait, an hour plus. I saw the line was fairly short, so we hopped in. After about 25 minutes we had our audience with Ariel and all was happy in kidville. We then met the rest of our group (who had slept in till 9!). Fantasyland was starting to really fill up. We grabbed Fastpasses for PeterPan and got on Small World after a short wait (and another wait for the next boat). By the time we got off Small World, the wait was up to 30 minutes! YIKES! John and I really wanted to see Philharmagic, so we went that way while Laura and Ted took their kids on Dumbo. The rest of the adults headed in search of coffee and breakfast. We had about a 40 minute wait for Philharmagic, but it was worth it! Anabelle was constantly grabbing for things in the air and was really into it. Rebecca enjoyed it, but John had to hold her glasses on her head for her. A two year olds’ skull is too small for those glasses! Once we got out and met the rest of the crew, there was barely room to move in Fantasyland. I don’t ever remember seeing so many people there. Lee bugged out, being a single guy he can only handle so much family togetherness. We agreed to meet up with him at Epcot later. We went ahead and rode PeterPan with the fastpasses (no way I’d wait the hour posted, even if it is one of my favorites!) and then decided Lee had the right idea. We had a very relaxing ferry ride over to the TTC. I think there were 4 other people on the boat with us. Rebecca promptly fell asleep in her stroller. We rode the monorail over to Epcot. I had thought I had packed Anabelle’s hat in my backpack but it turned out to be John’s hat instead. Anabelle is VERY fair and it was turning into another hot day. We stopped to get her a new Tinkerbell hat at the gift shop under Spaceship Earth. John ran off to get Mission Space Fastpasses (he got the last ones of the day, 8:24-9) while Laura and I got in an amazingly long line at the Electric Umbrella to get the kids some lunch. The adults held out for Mexico, which is where we were meeting Lee. After a nice relaxing lunch (with a few Margaritas for the non-preggo adults) we began a stroll along the World Showcase. We rode El Rio Del Tiempo, cheesy as ever but the kids really liked it. We got Fastpasses for the Norway ride. By then Rebecca had woken up. John and I headed to China to get her some lunch (the girl loves rice) while the rest of the group strolled around the shops in Norway and China. Anabelle fell asleep on my dad while they were waiting for us. Lee offered to be he pillow while the rest of us rode around Norway. Of course, she woke up shortly after we left and wanted to go on the ride. So, John took her back on with the remaining two Fastpassses once we got off. She didn’t like it, too scary. I think the polar bear is what put her over the edge. The girl will ride any rollercoaster she can fit on (and she’s been on plenty of big ones, for five she is very tall) but can’t handle much “scary” theming. Oh well, she’ll get there I know! We walked around the rest of WS. The kids saw the Genie in Morocco and had a Popsicle near Italy. I would have had a Mickey Bar but the cart was out of everything but OJ bars and Itsakadoozies. Oh well. Anabelle proclaimed World Showcase to be boring (she is only 5, so I wasn’t surprised). We all decided to head back to the hotel at our own pace. Right past Canada, Anabelle said she needed a bathroom immediately. We asked a CM and were directed to the bathrooms just past the McD’s fry stand. How is it possible to have a woman’s restroom in Epcot with only TWO stalls?! The line was out the door, but I figured we had better wait. We were next when a CM walked in and asked if she could go in the stall (the handicapped one) and mop the floor before we went in. I said, “well, my daughter is about to wet her pants”. Apparently she took that as a “yes, please go right ahead!”. Thankfully she was quick and waited until after we were done to go back in and change out the toilet paper and such. We rode Spaceship Earth with no wait, Anabelle really liked it. John decided to go back to the hotel with us in hopes of meeting up with Ted and racing back to use the MS Fastpasses. After our double monorail ride back to the Contemporary, we tried tracking down the rest of our group. After several attempts dialing their rooms John made two trips out to the car. One for Lee’s cell phone number and another for our cell phone. Well, they were all in the bar getting ready to head down and eat dinner at the Food & Fun center. Gee, you know a message on our room phone would have been nice. I guess when you travel with so many, communication lapses will happen from time to time. By this time, John had given up on MS. I was disappointed for him, I know he REALLY wanted to ride it. But, I’ll get to go with him next time! Lee wanted to get the girls something for Christmas while we were at Disney and he was not going to go with us to the parks tomorrow (he was meeting a frat brother who lives in Orlando for the day) so we headed up to the 4th floor for some shopping. After much deliberation, Anabelle picked a Sleeping Beauty Barbie and some princess make up and Rebecca chose a stuffed Daisy Duck and Sleeping Beauty necklace. It was almost 9pm, so we went out on the 4th floor observation deck and watched Wishes from a different perspective. We had a fairly good view, although right after it started the couple