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Krista Fulkerson -- May 2005 - Walt Disney World (ASMuR, SSR, YCR)

Who:

Stephen Fulkerson—28, 10 trips, veteran
Krista Fulkerson—26, 11 trips, trip reporter, veteran

Well, it’s that time again for the Fulkerson’s to head to Walt Disney World. It feels like we just did this! Not that I’m complaining or anything.

How this trip came about: Stephen and I vacation in WDW quite frequently. For the last 2 years, we’ve been going down 3 times a year. 2 times were for week long vacations and a short trip thrown in there because we have annual passes and we found good airfare. We went to WDW in December with my parents and sister, we had a wonderful vacation, but for the first time since we’ve been married, we didn’t have the next trip planned. We figured we’d be going in October for 5^th anniversary, but nothing was set in stone. Because of this, leaving Disney World in December was very hard for me!! After we were home for about a month, we decided to go to Disney for 2 weeks in October for our anniversary. While I was happy to be going for 2 weeks, I wasn’t thrilled about having to wait until October, so I started harping on Stephen to take a week in October and a week in May. As much as Stephen wanted to go back in May, he didn’t want to waste money (he is definitely the money smart one in our little family). We’ve been trying to pay off school loans, car payments, and saving money to prepare for starting a family in the near future. I hate when Stephen is so sensible! But then I said the magic words: if we go to Disney the first week in May, then we can use our AP’s one last time before they expire on May 8^th. Well, that was the clincher! We immediately changed our vacations at work to be off May 2-6. We originally booked flights for Saturday April 30^th out of Dayton, Ohio, but then Stephen got a bee in his bonnet (you see, it’s not just me) that we could take a half-day on Friday, April 29^th and leave on Friday afternoon. So we each took a half-day and booked a non-stop flight from Dayton to Orlando departing at 5:45 and landing in Orlando at 8:00. Then Stephen started thinking some more and decided let’s just take all of Friday off, so we aren’t rushed or worried about getting stuck at work and not being able to leave right at noon. Then we started thinking (you get into A LOT of trouble when you think) duh! we can take an earlier flight out of Dayton. We didn’t really want to change our flights again and pay another change fee, so we decided to change the flights the day of, which you can do without a change fee, but you do have to pay the price difference between the flight you booked and the flight you want to be on. The only stipulation was being able to find a flight with empty seats up to 3 hours in advance of the flight you are booked on. There were 2 direct flights from Dayton to Orlando one at 6:15 am and one at 11:15 am and then several connecting flights, so we decided to take a chance and gamble. If we can’t get on the 11:15 flight, then we still had our flight that leaves Dayton at 5:45. Crossing our fingers!!

Passes: As I said earlier, Stephen and I both have annual passes that will expire at midnight on May 8^th.

Method of Transportation: We’re flying out of Dayton on Friday, April 29^th. Right now we’re booked for a non-stop flight to Orlando that departs at 5:45. Hoping to make it on an earlier flight, but we won’t know if we can change until the morning of. The main flight we’re looking at departs Dayton at 11:15; we were planning on getting up at 7:00 because we can call at 8:15 to see if there are seats available on that flight. There is a flight at 6:15 am, but that means having to get up at 3:00 in the morning to check availability and then getting to the airport—just not worth it.

Accommodations: Stephen and I usually stay at a couple of resorts; we always try to rent points from a DVC member (we really need to buy into this) for Sunday-Thursday and then we stay at 1 or 2 other resorts at the beginning and the end of the vacation. Our pattern is usually a value resort the first night (or nights in this case), Disney vacation club resort Sunday through Thursday and then a deluxe resort the last 2 nights. This trip we are staying at All Stars Music (our first All Star stay) with an AP discount Friday April 29^th and Saturday April 30^th. On Sunday we’re moving to Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa staying in a studio using points rented from a DVC member. On Friday May 6^th we’re checking into the Yacht Club until Sunday May 8^th. So we’re staying at all new resorts—very excited about this, that doesn’t happen too often for us!

General Plans:

Friday 4/29—Leave for the Dayton Airport at 2:30 for 5:45 flight, land in Orlando at 8:00. Pick up car from National, drive to WDW and check into All Star Music. Late dinner at Rainforest Café PS 10:00. We made alternate reservations for National and Rainforest Café at 5:00 in hopes of getting an earlier flight

Saturday 4/30—Magic Kingdom, counter service lunch. PS Rose and Crown 5:00, Epcot for evening.

Sunday 5/1—Check out of All Star Music, PS Whispering Canyon Café 10:40. Check into Saratoga Springs, head over to MGM—evening extra magic hours, PS Mama Melrose 6:30 for Fantasmic dinner package.

Monday 5/2—Epcot, PS San Angel Inn 12:00. Magic Kingdom in evening, counter service for dinner.

Tuesday 5/3—Blizzard Beach, PS Boma 5:00, Epcot evening extra magic hours.

Wednesday 5/4—Epcot, PS Alfredos 1:30 -or- PS Artist Point 5:30; Magic Kingdom evening extra magic hour.

Thursday 5/5—Animal Kingdom, PS California Grill 5:30, Cirque du Soleil 9:00.

Friday 5/6—Check out Saratoga Springs, PS Spoodles 10:40, Magic Kingdom. Check-in Yacht Club, Le Cellier 7:30, Epcot.

Saturday 5/7—Epcot, PS ‘Ohana 5:40, Magic Kingdom.

Sunday 5/8—Check-out Yacht Club, PS Kona Café 11:00; Leave for MCO 12:30 return flight Orlando to Dayton 3:00, arrive Dayton 5:15.

Wow! Looks like a busy week! One thing to know as you read this trip report: Stephen and I have had a major life style change since the first of the year. I don’t want to say that we went on a diet, because it wasn’t a diet, but we completely changed our eating styles and we both are exercising (in fact, we’re both training for the Disney Marathon in January 2006). From January to April Stephen lost 50 pounds, he went from 213 to 163 and I lost about 17 pounds, going from 125 to 108. We have not had any junk food, “real” dessert (anything not Weight Watchers), red meat or anything deep-fried since January 1^st. We were planning on cheating during our vacation—eating whatever we want, sure hope we don’t get too sick! Let the feasting begin!!

Day 0—Thursday 4/28

Stephen and I both worked a full day on Thursday; man was that hard to concentrate on anything! We were planning on meeting at home at 5:30 to finish packing, head to the tanning salon for one last tan at 6:30 and then drive up to Dayton. We were staying at the Holiday Inn Airport, because Stephen has Priority Club points and they provide a park and fly service to the airport.

Stephen called me right before I left work to say that he was stuck in a meeting and to go tanning without him, hopefully he could meet me at the tanning salon. I drove home (blaring my Disney music) and finished packing as much as I could. I left the house to go tanning and no Stephen. After I tanned, I called him on his cell and he was just leaving work, I told I’d stop at Subway to grab dinner and then we could load the car and be on our way. Finally home, got the car loaded and started the 45-minute drive to Dayton. We were trying to make it to the hotel before 8:00 so we didn’t have to miss any of “Survivor”. There was construction on I-75, so we didn’t get to the Holiday Inn until about 20 after 8:00. We got to our room and saw that President Bush was on television, so we hadn’t missed any “Survivor”. We watched “Survivor” while looking at Disney stuff on the Internet. After “Survivor” I took a shower (I hate rushing around the morning we are leaving, double checking to make sure I have everything, so I take a shower the night before we go on vacation so I can re-pack my bags then) and Stephen ironed our clothes for the next day. We knew we had to get to bed soon, but it was so hard to get to sleep that night! We ended up watching television, we actually found a show on ESPN that had the NFL Pro-Bowl players competing in different sporting events at Disney’s Wide World of Sports, it was awesome to see our 2 favorite things: Walt Disney World and Steeler football together. While we were watching television, I also worked a little on my trip report from our December trip. Neither of us were particularly tired, but we turned the lights off at 11:00 and attempted to fall asleep. I never sleep well in hotels; I tossed and turned for a couple of hours before finally nodding of at 1:00.

Day 1—Friday 4/29

The Plan: Leave for the Dayton Airport at 2:30 for 5:45 flight, land in Orlando at 8:00. Pick up car from National, drive to WDW and check into All Star Music. Late dinner at Rainforest Café PS 10:00. We made alternate reservations for National and Rainforest Café at 5:00 in hopes of getting an earlier flight.

Reality: We were originally booked on a flight that departed at 5:45 pm, but Stephen and I were taking a gamble to get on an earlier flight that left at 11:15 am. We could call Delta at 8:15 to see if there was any availability on the flight. We had been checking the flight every day for 2 weeks and there were 4 seats open, 2 next to each other, so we were feeling pretty good about our odds. Since we were relying on hotel transportation to get us to the airport, we had to be completely ready to go and walking out the door at 8:00 as Stephen was talking to the Delta agent. Hopefully everything would work out! We set the alarm for 7:00, but Stephen is a morning person and I was just excited and we both woke up a little before 6:00. Trust me, I never do that! While I was lying in bed, I remembered a report that needed to be turned in on Monday that I did, but forgot to print out. I called and left a message for one of my co-workers to get on my computer and print the report out for me. I can honestly say, I never gave work another thought after that.  I went back to sleep after leaving the message and Stephen read the complimentary USA Today. The alarm went off at 7:00 and I jumped out of bed—we’re going to Disney World!!! Stephen took a shower while I got ready and while he got ready, I re-packed our bags and checked; double checked and triple checked that we hadn’t forgotten anything. No, I don’t have obsessive-compulsive behavior. 

It was finally 8:05, Stephen checked the flight on-line one more time and saw the 4 seats were still open, so he started dialing Delta’s 800 number. He finally got through to a re-ticketing agent and started to re-book our tickets. There was availability on the 11:15 flight to Orlando and she would be happy to book us on that flight and we were on our way. We put the laptop back in its bag and made our way down to the lobby. We had to wait a few minutes in the lobby to make sure that no one else needed a ride to the airport; while we were waiting I called my Mom to let her know that our plans had changed. We made it to the airport in one piece, check-in and security was a breeze, flying weekday mornings are very enjoyable! After Stephen and I ate breakfast at Max and Erma’s, we walked over to find the gate we were flying out of. The gate was packed, there was a flight to Cincinnati ahead of our flight to Orlando, and so everyone was waiting for that flight. We went up the escalator to a seating area to wait until the gate cleared out. While we were waiting I read my book and Stephen read a magazine, finally it was time for our flight to board—the vacation is finally kicked off! Does anyone else give a sigh of relief once they are in the air? Unless there is an accident with the plane, there is nothing keeping you from getting to Walt Disney World.