in front of us put their girls up on their shoulders. The man was at least 6’3” and his daughter had to be 7 or 8. The woman wasn’t as tall, but the daughter on her shoulders had to be 9 or 10! We managed to see around them as best we could. We let the girls watch some TV and it was off to slumberland. Tomorrow, AK! Saturday, January 2nd. We all decided to get a little more sleep and try to meet for breakfast at the Food & Fun center at 9. We were mostly on time and made it to the bus stop by 10. We had a 45 minute wait for an AK bus, very frustrating. We were the first ones there (we must have just missed a bus) and by the time the AK bus came, two MGM busses and three Downtown Disney busses had come and gone. Thankfully, we got on the bus although by then the busstop was packed with people waiting to go to AK. I asked the driver how often they came and he said whenever they were told to, about every 15 minutes. Yeah, right! We finally got to AK at 11:00am and got through security after a quick stop for sunglasses for the kids. Each of our girls had $20 to spend and still had it all as of this morning. The glasses were the first big purchase! We headed over for the 11:45 FOTLK show. Everyone really enjoyed it. I wanted to get us Fastpasses for the safari next, but overrode my commando tendencies as everyone else voted for lunch. So, off to Pizzafari. It was not crowded at all and pretty tasty. We eventually made it over to the safari for Fastpasses, which were only 45 minutes away. We walked the Pangani trail and then had about a 15 minute wait for the safari. Quite a few animals were out and the kids really enjoyed it. Anabelle was a bit concerned about the bridge, but we convinced her nothing in Disney was really designed to kill the guests! Anabelle really wanted to see Tarzan Rocks! So we headed over to Dinoland. We caught the 3:45 show with minutes to spare. I think Tarzan may work out on his day’s off, but I’m not sure. We spent the rest of the day in Dinoland. The grownups (except me), Anabelle and Cassie rode Dinosaur. Anabelle gave it a very poor review. Although according to John, all she saw of it was his lap! We took all the kids on Triceratops spin, whoo whee! They liked it though, and that’s what counts! When we got to Dinoland all the Fastpasses for Primeval Whirl were gone and the standby was listed at 70 minutes. By the time we finished with Dinosaur and T. Spin they had opened the other side and the wait was down to 30 minutes. Anabelle was just tall enough, Cassie missed it by about ¼ inch. The CM manning the measuring stick was tough! John and Anabelle went ahead and rode (only about 15 minute wait actually) while Cassie spent the whole time crying about the injustice of life when you are 47 ¾ inches tall. I felt for her. We went over to the boneyard and Cassie decided to get over it once Anabelle was there to play with her. John led the girls around for the last 45 minutes before the park closed. Marcus had fallen asleep hard, so missed all that fun. Cassie had been given a lanyard by a family friend and had used some of her Disney Dollars for an Ariel pin. That’s all it took for Anabelle to be bitten by the pin bug. I was hoping to put it off a while longer, but Oh well. She used the rest of her money on a lanyard. We told her we would buy her one pin and she could use her allowance on one more. She chose an Aurora and a Jasmine pin and was happy as can be. We haven’t explained trading yet, plenty of time for that! Rebecca, of course, had to have a lanyard too. She had a bit more money left, having picked cheaper sunglasses. She picked a very cute Boo pin. We had a family discussion about dinner. We originally planned dinner at Boma, but weren’t ready to leave the park for our 5pm PS’s. We decided to try the Rainforest Café right outside AK. I wasn’t real hopeful we’d get a quick table for 10 at 6pm, but we were seated by 6:30. We had a great, relaxing dinner with a view of the Titans/Ravens playoff game (exciting ending, even though I didn’t care who won). John and I decided to take the girls back to MK after giving Anabelle the option of that or going back to the hotel to swim. Rebecca had fallen asleep at 6 and slept right through dinner so she was good to go. By now, it was 8pm and the busstop at AK was a ghosttown. The CM assured us a bus would come, and one finally did after two busses to Epcot came and went. We all had to go to the TTC, since MK and Contemporary busses had stopped running at 7:30. We split off from the rest of the group at the TTC and rode the ferry over to the MK. We were almost alone on the ferry again. Not many people heading to MK at 9pm. I thought we would see Wishes from the ferry which would have been cool. However, they must have been having technical difficulties since it didn’t start until about 9:15. My one request of the trip was to see the Christmas show at the Country Bears Jamboree. So we headed to Frontierland via the Emporium. Much less crowded than Main Street at Wishes time! We tried to get Rebecca a hot dog at Casey’s for dinner, but she wasn’t interested. She just wanted pretzels. OK, whatever kiddo. We were down to one diaper, so I ran into the Babycare Center while John and the girls saw Wishes from yet another vantage point. This time they got to see the part the castle plays, very cool. I purchased 10 diapers for $9. Gee, that’s only about 4.5 