The flight was okay, nice and boring, just how I like it!  I spent most of the time working on my trip report from December, that really made the time fly by and it made me get in the Disney mood by reminiscing about that trip. I’m sure I’ll be working on this trip report on our flight to Orlando in October, for some reason I just can’t get these reports finished in a timely manner. We landed in Orlando around 1:30 (I never wear a watch on vacation, so all of times are guesstiments), as soon as we got off the plane and made it past security we were greeted with Magical Express greeters. Wow! Seeing people waving those giant white mouse hands really made it feel like Disney—I loved seeing them. We grabbed our luggage from the carousel and made our way to National car rental. Do the rental agencies often swap garage spaces? I know for a fact that National was on the 2^nd floor in December (I know this because Stephen and I got in an argument as to where National was), but now it was on the first floor. Weird. Stephen has Emerald Aisle, so we just had to pick a car out. We opted to go with a Pontiac G6—what a zippy little car! It definitely has some pick up! I’m glad we decided to get that and not the Toyota Matrix we almost took.

We pulled out of the airport and made our way to Walt Disney World! I couldn’t believe how warm it was in Florida, I was burning up with my jeans on, so glad that we got a car with a sunroof. We decided to stop at the Publix on I-4 to get some groceries and water for the week. Stephen and I bought cereal, milk, water, bagels and granola bars—basically breakfast items since we usually eat in the room. We went to check out and we had the weirdest thing happen to us. There was a very old lady who bagged our groceries, we’re talking at least 70, and not only was she older, but she looked very frail. After she bagged our groceries and loaded them in the cart (and I felt bad enough about that), she turned the cart toward her and started pushing our cart out of the check out aisle. Stephen went to take it from her, thinking she was just pushing it out of the way and she said, “No honey, I got it”! She proceeded to walk out of the door and to the parking lot; I was so confused to what was going on, I have never seen the baggers take the customers to their car. Especially not an old lady pushing the cart for 2 young and very healthy 20-somethings!! While we were walking out, Stephen had me nonchalantly digging through my purse looking for singles, since we were just going to the All Stars Resort, Stephen didn’t have a pocket full of singles for tips, like he usually does. Luckily I had a couple of dollars in my purse, so I slipped him the money while we followed Granny to our car. We got to the car and she started loading groceries in—even the heavy cases of water! Stephen told her again that he would take it from there and he gave her the tip and she went on her merry way. It was so weird because we didn’t see any other baggers doing this and it wasn’t like we needed help or anything. (We later found out the baggers at Publix take your groceries to your car and are NOT allowed to accept tips. Granny was a scammer!!) Moral of the story: always have a couple of bucks in your pocket because you never know what might happen! We jumped back in the car and head for the World. All Star Music here we come!

Stephen and I have never stayed in an All Star resort before, in fact we have only stayed in a value resort once (Pop Century) and that was only for one night. So this was a new experience for us. Actually on this trip we are staying in 3 new resorts, when you go to Disney 9 times in 4 ½ years, this is hard to do! I opened the car door and I was greeted with a blast of hot air. When can I get these jeans off and into a pair of shorts??!! We walked into Melody Hall and there were tons of teenagers everywhere. We later found out there was a band competition going on at the Magic Kingdom, plus tonight was the last night of Grad Nights at the Magic Kingdom. Great. We walked right up to the front desk and got the most amazing cast member (CM), I wish I could remember his name, he was great. When Stephen booked our room, he requested one of the Broadway buildings, not for any specific reason, I just thought the Beauty and the Beast on Broadway marquee was pretty cool. The CM told us that we had been assigned to a room in one of the Broadway buildings, however it was a smoking room. Um, no thanks, do you have anything else? The CM found a king size room in the Jazz Inn section that was ready now, would that be okay? That would be excellent!! He gave us the keys to our room, showed us where the building was on the map and sent us on our way. We walked back out to the car, fighting our way through a group of teenagers that was meeting right in the center of lobby, and drove the very short drive over to Jazz Inn.

Finding our way around All Stars Music was very easy and I really love being able to park practically next door to the room. Although it’s still trek when you’re carrying 2 suitcases and a ton of groceries!! I have to admit, I was a bit apprehensive about staying at the All Stars. Other than one night at the Pop in December, Stephen and I had never stayed in a value resort before. I wasn’t really worried about the amenities or the cleanliness of the room; I knew both of those things would be a non-factor. My biggest concern was with the size of the room, Stephen and I usually stay in a Disney Vacation Club (DVC) studio—so we’re used to pretty roomy accommodations. I had nothing to worry about, while we didn’t have a ton of extra room, we were very comfortable in the room. We had a room on the third floor (we were so thankful for the elevators), so it was nice to not have anyone above us. The room was located in the middle of the row of rooms (although we never once heard any of our neighbors, and we saw little kids going into the room on the left of us) and we had a pretty nice view of the courtyard between the Jazz Inn buildings. The room itself was nice, very bright and colorful; it definitely had that Disney feeling! The bedspread, which was without a doubt the focal point of the room, was a patchwork of music history. There was a juke box, a singer that looked like Elvis Presley, not sure if it was really him or not, a chorus line, a man playing the flute, a man playing the guitar, well you get the idea (i.e. that means I can’t tell what else was on the bedspread from the picture I took ). The television cabinet looked like 3 squares stacked on top each other, 2 side by side (which held a refrigerator in one them, that would have been nice to know BEFORE we bought the Styrofoam cooler at Publix) and one stacked on the left side, the television was on the empty area on the right side. The cabinet was red with black lines in the center that divided each individual square into another set of 4 squares. Looking back, the red and black television cabinet didn’t really match the nightstand and bed frame, which were white with purple trim, but I don’t remember thinking that at the time! My favorite feature of the room? The giant purple star above the bed, which was the light for the room. Very cute. Not very bright, but very cute nonetheless.

The room was great and all, but let’s get changed and over to Rainforest Café, Stephen and I haven’t had “real food” (unhealthy food) in almost 5 months, we were more than ready to over indulge! Stephen and I both changed into shorts and went to explore the resort on the way to the bus stop. We wanted to check out the Movies section of All Stars, so we decided to walk through Movies and catch the bus to Downtown Disney from there. We stopped for photo ops with Herbie the Love Bug in front of the Herbie building and Donald and Daisy (Daisy Duck is my favorite character) in front of the Fantasia buildings. We made it to Cinema Hall and to the bus stop, we waited a few minutes for the bus to Downtown Disney, but it came and we were on our way. We were on a bus filled with teenagers, but I think they were seniors there for Grad Nights, so they were okay (it’s the young teens/pre teens that I have zero patience for). It was funny though because there were 2 or 3 girls on the bus that were wearing shirts that I own. Great, I’m 26 years old and I apparently dress like a high schooler!  The bus pulled up to the Disney Market place and Stephen and I hit the ground running, we were so hungry! Stephen checked us in at the podium and we were told to wait in the elephant line, we stood there for about 5 minutes waiting for a server to take us to our table. For a while we thought that maybe we were in the wrong line or something, but we finally heard “Fulkerson safari of 2”. We were seated and had to wait a few minutes for our server to come and take our drink orders. Little did we know that waiting would be the theme for the meal. Since Stephen and I frequent www.allearsnet.com (plus www.mouseplanet and www.disboards.com), we pretty much have every menu at every Walt Disney World restaurant memorized; we know months in advance what we’re going to eat at every place we go. The waiter was very surprised when we were ready to order our dinner when we came to take our drink order. Plus, we did have some time to study the menu while we were waiting, just to make sure. Stephen and I ended up splitting the awesome appetizer adventure ($14.99) which consisted of: Chimi-Cha-Cha (spring rolls), Big Blue Crab Delight, Crispy Caribe Chicken Tenders and Coastal Calamari and a Brave New World pizza ($11.99) a barbeque chicken pizza. I can already feel my arteries clogging. Our drinks came out quickly and our dinner wasn’t far behind (brought out by someone else), which was good, but the bad part was that we didn’t have plates, needed refills, and we never saw our server again. He never came over to check on us, was never walking around the restaurant, I think he pretty much forgot that we were alive. We had to clear a spot on the appetizer platter to make a little plate and we ended up flagging down another server to get us some refills. After we had been finished eating for about 20 minutes and 2 parties came and went, our server finally came out to check on us. Just bring the check please. The only nice thing he did was instead of using our Disney Dining Experience (DDE) discount; he took off a portion of the appetizer price because 20% of our total wasn’t that much of a discount. We did appreciate that, but we just want to get to the parks.

Stephen and I heaved ourselves up from our table and slowly made our way to the bus stop and onto the Epcot bus. I really thought I was going to get sick on the bus, as soon as the grease hit my stomach, my stomach started to cramp up. It hurt so bad, that I took 2 heartburn pills (I forget what I took) without any water. Stephen said I got so pale, he was sure that I was going to get sick on the bus. After sitting with my head between my knees for the 15-minute bus ride, I felt a little better. I guess I have to learn to pace myself!

Stephen and I walked through the gates and into Epcot and I immediately knew that I was home. Epcot is my favorite park and I especially love it at dusk, we arrived as the sun was setting, so it was perfect timing. We decided to walk over to the information board to see what some of the wait times were. We both agreed that Mission: Space was out because of the heavy dinner we just ate, but we could both be up to Test Track. Imagine our surprise when we saw Soarin’ on the tip board and that it was open until 7:00. Stephen looked at his watch, saw that is 6:50, grabbed my hand, and off we went! We walked at a very brisk pace (unless you’re in the marathon, there’s no running in Disney!) over to The Land. Stephen and I both put on our driving in heavy traffic mentality as we were walking down the ramp to the escalators and Soarin’, we both knew the clock was ticking, so we cut up the side a lot and made holes in the crowds where there weren’t holes before. Let me reassure you, we weren’t rude, we didn’t cut anyone off or step on toes; we just read the traffic pattern very, very well.  The important thing, we walked under the Soarin’ sign right at 7:00 so all of our hustle was worth it. The line for Soarin’ is amazing, this might seem weird, but I wish we could have spent more time in the queue so we could see everything. The theme of Soarin’ is an airport and it really does feel like you are waiting in line for security or something. There are huge flat panel screens hanging on the walls that show environmental trivia and then pictures of some of the natural wonders of the world. The clarity of the television screens was amazing; you could see every detail of the Grand Canyon or Sahara Desert. The line turned the corner the flat panel screens were replaced by beams of vibrant red and vibrant blue lights, it was very cool. We made it down to the CM who was placing people in the different lines for the hang gliders. He put us in the last 2 seats on the 2^nd row because the first row was full. Stephen and I were really looking forward to sitting in the first row, especially the first time we rode Soarin’. We’ve heard the first row is just unbelievable. The CM walked away since all 3 rows were full and another CM walk down to start filling up the rows in the next section. Stephen got her attention and asked if we could please sit in the first row in her section, she looked at us, asked how many in our party and waved us over. Yea!!! We were so excited and thanked her a million times. You see it’s usually the small stuff that makes people happy.

WOW! WOW! WOW!!! That’s all I can say about Soarin’. It really kicked off our vacation with a bang! This attraction literally took my breath away, it was absolutely amazing. Being in the front row really made everything feel so real. I can still feel the cold chills from feeling the “wind” blow as we flew over the Pacific Ocean and I can still smell the oranges from the orange grove. My favorite part was definitely following the surfer crash into the ocean waves; I would love it if we could feel a little mist here, as your feet dip into the water. I know I’m over emotional, but I have to admit that I did get a little teary-eyed when we came into Disneyland and followed Tinkerbell around Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, just thinking that Walt Disney built that park with his own 2 hands and how much happiness and joy his creations have brought me personally, not to mention the world. It was also amazing as a Christian to fly over the state of California, all I could think about was the beauty of God’s creation and it made me thankful to see it because I’m sure I’ll never get the opportunity to hang glide across the entire state and see it that way for myself. Soarin’ definitely lived up to the hype for me, I give it 2 thumbs way, way, way up. By the way, did anyone see the Hidden Mickey’s? I saw 2. 

After our wonderful ride across California, we decided to start our loop around the World Showcase. The sun had just set and the sky was a purplely blue and the stars were just starting to come out. My favorite time of day in my favorite place on Earth (with my favorite person too!), I can say without a doubt, things in my world were perfect. Stephen and I like to start in Mexico and work our way counter-clock wise around the lagoon. We were planning on ending up back at the World Showcase Plaza to watch Illuminations: Reflections of Earth. Normally, I would stop in Norway at the Kringla Bakeri og Café for my favorite treat, a kringla with almonds, but I was still way too full from Rainforest Café. I wasn’t too worried about it though, this was the first day of a 10 day vacation, I’m sure I’ll get many chances to eat many kringlas! Stephen and I strolled the World Showcase hand in hand, not in hurry, or really looking for anything. We were just enjoying the ambiance of Epcot and being on vacation, Stephen and I are both very laid back and relaxed people. The word “commando” is not in our vocabulary, we do usually hit the parks right at opening, and we ride the big attractions first, but once the biggies are taken care of, we take our time for the rest of the day. Oh, and we’re big believers in taking breaks too, I don’t like the feeling of needing a vacation from my vacation.

Stephen and I were strolling around the World Showcase, Illuminations was getting ready to start in about 15 minutes and the sky was now completely black. We were passing by the little shop right at the start of the World Showcase when a CM grabbed Stephen’s arm, pointed to the sky, and said look. We looked up and saw a very bright light streaking across the black sky. It was too bright to be a shooting star, the CM told us it was a rocket that had just launched from Kennedy Space Center. Watching the rocket break the atmosphere (you could see the fumes from the gases) and watching all the extra launch pieces fall off and burn up was absolutely incredible. Was this vacation off to a start or what?? Between getting an earlier flight, getting a king size room, experiencing Soarin’ when we didn’t know it was even going to be open, and seeing a rocket launch. The rest of the week sure has some big shoes to fill! When we couldn’t see the space shuttle any more, we continued walking to the Plaza to get a seat (or I guess really a stand ) for Illuminations.

Illuminations: Reflections of Earth was incredible, I just love this show. I’m sure I shed a tear or two during the performance (is it a performance if no one actually performs?) because I always do the first time I see it on vacation. After Illuminations Stephen and I took our time leaving Epcot, we usually stay in the Epcot resort area, so we are not used to doing the whole bus thing after Epcot closes. We walked over to Mexico and spent some time in the seating area at Cantina de San Angel. We sat at the tables and just talked and looked out across the lagoon. I knew the All Star busses would be crowded, so we weren’t in a hurry to get out to the bus stop. We waited probably 30 minutes, before heading to the exit, we walked out and turned the corner to the bus stop and made our way to the All Star stop. We both stopped dead in our tracks when we saw the chaos at the All Star resorts bus stop. There were at least 500 hundred people waiting for a bus, every queue was packed full and the line snaked around to the vending machines. Stephen wanted to just get a taxi, but I said no way, I didn’t want any of the outside world to creep into Walt Disney World, plus I didn’t want to pay $50 for a 10 minute ride. So we waited. And Stephen grumbled. And I grumbled at Stephen. At least we didn’t getting a shouting match like 2 men further up in line. We finally wound through the queues and made it up to the bus, I have to give Disney a ton of credit here because they handled this situation very efficiently. There was always a bus sitting at the stop to load people and sometimes they were loading 2 busses at once. There was like 3 minute gap when there was no bus, but then 3 busses pulled up, it took us maybe 30 minutes to wait for the bus, but the wait could have been much, much longer. Once we got seated on the bus, Stephen apologized for having an un-Disney attitude and we both agreed that we would never take a bus at the All Stars at park closing ever again.

We made back to All Stars Music in one piece, we wanted to look around at Melody Hall, but we were both tired from traveling and the excitement of being there that we just walked straight back to our room. The resort was beautiful all lit up, it looked very festive, my favorite part was the fiber-optic lights behind the Jazz Inn sign that changed from blue to white to green. Stephen and I crawled back to our room and crashed on the bed, I think we were both asleep in minutes.

Day 2—Saturday 4/30

The Plan: Magic Kingdom, counter service lunch. PS Rose and Crown 5:00, Epcot for evening.

Reality: Stephen and I both slept in for a little bit this morning; we didn’t get up until around 9:00. We lay in bed for a few minutes before deciding that we couldn’t possibly lie there any longer. The Magic Kingdom and Mickey Mouse were calling our names! Since I take a little longer to get ready in the morning, I got up and got in the shower first. While I was in the shower, Stephen ironed the clothes that we were going to wear that day. Don’t I have a nice husband? When I was finished, Stephen jumped in the shower as I started getting ready. It was already super hot at 8:30 in the morning, but since Stephen and I were used to chilly Ohio weather, the heat was welcomed and didn’t really bother us. After Stephen was ready, we both sat down and a bowl of cereal and a banana in the room. Even though this vacation was a gorge-fest, we were trying to save some calories when we could. After our breakfast, we walked down to the bus stop to go to the Magic Kingdom. I was very excited to be going to Magic Kingdom because first of all it’s the Magic Kingdom—who doesn’t love that park? And second of all, I was excited to see Cinderella Castle in all of her golden 50^th anniversary splendor. We got down to the bus spot and right behind us were 3 men all wearing blue t-shirts with giant X’s on them. There is a private high school in Cincinnati called St. Xavier (different from Xavier University, also in Cincinnati) and the school’s logo is simply the letter X. I asked the men if they were from St. X and it turns out they were. There had been a high school band competition going on in the Magic Kingdom yesterday and they were down in Walt Disney World to perform. Sing with me, “it’s a small world after all, it’s a small, small world”, we talked them for a few minutes while waiting for the bus to come. The bus finally came and we were on our way.

There’s nothing like walking through the gates of the Magic Kingdom and smelling the freshly popped, buttery popcorn. I always take a deep breath at the gates, that’s the best smell in the world. Stephen and I walked across the square and turned to look down Main Street. Cinderella Castle was absolutely beautiful. I loved all of the gold touches—the characters attached to the Castle, the iridescent ribbons shimmering in the breeze, the gold encrusted turrets and I loved, loved, loved the giant mirror hanging in the center of the Castle. I wasn’t sure if I was going to like the mirror, I thought it looked very gaudy in pictures I had seen on the Internet, but in real life it’s beautiful and proportioned just right to the size of the Castle. I really hope the changes stay long after the Disneyland 50^th Anniversary Celebration is over. I took a few pictures of Cinderella Castle from different distances and different views and then it was off to Neverland, well at least Fantasyland. I was in serious “it’s a small world” withdrawals since the attraction was down for rehab during our last 3 vacations, so that’s where we were headed first. Yes, Stephen loves me very much.  We saw that “it’s a small world” only had a 10-minute wait, so we decided to check on Peter Pan’s Flight. Peter Pan is one my favorite attractions, but I wasn’t in the mood to wait 45 minutes to ride it. We turned around and headed back to “it’s a small world”. What wonderful rehab, I know Walt would be proud! The first change I noticed was the giant white clock tower with the gold face against the sapphire blue sky, it was funny because I pointed down and said to Stephen, “look at the clock”, he said “oh yeah, neat” and then started talking about something else. A few minutes later Stephen said “hey is that new”, pointing to the clock tower, when I told him that’s what I pointed out to him a few minutes ago, he told me he just said “oh, neat” but he had no idea what I was talking about. Men!  We made it down to the boats shortly and we were seated at the front of the boat, a perfect location for me to take lots and lots of pictures. The attraction was just beautiful, the dolls are all spruced up in their new duds and the paint on the scenery is vibrant and colorful. The whole attraction looks 110% better and I loved every second of it, Stephen not so much, but he tolerated it for me.