times what I pay at home! Well, at least Rebecca would have a nice dry tushie. We continued our trek to Frontierland. A Country Bears show had just started, so we browsed around the Prairie Outpost and then sat down to wait. I really enjoyed the show. The Country Bears is one of my sentimental favorites dating from my first visit to WDW in 1973. It was fun seeing a new show. The girls really liked it. We stopped for a churro to share, although neither of the kids liked it. More for me and John! We wanted to ride Pooh and John wanted to take the girls on the Indy Speedway, so we headed over that way. We bought some popcorn to supplement Rebecca’s pretzel dinner (hey, we’re on vacation!). We got Fastpasses for Pooh with a return time of 11:05-midnite. We waited about 20 minutes for Indy. The girls seemed to enjoy it. Rebecca and my car was faster than John and Anabelle’s. John and Anabelle’s also died at the end so the CM had to come out and restart them. We still had time before Pooh, Anabelle and Rebecca wanted to ride Goofy’s Barnstormer again. We headed back over to Toontown and John took the girls on Goofy three times in a row. Toontown was dead. I knew I was getting tired, since I walked into the restroom and thought “gee, I don’t remember urinals in the women’s restroom the other day”. Thankfully, the men’s room was empty and I made a hasty retreat to the women’s room. Our Pooh time was approaching, so we meandered back to Fantasyland. We hopped in our honeypot after a 5-minute wait due to a wheelchair being loaded. The ride stopped when we were floating along in the flood. It was interesting to see the effects with the lights on. After 5-10 minutes and a few false starts, we finished up Pooh. After the restart, the music and effects were a bit out of synch. As we were exiting, we heard them announce that they had to cycle the ride through once with all the honeypots empty to reset it. I’m glad we got on before that! We still had ½ hour or so until closing so we made one last go round on the TTA. I think it’s an entirely different ride at night. Anabelle was very leery of Buzz, but we talked her into it. We have a very similar Scooby Doo ride at our local park (Paramount’s Carowinds) that is one of her favorites, so we were sure she could handle Zurg and Co. She did end up enjoying it. We began walking out of the park at midnight. I was explaining to Anabelle that it was now tomorrow and very early in the morning. She was very excited, “I can’t believe it’s so early in the morning and I’ve been up all day and I’m not even a little bit sleepy!”. The things that make us happy when we are five! We walked back to our room and tucked the girls into bed. Anabelle decided she was indeed sleepy and they were both out in minutes. We decided that a 9am breakfast meeting wasn’t going to happen for us, especially since we had a 10+ hour drive ahead of us. We set the alarm for 9 and hit the sack. I woke up shortly before 9. Apparently the guests in a nearby room had to slam the sliding glass door to their patio to get it shut, and they apparently were on and off the patio several times starting at 8am. So, I got up and took a quick shower. I packed up and got the girls’ dressed. We met the rest of the family for breakfast at the F&FC and to say our goodbye’s. We made a quick run to the 4th floor to buy a few gifts for the girls down the street who were taking care of the dog, packed up the car, and said our farewells to Disney. The trip home was fairly uneventful. The girls both took marathon (4+ hour) naps, which didn’t surprise us after all the excitement and lack of sleep over the past week. Conclusion: In conclusion, we had a great but rushed trip. We really enjoyed the convenience of the Contemporary to MK. Having a stroller, it was great walking over there and only having to take the bus to AK (we didn't make MGM this time around). The crowds were very heavy, but we expected that. I had to adjust my commando mentality (John shares a similar park strategy) due to the crowds, the size of our group, and my advancing pregnancy. We didn't ride any mountains, but that was OK. After our visit last May, I realized that for all the times I have been to WDW I have never been for longer than 3 nights. A side effect of growing up in Florida, lots and lots of short weekend or day trips but no long vacations. John and I would love to take the kids for a full week, maybe for his 40th birthday in two years. The older girls will still be considered "children" and the baby will be under 3 so still free. We'll see if we can be disciplined enough to save up for it. I had really wanted to see some of the resorts decorated for Christmas. Originally we were only going to do the parks on two days. The choice of another day in the parks or seeing the resorts was an easy one for me, I'll see the resorts another time! We did get to see Spectro for the first time, along with Wishes and the Christmas Country Bears show. Maybe we'll be back again sooner, I don't think we've ever planned a Disney trip more than 6 months out. They just seem to happen, who knows! Rebecca keeps wanting to go "see Cinderelly's castle, it glowed", so maybe a little pixie dust will come our way and we'll be back sooner than we think! Thanks for reading! Ellen Pillar jepillar@bellsouth.net Mail a Comment to Ellen Pillar |
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