Since we did “it’s a small world” for me, our next attraction was Mickey’s Philharmagic for Stephen, but I love it to. They were seating for the next show immediately, but the previous show had just started, so had to wait for the duration of the show. It’s not a bad wait because they play music and everyone once in a while Minnie Mouse talks to you, plus it’s fun watching all the kids put on their “opera glasses” and be silly. Anytime waiting is done in an air-conditioned building and out of the Florida sun, it doesn’t seem nearly as bad. The lights above the all of the double doors started flashing and the doors began to creep open. We all were herded into the auditorium and got seats for the show. Stephen and I usually try to position ourselves behind a large group of people so we end up in the center of the row and pray there aren’t tall people in front of us. Or at least I pray, since I’m 5’1”. I was in luck this time and I could see the screen perfectly. Mickey’s Philharmagic was great once again; I think this attraction deserves at least 5 stars. From start to finish it is complete Disney magic. Whenever I’m here I always like watching the kid’s reactions to the effects, like the floating “thing-a-mabobs” during The Little Mermaid scene. My favorite part is still Aladdin and Jasmine singing “Part of Your World” as they float along on their magic carpet, until Iago comes and ruins all the fun! Mickey’s Philharmagic is a definite do not miss. After Mickey’s Philharmagic, we decided to do Snow White’s Scary Adventures, not because we particularly like this attraction, we do it more out of nostalgia than any other reason.

We were finished with Fantasyland for now, so we walked over to Tomorrowland to see what trouble we could get into over there. It was about 12:00 and we decided to go ahead and eat an early lunch since we had a PS at Rose and Crown for 5:00 tonight. We both wanted to try Tomorrowland Noodle Station, Stephen loves Chinese food and I’m slowly becoming a convert. All right, all right I’m very quickly becoming a convert. As we were walking into the restaurant (it’s an open air restaurant, the counter and food areas and some tables are covered), I saw people walking out with trays full of food. I suggested to Stephen that the portions looked huge and maybe we share an entrée. I thought about ordering off of the kid’s menu, Stephen told me just get whatever, the portions can’t be that big. We’ll see. I ordered the chicken teriyaki with steamed rice ($6.49) that was the special of the day and I think Stephen ordered the chicken noodle bowl ($7.29). We debated on getting pot stickers, but we knew we’d probably get fish and chips tonight and we wanted to control the deep fried foods, at least a little bit. When the CM gave us our tray, I almost died; there was so much food! We should have definitely shared; there was no way I could eat all of that!! We stopped at the napkin counter and got a ton of soy sauce and the other essentials and went to claim a table in the sun. An added bonus was that Cinderella Castle was just across the little stream from us. What an awesome view. I took a picture of Stephen in front of the Castle and this lady at the table next to us offered to take our picture together. I thought that was very nice, especially since she didn’t want a picture of herself and her husband in return. Picture time was over and we sat down to enjoy our meals. I loved my chicken teriyaki, it was so good, I wish I was hungrier and that I could have eaten more. It was chicken and rice with green and red peppers, onions, carrots, and mushrooms—which I picked out and gave to Stephen because I don’t eat mushrooms, and the whole thing was topped with sesame seeds. I shared some with Stephen, he said he wish he would have gotten that too! He offered me a bite of his chicken noodle bowl, I didn’t want any, but he said it was good. I ate maybe ¼ of my lunch before I got completely stuffed, I think it was all the rice, I ended up just picking out chunks of chicken and veggies and eating them without the rice. Stephen and I both really like Tomorrowland Noodle Station and we would definitely eat here again, it brings a nice change of pace to the restaurant selection at the Magic Kingdom.

Since we were in Tomorrowland, we decided to just go ahead and ride Space Mountain and our favorite the Tomorrowland Transit Authority (TTA). Space Mountain was of course wonderful, it’s still one of my all time favorite coasters, I think because it holds a special place in my heart; Space Mountain was the first roller coaster I’ve ever ridden. I rode with my sister Carla on my first trip to Walt Disney World in August of 1989; I had just turned 11 in July. Stephen and I decided to follow-up the “speed” and excitement of Space Mountain with a leisurely and laid back ride on the TTA. Stephen and I always sit across from each other so we have room to stretch our legs out for a minute. There’s just nothing better than riding above Tomorrowland, feeling the breeze on your cheeks and looking at Cinderella Castle. It was getting close to 2:00 and we wanted to be out of the Magic Kingdom by 2:00, 2:30 at the latest. We had a PS at 5:00 at Rose and Crown in Epcot and we like to take at least an hour break in the afternoon to freshen up—not like we needed one, we didn’t get to Magic Kingdom until 11:00, but bad habits are hard to break. On the way out the door, we stopped for a little competition on Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. Stephen and I usually bet dessert on this ride, whoever gets the most points, gets to pick out dessert at the next meal. I tried my best, but Stephen still whipped my butt. I hope he remembers that I like chocolate!! I don’t remember the score, but it wasn’t close and it wasn’t pretty. We finally left the park after trying to leave for an hour and we made it out of the bus stop without any more detours.

I don’t know if each All Star resort has it’s own bus stop at the Magic Kingdom and we jumped on the bus for All Star Sports because it was the first bus that came, or if Sports is the first stop on the route, but we ended up getting off at All Star Sports. We went into Stadium Hall and into Sport Goofy Gift and Sundries to look around and see what was there. I found a lime green rubber bracelet (like the Livestrong bracelets) with Mickey heads all over it. I had to buy it so I could put it on my backpack, Stephen and I are Diser’s (skfulkers and aladdinsgirl, respectfully), and lime green is the official color of the Disboards. After my major purchase, we decided to take some time to explore the resort. Stephen and I are big football fans, actually we’re huge Pittsburgh Steelers fans, so we had fun recreating some plays on the football field at the Touchdown! buildings. We took some forced perspective pictures that actually look pretty real (and funny) with the pylons and the giant Coca-Cola cup. Picture time was fun and all, but I was ready to sit in an air-conditioned room for a while. We walked up to our room for a short break, I took some pictures of our room, and then we watched the Disney network for about half an hour before getting cleaned up and out the door headed to Epcot. After the bus debacle last night, we decided to drive over to the Boardwalk and valet our car there. I don’t think you could pay me enough money to get on an All Star’s bus at park closing ever again!

We left for the Boardwalk about 4:30, valeted the car and walked into Epcot via the International Gateway. I love entering Epcot through the International Gateway; it’s just so calm and relaxed, an entirely different feeling than the mass chaos at Future World entrance. We got into the United Kingdom a little before 5:00, Stephen checked us in at the podium and we were given a pager. While we were waiting, we sat on a bench and enjoyed the ambiance of the pavilion. After a very short wait, our pager started blinking and we took our pager to the hostess stand, we followed the CM to a very lovely table on the patio. Obviously we weren’t going to wait until Illuminations, but I love eating outside at the Rose and Crown regardless. We’ve eaten at the Rose and Crown 3 times and we haven’t eaten inside the Pub once, I wonder if the atmosphere is as good inside as it is outside.

As soon as Stephen and I were seated, our server came right over to our table, I can’t remember her name, but she was very good. Stephen and I have always had great service in all of the Disney World restaurants, I’m not sure if we’re lucky or just easy to please!! We ordered our drinks and decided on getting the fruit and cheese plate (8.99) for an appetizer. Our drinks came out and right behind them was the cheese plate. The cheese plate was good, but smaller than what I remembered from our last meal here. The cheese and fruit plate consisted of a cheddar cheese, a Stilton cheese, crackers, grapes, and an apple cut into wedges. I thought there was at least 3 or 4 different cheeses, but like I said, it was good, so we didn’t mind. Even though it was 5:00, our server gave us a lunch menu, which was good and bad—the good being that the portions were smaller, therefore I can eat everything and not waste any food. The “bad” was that there were 3 things I wanted to try on the lunch menu (that were not on the dinner menu) and it made my decision much, much harder!! I finally decided to go with the old stand-by of fish and chips (15.99). The lunch portion of fish and chips is one piece of beer battered cod (instead of two); french fries, and peas, which I gave to Stephen because I hate peas. Stephen ordered the cottage pie (11.99), which is only on the lunch menu, there is a pie sampler served at dinner. Oh my gosh! I wish I ordered this—it was SO good. The cottage pie was shredded beef with carrots and topped with mashed potatoes and cheddar cheese, it was served with green beans. I was seriously coveting Stephen’s dinner; I tried to get him trade with me, but no way. The next time we eat at Rose and Crown, I am SO getting the cottage pie!! We declined on getting dessert from the Rose and Crown, the only place we get dessert from a restaurant in Epcot is San Angel Inn in Mexico. We usually get our dessert from somewhere along the World Showcase Lagoon, usually at Boulangerie Patisserie in France. We heaved ourselves up from our table and made our way back out to the World Showcase, deciding to get into Future World and start our touring in Mexico.

Stephen and I stopped in Mexico to a preview of tomorrow’s lunch. We are both big fans of San Angel Inn, I’ve heard some bad reviews of this restaurant, but it’s one my favorite places to eat in Walt Disney World. Maybe it’s because we’re not known for our Mexican cooking in Ohio, or maybe I just get caught up in the atmosphere, but Stephen and I have eaten here 10 times in the last 4 ½ years and we haven’t had a bad meal yet. We walked into the pavilion and we were greeted with the smell of roasting peppers and sautéing onions, I can’t be certain, but I think my stomach may have growled a little bit.  Stephen indulged me and we rode El Rio del Tiempo, I thoroughly enjoyed it; he did not. My sweet tooth was starting to rear its ugly head, so we continued on our quest for the perfect dessert. For the life of me, I have no idea why we didn’t go to Kringla Bakeri og Café in Norway for a kringla, one of my favorite snacks in Walt Disney World. I must not have been in the mood for a sweet pretzel, usually when I have a craving for an after dinner snack (as opposed to a snack at any other time), I crave chocolate. We walked down to France, but the line for Boulangerie Patisserie was out the door and creeping toward Bistro de Paris. What to do, what to do? In a moment of pure genius, I suggested to Stephen that we walk out to the Boardwalk and check out the Boardwalk Bakery. It was only 7:30, we had plenty of time to get dessert and make it back into Epcot for Illuminations. So out the International Gateway we went, crossing our fingers that we would find the dessert that would hit the spot.

There were so many choices at the Boardwalk Bakery!! How could we ever make a decision? We finally decided on splitting a chocolate peanut butter cheesecake and a bottle of water. Yes, it was as good as it sounds!! The piece of cheesecake was huge! It had to be at least 6 inches long and probably 4 inches wide, it was covered with chocolate and then peanut butter whipped cream. Stephen handed me the plate, that piece of cake weight a ton! I couldn’t wait to dig in!! We found a bench on the Boardwalk looking out over Crescent Lake and enjoyed our dessert, and yes, it did hit the spot!! When we finished eating, I called my sister Jessica at school and rubbed in that I was sitting on the Boardwalk and she was studying for finals. Jessica was not amused. After our phone conversation, Stephen and I just sat on the bench, I swear we went into a sugar coma; it’s a good thing we had a bottle of water to drink and not a pop. I don’t know who suggested it first, but one of us suggested that we just go back to the resort early and blow off Illuminations for tonight. I don’t think we have ever missed a nighttime show at Disney, but we were so unmotivated to get up and back into Epcot. We slowly got up (I think Stephen had to pull me up) and we made our back to the Boardwalk resort valet to pick our car up. We made back to the resort shortly. But are we supposed to do now? It wasn’t even 9:00, it’s not like we can go to bed this early, Stephen suggested that we go for a swim. I do not like swimming at night, unless it’s really, really hot. I realize that the pools are heated, but the night air is not. I told Stephen that I would sit at the pool with him if he wanted to swim, but I was not getting in the water. Stephen changed into trunks and then we walked down to the Guitar Pool. The pool was mobbed with teenagers who were being a little unruly—so glad I didn’t have to chaperone any of them! Stephen decided that he didn’t want to get in the water with so many people, but we went ahead and got 2 lounge chairs and enjoyed sitting by the pool and watching the antics. Stephen went to the pool bar and to get us 2 drinks, I don’t know what he had, but I got a virgin strawberry daiquiri. The strawberry syrup in the daiquiri was so strong; I thought for sure there was rum in it. Stephen swore to me that there was no alcohol in my drink, but agreed that it was very strong. While we were lying in our lounge chairs, sipping our frozen beverages, we heard a huge boom and we could see the reflection of the Illuminations fireworks in the windows of the Calypso buildings. I had no idea that the All Stars resorts were that close to Epcot. We stayed at the pool until about 9:45 before heading up to our room to pack up for our move to Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa tomorrow morning. I was really concerned that we were going to have a hard time getting to sleep tonight. The noise at the pool was pretty high and we were close to the Guitar Pool, as we were standing outside our door, unlocking it, I could hear people screaming. But as soon as we went in and shut the door, we didn’t hear a sound. We got our stuff together before heading off to la-la land at 11:00.

Day 3—Sunday 5/1

The Plan: Check out of All Star Music, PS Whispering Canyon Café 10:40. Check into Saratoga Springs, head over to MGM—evening extra magic hours, PS Mama Melrose 6:30 for Fantasmic dinner package.

Reality: After our relaxing and early night last, we both up before 8:00 and got ready for the day pretty quickly. Packing up last night really saved us a lot of time. There had been a thunderstorm at 3:00 in the morning, so everything was very wet, the sky was overcast and it was actually chilly. I considered changing into jeans or at least a long sleeved shirt, but just kept my shorts on because I knew the day would warm up, eventually. Today was the in-line skating marathon, so some of the roads on property were closed, we were fully expecting to be sitting in traffic for a while this morning. The plan was to drive over to Saratoga Springs, check-in, park our car at the resort and take a bus to MGM. Since it was 8:30 in the morning, obviously our studio villa would not be ready. Stephen packed the car back up (I’m not allowed to help, that’s man’s work—insert rolling eyes here) and we waved goodbye to the All Star Music resort. We turned onto the main road (my apologies as I have no idea what road is what) and we were greeted with stopped traffic. Since we live in Cincinnati, traffic is nothing new to us; it doesn’t seem nearly as stressful when you’re on vacation. After a short delay we were able to get through the traffic light that was blocked for the marathon and we were on our way to Saratoga Springs.

I was really excited to be staying at Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa; Stephen was a little apprehensive (okay, I was a little too). Stephen and I both love staying at the Boardwalk Villas or the Beach Club Villas because of their proximity to Epcot and because there’s always so much going on. The studios at the Boardwalk, Beach Club, and Old Key West were all booked, so that left us with either Saratoga Springs or the Villas of the Wilderness Lodge. While I love the Wilderness Lodge, I’m not a huge fan of the Villas, so that left us with Saratoga Springs. We weren’t sure if we would be fans of Saratoga Springs because of its somewhat isolated location. Granted it’s a 10-minute walk to Downtown Disney and it’s a bus ride away from everything else, but we were used to being able to see the Eiffel Tower in France from our room. I wanted to make the most of the this vacation, so I started looking up pictures of the resort on-line and reading different threads on the disboards, trying to get excited, hoping we would like the resort, not knowing that we would end up loving it.

We pulled into the resort and beautiful yellow flowers and green vegetation greeted us. Stephen and I came over to Saratoga Springs when we were in Walt Disney World in December with my family, but it was so cold that we didn’t really get a chance to look around and enjoy the resort. We pulled up in front of the dusty mauve Carriage House, walked into the lobby and saw that there weren’t any other guests checking in. There were 2 CM’s at the front desk, I believe it was Michael who checked us in, we had a little bit of a problem, but Michael took care of it immediately. Stephen rented the points from a DVC member, but the reservation was made in Stephen’s name, we knew this because we had the letter from DVC and because Stephen called on Thursday to reconfirm the reservation. We gave the CM our name, no reservation, we gave the CM the DVC member’s name, no reservation; at this point I was starting to get a little nervous. Fortunately Stephen had the confirmation letter with him, Michael punched in the confirmation number and bingo! there was our reservation, it was under Stephen’s name, so I don’t know why it wasn’t coming up, but at least we someplace to stay for the next 5 nights. Michael then pulls out a map of the resort and tells us it’s time to pick our studio. What? Apparently at Saratoga Springs and Old Key West rooms are not assigned previous to checking in, when you check in, you pick your room, so it’s a good idea to check in as early as possible. I had no idea. So Michael shows us all of the available studios and tells what view each villa had. He’s going through them and all of sudden I heard the magic words “this one’s ready now”, I stopped him and asked, “did you say this one was ready now”? Stephen and I looked at each other and said, we’ll take that studio. How awesome was it to be able to get into our room at 9:30 in the morning?? Michael gave us our room keys and all of the paper work, including a map of the resort and sent us on our way.

We jumped in our car in search of our building, I know we were in room #2736, but I can’t remember what building it was. As we were driving through the resort, Stephen and I both commented on how it felt like we were driving through a small town, it didn’t feel like a condominium complex to us at all. We both really liked how all of the buildings were painted either a dusty mauve, mint green, or a pale golden yellow. The construction didn’t bother us either, to be perfectly honest, we didn’t even notice it, but we live in a new neighborhood that is in building phase 3, so we’re pretty used to construction noises and equipment all over the place. We found our building, it was the same pink as the Carriage House, we walked over the elevator and hit 3, well because our studio was on the 3^rd floor. I really like the open air corridors at Saratoga Springs, the corridors are covered, but at the end of each hallway, a large window is cut into the building. It’s nice because you have luxury of having your front door enclosed; yet there is always fresh air when you open the door. We really like not having the stale air and the smells of other people’s food every time we opened our door.

We opened the door and the first thing we noticed was that the door connecting the studio to the one-bedroom villa (thus making it a 2-bedroom) was right next to the front door. That’s really nice because it gives you more wall and floor space, all of the other villas we’ve stayed has the connecting door by the balcony and if you are renting a 2-bedroom you basically lose that space because you need to keep the area clear to be able to open the door. The first word that came to mind when our studio was: home, it’s decorated like home. Not my home exactly, but all the furniture looked so comfy and the colors were so muted and calming that it felt like we were a guest in someone’s home. When you walk into a studio, there is a kitchenette on your right and the bathroom area on the left. The kitchenette consists of a small refrigerator and a microwave along with a cabinet full of paper plates and plastic cutlery. The countertop in the kitchen area and the countertop in bathroom were the same; it was a very dark charcoal gray with flecks of cream, sage green, and black. It was a very nice countertop, I believe it was marble, but I’m not exactly an expert in countertops, but I do know it wasn’t Formica. The cabinets in the kitchenette were a deep sage green; it complimented the dusty pink/peach of the walls perfectly. The bathroom area on the left of the room was a sink with cream trim, the toilet and bathtub were separated in their own room, and the shower curtain was peach and white striped with green paisley. The effect was very calming and subdued.

Past the kitchenette and bathroom area was the “bedroom”, all the furniture in the room (bed, television armoire, nightstand, and table and chairs) were all a very dark cherry. The darkness of the furniture looked great in the light color palette of the room. The bedspread looked like a patchwork quilt in sage, pink, peach, and cream; some the squares where plaid, some had large flowers on them, and others had tiny flowers on them. The couch in the room was sage and cream diamonds with yellow flowers in each diamond; the pillows on the couch were yellow with peach flowers. The leather ottoman in front of the couch was sage and it had a cherry breakfast tray on top, which was the same wood as the furniture. The table and chairs were again cherry with sage green upholstery and peach flowers. We a nice view from our balcony, although it wasn’t “an obstructive view of Downtown Disney” like Michael (I hope that was his name!) told us. But honestly, we didn’t mind especially after seeing how the bright the searchlights are at Pleasure Island. We had a view of some type of waterway, a tree line and then the tops of other Saratoga Spring buildings. We also had a hidden Mickey on the wall right next to our balcony made up of the siding going the opposite direction. All in all we were very pleased with our studio and Stephen and I were both quickly becoming Saratoga Springs converts. Stephen and I decided to take a walk around the resort and explore the grounds a little bit, tonight was the extra magic hours for MGM, so we weren’t in a huge hurry to get there because it would be open until midnight. The walk around the grounds turned Stephen and I into Saratoga Spring lovers. We walked over to the quiet pool that overlooks Downtown Disney; I especially loved the row of rocking chairs pointed towards Downtown Disney. Next we walked over to the main pool, High Rock Spring Pool, the pool was very large, at least it looked large because it was empty. The only person in the pool area was the lifeguard. The pool was a zero depth entry on one side, which I love, I don’t usually swim, but sometimes I put my feet in when I’m hot from laying out. With zero depth I can go as deep as I want to cool off and not have to hang out on the pool steps. There is a water slide here as well as a baby water slide, which I thought was just the cutest thing I have ever seen. Next to the pool is an interactive water area for kids, there is a Donald Duck fountain in the middle and then water spouts all over the floor of the play area, in back of the play area is a wall of rocks and a water fall. The hot tub at High Rock Spring is the opposite side of the pool as the kid’s area, up a landing and hidden behind rocks and plants. There is a sign stating that the spa has free flowing water and since the water is circulating there isn’t the germ problem that occurs in most hot tubs. This is the first hot tub I have actually gotten in in over 3 years, I was trusting that the free flowing water thing was true.  After we toured the pool, Stephen and I went to check out the spa and exercise area. Wow. That is all I can say about the amount of and the quality of the exercise equipment. There were probably 10 treadmills, 5 stair climbers, 5 stationary bikes, 2 rows of weightlifting machines, racks of free weights and an area to do ab work complete with the ab ball. We were amazed.

Stephen and I decided that we wanted to workout, that fitness room was just too tempting, yes we like to exercise, we know that we are weird. We walked back to our studio to change our clothes (grabbing our swimsuits) and then walked back to the spa. I did 30 minutes on the treadmill and then about 30 minutes of weightlifting on the machines. I think Stephen did about 45 minutes on the treadmill and about 35 minutes of lifting free weights. After our workout, we went into the locker rooms, which by the way, are very, very nice, to change into our swimsuits. We got down to the pool and Stephen decides that he is hungry, must have been all of that running!! I wasn’t very hungry, but I knew I would be later, so we decided to just split something from the Artist’s Palette, Stephen went to get something, I told him to get whatever. Stephen was gone forever and since it was still overcast and chilly, I couldn’t even work on my suntan! The lifeguard probably thought I was nuts for sitting in a lounge chair at the pool in my bathing suit all huddled over trying to get warm. Stephen finally came out with a club wrap and 2 bags of chips for us to share; it took so long because everything is made to order. The wrap was okay, nothing to write home about, but certainly not bad either. After lunch, Stephen convinced me to get in the water, because you know the water is heated. I was in for a total of maybe 5 minutes before I bailed and headed for the hot tub. At that point I could care less about germs and viruses, I just wanted to get warm! Stephen came in and we stayed in for the duration of the timer, I’m guessing about 20 minutes. The hot tub warmed us up enough that we were okay to walk back to our studio in our cover-ups and not freeze to death.

We got back to the studio, stopping by the car to get the rest of our luggage before going up to the studio to take showers and get cleaned up. It was about 2:30 by the time we got into MGM, and let me be completely honest here, I have no idea what we did. I don’t take many pictures at MGM and that’s how I remember everything, the pictures trigger my memories. And trust me, when writing a trip report 5 months after the trip; I need those pictures to trigger my memory! So I can guess what we did, but I don’t know for certain. Since it was so late in the day and tonight was the extra magic hours, we saved the Tower and Terror and Rock and Roller Coaster for later tonight. I think we may have ridden the Great Movie Ride and then the Muppets 3-D, but who knows.  We did stop at Guest Services to get our bracelets for the evening extra magic hours. I know we did check into Mama Melrose at 6:30 for our Fantasmic dinner package. I was really glad that we had a PS, since the CM’s were turning away walk-ups.

I really like eating at Mama Melrose’s and the Fantasmic dinner package is a really good deal. There are 3 restaurants that participate, each restaurant has a flat rate (Mama Melrose is $28.99 a person) and there are certain items that you can order. At Mama Melrose you get a salad, a flatbread to share, dinner entrée, and individual desserts, so it can really be a good deal. Stephen and I started with a garden salad and bread, we then chose the grilled pepperoni flatbread, the flatbread had pepperoni, green peppers, onions, and cheese on it. It was very good, but I was already getting full. For dinner I had the spicy Italian sausage, it was okay, I wish I had ordered something else because it wasn’t knock your socks off wow. The dish was rigatoni pasta with Italian sausage, green peppers, and onions in a tomato sauce and topped with caprino cheese. I didn’t eat a quarter of if before throwing the towel in, it was just too much food. Stephen ordered his old standby, the charred butcher tender steak; it’s served with roasted red pepper polenta and asparagus. Stephen really liked the steak and of course cleaned his plate. The service was okay, our server was good, it was actually the same person we had the last time we dined here, but we were seated next to a large party that was somewhat demanding, so are little party of 2 got a little looked over. We had finished our meal and were just waiting for her come over and take our dessert order and give us the check. By this time it was 7:15 and we only had 30 minutes to get to Fantasmic before all of the reserved seating for the dining packages are released. Every time our server started to come to our table, the party would grab her arm and say they needed this or that, it was very annoying. The party finally left at 7:25 and the server came over to us, to see if we needed anything. We told her we wanted the tiramisu to go, 2 cappuccinos, and the check because we needed to get out of there. She brought the check and the tiramisu right out, but took forever getting our cappuccinos and processing the check. I think we finally got out of there at 7:40; we both took off running towards the Hollywood Hills Amphitheatre. You know, I don’t know if I’ll be in such a hurry to eat at Mama Melrose for a while. The food was okay, but the service wasn’t that great, I know our server had a large party and was doing the best she could, but someone should have noticed that she as struggling (or she should have spoken up) and helped her out. It’s not fair to basically ignore parties of 2 or 3 just because you have a party of 10 or 15. To leave my review on a positive note, the tiramisu was awesome and Stephen and I really enjoyed eating it while waiting for Fantasmic to start.

Fantasmic was wonderful, like always. It was nice to watch the show and not worry about taking pictures, I’ve learned after lots of trial and error, that unless you have a very good camera, it’s really hard to get decent pictures of Fantasmic.  After the show, we followed the hordes of people out of the Amphitheatre and out onto Sunset Blvd. Everyone was turning towards the exit and Stephen and I made our way over to Rock and Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith. I love the evening extra hours! Rock and Roller Coaster is one of my favorite attractions in Walt Disney World, right behind Splash Mountain and Peter Pan’s Flight. It’s a fun little ride, that really gets the adrenalin pumping and getting to listen to Aerosmith isn’t too bad either. When we walked off Rock and Roller Coaster, Stephen and I headed straight to The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. We had such a good time on that ride, that we rode it again. Walking into the gift shop after riding Rock and Roller Coaster once and Tower of Terror twice, we were both feeling woozy; I guess we’re starting to show our age! We looked around in the shop for a minute, Stephen found a book of scripts for the first season of The Twilight Zone, he bought that for his dad for Father’s Day (Dave is a huge Twilight Zone fan) and we both decided to leave MGM. We walked out to the bus stop, thankfully we didn’t have long to wait for a bus, I love that Saratoga Springs has their own bus. We made back to the resort quickly and went straight up to our studio and to bed. For the record, the beds at Saratoga Springs are VERY comfy!!

Day 4—Monday 5/2

The Plan: Epcot, PS San Angel Inn 12:00. Magic Kingdom in evening, counter service for dinner

Reality: This morning was Epcot’s extra magic hour, while we didn’t want to get there right at 8:00; we definitely wanted to be in the park before the gates opened at 9:00. We were woken by an alien at 7:30, I like Stitch, but I really miss those Mickey Mouse wake-up calls! We were ready and out the door at 8:20 and were walking in to Epcot’s main gate by 8:45. The park was dead this morning, which was prefect, just what we were hoping for. I stood up by the information/tip board trying to see if people were walking to The Land, nothing was mentioned about Soarin’ being open for the extra magic hour. While I was standing guard, Stephen walked back to Test Track to get fastpasses. I saw people walking toward The Land, but not running or acting excited, we decided to press our luck and started walking back toward Soarin’. We were in luck, Soarin’ was open and we walked right on, the ride was even better this time because it wasn’t nearly as overwhelming. There’s just so much to look at and see, you can’t possibly take it all in the first time you ride it. We got off of Soarin’, saw there was no line, so we jumped on again. Awesome, I really, really love this attraction. We wanted to ride it again, but it was after 9:00 and Epcot was now officially open for business. Our fastpass time wasn’t available yet, so we headed over to Mission: Space. I like Mission: Space, but I can only ride it once per trip. It doesn’t make me sick or anything, I just can’t handle it multiple times. The themeing of this attraction is awesome and the flight is very realistic, just know that it’s not for the faint of heart.

By the time we did Mission: Space, our fastpasses for Test Track became valid. Test Track is a fun little ride, perfect for the whole family. It’s calm enough for those who aren’t big on thrills and it’s fast enough for the thrill seekers in your group. It always make me giggle to myself when I see people who are scared to go on Test Track because they think it’s a thrill ride. The top speed of Test Track is 65 mph, I’m pretty sure I drive faster than that on the highway every day, it’s just like riding in a convertible with your 5 best friends.

It was almost 11:00 and almost time for the World Showcase to open up. We spent the 20 minutes or so taking pictures around Space Ship Earth and the International Flower and Garden Festival sign. The park was still empty and there aren’t any extra people in our pictures, it looks like were there all by ourselves. All I have to say is thank goodness for camera timers and mini tripods, both got quite the workout on this vacation. There was a line people waiting for the World Showcase to open, I guess there are other people out there who love it as much as Stephen and I do. Once CM’s dropped the rope, everyone walked into the World Showcase and spread out, so once again it was just Stephen and I. There were quite a few times on this trip when we felt like we were in a ghost town, however there were some moments when we definitely knew that people were around!! The plan this morning was to just enjoy the World Showcase; take some time to explore the pavilions and take pictures of the International Flower and Garden Festival exhibits. We started in Canada with the Bambi display, which ended up being my favorite display. It was so neat how they made Bambi, Thumper, and Flower entirely out of flowers and plants. It was amazing, because it was very obvious whom the display was supposed to be, you didn’t have to squint or look at it from different angles to try to figure it out or ask people around you “what in the world is that?”.

We didn’t have an agenda today, other than lunch at San Angel Inn and wanting to see Voices of Liberty and American Vybe at the American Adventure. That’s the nice thing about having annual passes, you can be in a park for only a few hours and not feel like you are wasting a day on your pass. I don’t know what we are going to do once we stop buying AP’s! It was a little before 12:00, so we decided to walk over to Mexico and check in a little early for our PS at San Angel Inn. Stephen checked us in at the podium and I spent the time looking in the shops in the pavilion, the little jewelry shop on the right hand side is one of my favorite shops. We waited for a few minutes before our pager was buzzed and we were directed to our table. I was a little sad that we weren’t seated at “our” table. Almost every single meal we eat here, Stephen and I are seated at the little table right next to the service cart. At first it got annoying because the table is SO small and I kept getting dripped on from the rags used to clean the tables. But then it became funny that we always are seated there, I kind of miss that little table. Stephen and I were seated at a 4-top pretty much in the center of the room, while we had plenty of room at the table, but we had to suck in to make it to the table. Good thing we lost weight!!

As soon as we were seated, our waitress came right over to take our drink orders. We didn’t really need much time to look over the menu, since we always get the same thing: Stephen gets the plato Mexicano and I get the nachos de pollo. There are lots of entrees that look yummy, but for some reason, we just order the same things again and again. When the CM brought over our drinks, we placed our orders; can you guess what we got? I’m kind of a picky eater and ordered my nachos without tomatoes and jalapenos. Stephen and I were enjoying our nachos and salsa, relaxing in the peaceful ambience of the restaurant—in short being on vacation. Our server came over with our meals and sat them down in front of us; my nachos were covered with tomatoes and jalapenos. Ugh. I can pick off the jalapenos with no problems, but tomatoes that are wet and diced into tiny pieces I just can’t do. The server was apologetic, but asked if it were okay that there were tomatoes, I asked her to please get a new order of nachos because I hate tomatoes. What if I were allergic to tomatoes? She came back out with a new order of nachos (or they picked through and got the tomatoes off in the kitchen ) and I was all set. I love the nachos de pollo, by far my favorite entrée at San Angel Inn and one of my favorite things to eat in Walt Disney World. I love the mixture of flavors: the saltiness of the tortilla chips, the creamy cheese, the bite of the chorizo and the smokiness of the chicken—it’s just a great combination. Of course I didn’t come close to finishing my lunch, the portion is just way too big. Stephen helped me out a little, but we still didn’t eat more than half of the nachos. I was stuffed, but there’s always room for dessert, right? Our waitress came over to clear our plates and to ask if we would like a dessert. Stephen told her, we don’t even need a dessert menu, we knew that we wanted the chocolate chimi-changa. Then we heard the bad news: the chocolate chimi-changa is no longer on the menu!!! NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That’s my favorite dessert in Walt Disney World, maybe my all-time favorite dessert. How in the world can it possibly be gone? Has the world gone mad?? Stephen and I were really disappointed to hear this, we asked for a dessert menu to see if something else caught our eye, but nothing. After we paid for lunch, we pulled ourselves up and made our way out to the bright sunshine.

Even though I was full from lunch, I still needed something sweet, Mexican food seems to do that to me. Stephen needed a little sweetness too, so we decided to split a kringla from the Kringla Bakeri og Café in Norway. I am so addicted to kringlas, when we were on vacation in December, I ate 3 in a week, they are best dessert. Or lunch or dinner or snack. We got our kringla and sat on a bench in China to enjoy our dessert. Since we didn’t have any major plans for that day, we decided to walk over to the American Adventure and catch the Voices of Liberty. I love American Vybe, but they were in the process of converting to Epcot Vybe and they weren’t performing in the rotunda anymore. So we had to settle for Voices of Liberty, which isn’t a settlement at all, since they are wonderful too. Stephen and I got a nice comfy spot sort of close to the front (you can’t get too close or you get picked to do things) and waited for Voices of Liberty to come out. The sets last about 10-15 minutes and they sing 4 or 5 American folk songs like “Oh, Shenandoah” and “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”; it’s really interesting to hear the background of these songs that are classics. After the performance, we decided to go into the American Adventure. I love the American Adventure, I make it a point to see it at least once, sometimes twice a trip, but I knew I would fall asleep during the show since I was full from lunch and it was dark and cool in the theatre. Yep, I fell sound asleep in the first few minutes of the show, but thankfully woke up during the “Golden Dreams” song, so I had time to wake up before the lights came on. I didn’t want to look like an unpatriotic bum!  After the American Adventure, Stephen and I caught one more Voices of Liberty show before heading back to Saratoga Springs for a relaxing afternoon by the pool. It was very warm this afternoon and a dip in the pool sounded awesome.

We made our way to the front of the park and shortly found ourselves in our studio changing into bathing suits. The pool was crowded today and it took us a while to find 2 lounge chairs together. Once we finally found 2, we set up camp and then Stephen jumped in the pool while I concentrated on my suntan. I tried to read while tanning, but ended up just falling asleep, I vaguely remember Stephen coming back, but I was sound asleep. I woke up about 45 minutes later burning up and got up to take a dip in the pool to cool off, it has to be super hot for me to get in a pool. While I was in the pool, Stephen woke up and came over to cool off in the water too. We decided to head back to the studio in a few minutes to get cleaned up and then back to the Magic Kingdom for the evening extra magic hours. The only thing I didn’t love about Saratoga Springs is that the High Rock Springs pool is kind of far from the rooms. Not too far that the walk was uncomfortable by any means, but I’m guessing the pool was about 1 mile from our studio and walking a mile in bathing suits and sandals isn’t the most fun thing in the world. If we would have had kids or had a studio that was any further out, I think we would have definitely driven our car to the pool.

I think Stephen and I made it back to the Magic Kingdom around 5:00, in plenty of time to hit Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion before getting seats in front of Ye Old Christmas Shoppe for the Spectro Magic Light Parade. The parade was at 7:00, so we sat down right around 6:00, I never mind waiting to see Spectro Magic, to me that is the essence of Walt Disney World. While we were waiting for the parade, Stephen went to get us some snacks, I was still pretty full from lunch, but a little something might be good. Stephen came back with 2 soft pretzels and a couple of waters, it was the perfect “dinner”—light, but filling. About half way through my pretzel, I started getting terrible heartburn, heartburn so bad that the first time I had it; I honestly thought I was maybe having a heart attack. I think the heartburn was my gall bladder because I wasn’t used to having any fat (not counting vacation, I was keeping my calories to about 1100 a day and only 25 grams of fat). I took some Zantac I had in my backpack and drank tons of water because that seems to alleviate the pain, but I was still miserable for the next hour or so. Yes, I was sick for Spectro.  I spent the whole parade with legs drawn up to my chest (pressure on my chest seemed to make me feel better) and my head down on my arms. I know people were wondering if I was okay and why I was sitting curled up in a ball during the parade. When Spectro Magic was over and we stood to make our way to the Hub for Wishes, Stephen asked if I wanted to head back to the resort, but I decided to stick it out for Wishes. Thankfully by the time Wishes started, my medicine kicked in and I felt 100 percent better, I could actually stand up straight. I guess my body just isn’t used to junk food any more and I had better be a little more careful or I would ruin the rest of our vacation. Wishes was wonderful, like always, I think Wishes is a thousand times better than Fantasy in the Sky ever was. I mean if a firework show can bring a tear to your eye, that has to be magical. Right?

Stephen and I never rush out of any park at closing, but we especially never do it at the Magic Kingdom. In my opinion, that’s just asking for a headache. The Hub was still pretty congested, so we decided to hang out on Main Street for a few minutes to let some of the crowd disperse. Stephen asked if I was in the mood for ice cream (hello, ice cream is my favorite food and I haven’t had it for over 4 months) and since Zantac is a miracle drug, we headed into the Plaza Ice Cream Parlor. At first we were going to share a cone, but Stephen really wanted mint chocolate chip and I really wanted cookies and cream, so we ended up getting 2 cones. We each ordered one scoop, but I swear the CM put 2 or 3 scoops in each sugar cone. I couldn’t believe how huge the ice cream was; I think my eyes popped out of my head when I saw the size. We took our cones outside and since we were in the ice cream parlor for so long because of the long line, the Hub and Main Street had really cleared out. We took our cones up to the benches in front of Cinderella Castle and ate our ice cream while we watched the Castle change colors. While we were sitting there we were able to see the elusive kiss goodnight, once it was over, we took it as cue to leave. We made a pit stop at the Emporium to buy a jacket that I saw earlier and really liked. The days were very warm—in the 80’s, but I thought the nights were a little chilly, at least for me, with lows in the 60’s. After we bought the jacket, we continued down Main Street and out to the bus stop. The bus for Saratoga Springs came quickly and within a few minutes, we were back in our studio and getting ready for bed. Lights out a little after midnight and we both fell fast asleep.

Day 5—Tuesday 5/3

The Plan: Blizzard Beach, PS Boma 5:00, Epcot evening extra magic hours.

Reality: We wanted to get to Blizzard Beach right at park opening in order to get chairs in Melt Away Bay, can you tell I’m really missing the ocean?? Since we bought our tickets at Saratoga Springs when we checked in on Sunday morning, we able to get right in line. There was only about a 15-20 minute wait to get in the gates and we passed the time by watching people putting on sunscreen. I knew there were going to be some pretty bad burns today because some of the people there were snow white. When the gates opened around 9:30 Stephen and I followed the same drill as the last time we came here, I took the towels and walked over the to Melt Away Bay section to wait for the rope drop while Stephen took the backpack and rented a locker for it. Stephen was able to get a locker quickly so he was only a couple of minutes behind me. We were the second group to the rope and got up right against it. The CM working the rope was awesome; she played trivia games with the kids and told us little known facts about Blizzard Beach. It made the 20-minute wait for the rope drop go by very quickly. Once the park was officially open, Stephen and I made our way to the lounge chairs; we found 2 in the second row right in the middle of the wave pool. We set down our stuff and walked over to the ski lift to get to the top of Mount Gushmore. Now I will never do Summit Plummet again (read my Oct 2004 trip report), but Stephen loves it and I love Teamboat Springs, so the plan was for both of us to go up Mount Gushmore, Stephen would do Summit Plummet while I waited and then Stephen would come back up and we’d do Teamboat Springs together. We normally do the single rider line on the ski lift, but since the park had just opened and there wasn’t a line, we rode on the lift together.

Once we got to the top, Stephen continued up the steps to Summit Plummet and I walked around the back of the slide to stand on an over hang that looked out across the park. From my vantage point, I could see Stephen sliding down the slide, I could also see pretty much all of Walt Disney World. I was really wishing that I had my camera with me because it was an incredible view from up there. Stephen came back up Mount Gushmore and we continued on to Teamboat Springs. I love Teamboat Springs, but one thing that annoys me is when they put different parties together. I understand that they want to get as many people through as possible and if there are 2 parties of 2, then you’re going together, but I hate being in the inner tub with people you don’t know, sitting Indian style in your bathing suit and making small talk while you’re waiting for the fun stuff to start. And then when you get off, there are 3 or 4 photographers taking your pictures. 1. I don’t want a picture of myself in a bathing suit dripping wet. 2. I don’t want a picture of myself in a bathing suit dripping wet with a bunch of strangers. But despite all of that, Teamboat Springs is my favorite thing to do at Blizzard Beach and I could ride it again and again.

With the 2 biggies out of the way, we could relax and enjoy Blizzard Beach. My favorite “attraction” in Blizzard Beach (other than Teamboat Springs) is the Cross Country Creek; I could spend hours in there on an inner tube. But before we completely relaxed, Stephen wanted to do Runoff Rapids a couple of times. We walked over to Runoff Rapids, grabbed our inner tub (well Stephen grabbed the inner tube) and started the long trek up to the top. Why can’t we have a chair lift here? When we got our slide and started to get in our tube, the CM made me get in front and Stephen in the back. I was NOT down with that. I’m not a big fan of water and I HATE to go under and a lot of times the front person will go under when you hit the water. I don’t understand what the big deal is, we’ve done other slides before and I’ve always sat behind Stephen. Somehow during the ride down, we got ourselves turned around so that Stephen was in front and I was in the back (good thing too because when we hit the water, Stephen indeed went under). The only bad part was that we were working so hard to get turned around; we didn’t get to enjoy the ride. We thought about doing it again, but didn’t want to walk up all those steps again and then to have to deal with the slide Nazi (no ride for you!).

We wanted to have an early lunch today, since we were having dinner at Boma at 5:00, so after hitting all those slides, we headed over to Lottawatta Lodge a little after 11:00. On the way, we stopped at Frosty the Joe Man for frozen coffees (my addiction for this trip, I had at least one every day), I got the mocha freeze and it was wonderful, I’m not sure what Stephen got, but I know it wasn’t a mocha freeze, because he was jealous of mine! After our coffee detour, we continued on to Lottawatta Lodge for some gourmet cuisine (did you notice the sarcasm?). Stephen and I ended up sharing a turkey sandwich and chips, it was okay, nothing exciting or memorable, just your basic turkey sandwich. With lunch taken care of, it was time for my favorite part of the day: the Cross Country Creek. I think we stayed in the Cross Country Creek for well over an hour, sometimes we laid in the inner tubes and just floated, other times, we “ran” in the water with the tubes around us racing. The lazy river wasn’t too crowded this afternoon, so we really had a great time.

We knew that we needed to leave Blizzard Beach between 2:00-2:30 so we would have enough time to get back to Saratoga Springs, get cleaned up, and then over to Animal Kingdom Lodge for our 5:00 PS at Boma. Knowing this, we reluctantly got out of Cross Country Creek at about 1:00 to give us some drying out/tanning time. Stephen took a little nap while tanning, but it was too hot for me to just lay in the sun, so I went to the “shore” of Melt-Away Bay and sat in one of short chairs, so I could tan and keep my feet in the cool water. While I sat there, I thought about our trip so far and about past trips Stephen and I had taken. We both know how fortunate we are to be able to vacation at Walt Disney World at all, let alone 2-3 times a year. Trust me, we don’t it for granted, we know how we blessed we are. At 2:00, Stephen came over and sat by me in a chair and we stayed there talking until we knew we had to leave in order to make it to Boma on time. I am normally not a huge fan of water parks, but for some reason today I just didn’t want to leave. Since we drove over to Blizzard Beach that morning, we were back at Saratoga in no time at all. Stephen and I jumped in the shower (separately, thank you very much) and got ready for our big night out.

I love Boma. No, I adore Boma. It is one of my favorite places to eat and I’m not the most adventurous eater, although I am getting better. There are so many different foods to try and if you happen to get something you don’t like, just leave it on your plate. Some of my favorite menu items are: chicken corn porridge (I could easily 2 or 3 bowls of this soup), potatoes with Afritude, fufu, macaroni and cheese (I know it’s on the kid’s buffet, but it’s really good) and for dessert I love the chocolate mousse crunches. Of course I eat way more than those 6 things, but those are my favorites that I look forward to when I’m not at Boma’s. Another wonderful meal in the books! Stephen and I left the Animal Kingdom Lodge around 6:30 and saw some very questionable and ominous looking clouds in the sky. We were both hoping that the rain would hold off for a few hours. We drove straight to the Board Walk and valeted the car for our evening in Epcot.

Okay, I have a really funny story about what happened next in Epcot, it was definitely one of those “I can’t believe that happened” moments. My younger sister Jessica has a thing for the male CM’s who work in the Germany pavilion, she thinks they are all “hot”, when we were there in December, she would drag us into the stores in Germany just so she could drool over the CM’s. Stephen and I decided that we would try to get her a picture of a cute German guy, so that was the agenda for the evening. As soon as we got into Epcot, we walked straight over to Germany to see who we could find. It was too perfect when we walked into Glas Und Porzellan and saw an older CM (about 60-65) behind the counter. We decided that we would email his picture first and then send a second email with a younger guy who really was cute. We weren’t obvious at all about taking the man’s picture, I stood maybe 20 feet from the counter and Stephen pretended to take my picture, but took his picture with the zoom on our camera. No one around us noticed a thing, including the CM in question. With the first picture down, we had one more to go. We walked through the stores, but we couldn’t find anyone Jessica would think was “hot”, so we walked outside to see if maybe we could find her a “cute, German boy”. We lucked out when a very handsome and young CM was working the Beck’s beer booth. Again, I stood in front of the cart and Stephen pretended to take my picture, but really took a picture of the CM. As we were walking out of Germany, we saw a CM with a group of people, we assumed since he was a CM in Germany, then he was probably from Germany. The CM was very good looking and he had the stereotypical German look about him: white blonde hair and very blue eyes. We didn’t realize until later that he was wearing the red and blue-checkered vest that the CM’s who work in human relations wear. The CM and the group of people (2 couples about our age with a baby stroller, nothing too exciting there) were standing in front of a group of trees, so if I stood in front of them and we took a picture, it would look kind of weird because it would be a picture of me and a bunch of trees. Yippee. So in order for it to not look weird that we were taking a picture of trees, Stephen and I made a big deal about a booth that was set up for the Flower and Garden Festival, thinking they would hear us and think that we were just taking a picture of that and not of them. Everyone in the group was kind of looking at us, but we didn’t look at them because we didn’t want them to think we were even paying attention to them, we acted excited about being in Epcot and seeing a booth. So we take our picture, using the same tactic as before, but this time as soon as we took the picture, the group looked at us and then turned and started walking toward China very fast. We put our camera away and continued walking to China, probably 50 yards behind them, but not following them in particular, we just happened to be heading that way. Every few feet, someone from the group would turn around and look at us; Stephen and I were both wondering what was up. As we were passing Norway a man and a women coming toward us, saw the group, gasped, turned around to see them, and made the comment “oh my gosh, that’s…” but that’s all we could hear because they passed us. I think we have a celebrity sighting in Epcot! That’s why they were watching us faking a picture of the CM, they thought we recognized them and were trying to take their picture. Stephen and I didn’t help matters by talking loudly (and to them it seem very obvious) about taking a picture of a tent. And that’s why they kept turning around and watching us follow them, they thought we were really following them! So Stephen and I are celebrity stalkers now!! We tried to catch back up with them to see who in the heck we harassed, but they were gone, probably slipped backstage before people started bothering them. We looked back at the picture we took, but we only got the CM (noticed at that point he was a human relations CM) and another guy who neither of us recognized. Nuts!! 

Since we were already half way to Future World, we decided to continue on to Space Ship Earth. We could see rain clouds in the distance, so we were hoping to dodge the rain shower. Space Ship Earth was a complete walk-on and a great ride, I love the simplicity of the attraction and I sincerely hope that Disney doesn’t take it out. We walked out of Space Ship Earth (I can’t wait until they put something in the exit!) and out into a huge down pour. It was raining so hard that the raindrops were bouncing up off the concrete. Stephen and I were both sure that this was only a passing shower, so we ducked into the little shop across from Space Ship Earth (Epcot Gifts??). We were in that tiny store for probably 30-45 minutes and the rain was still pouring. We couldn’t take standing in the store any more, so we ventured out under the Space Ship Earth to join about 100 other guests. We stood under there for another 30 minutes, bored out of our minds, but we didn’t want to get soaked either. At 9:00 we heard Illuminations start, I was very surprised that Illuminations wasn’t canceled, it wasn’t thundering or lightening, but it was raining very hard. Plus, I’m sure World Showcase was empty as Stephen and I watched people leave Epcot in droves for the past hour. Epcot was now officially closed and it was time for the extra magic hours, but someone forgot to tell the rain clouds that. The rain let up for a little bit, but it was still coming down fairly heavy. Finally we just said screw it and left the shelter of Space Ship Earth to head back to our car and Saratoga Springs. It was supposed to rain for the rest of the night and touring the parks in heavy rain isn’t much fun. Since we still had quite a walk ahead of us, we waded over to Mouse Gear to buy a couple of ponchos (I wonder how many Mickey Mouse ponchos we have at home) and started on our trek. It is a long haul from Space Ship Earth to the Board Walk!! But we finally made it, we were thankful that we valeted the car earlier as we were both sick of walking in the rain. We had to wait 10-15 minutes for our car to be brought up, but soon enough we were in the nice warm and dry car and on our way back “home”. We spent the rest of the evening listening to the rain (I love rain, unless I’m out in it getting wet), reading (me) and watching television (Stephen). I love at least one early night during vacation where you can lie around and basically do nothing.

Day 6—Wednesday 5/4

The Plan: Epcot, PS Alfredos 1:30 -or- PS Artist Point 5:30; Magic Kingdom evening extra magic hour.

Reality: I have to be completely honest here, I’m writing this section of the trip report almost a year after the trip happened, in late April 2006. I remember most of the details of the trip by using the pictures we took to jog my memory. If I can pat myself on the back a little bit, I think I’m doing a pretty good job of remembering the trip, however I can’t remember a thing we did this morning. I think we may have gone to Epcot for the morning and I know we ate something for lunch, but I honestly have no idea what we did. The first thing about today that I remember is Animal Kingdom, but we didn’t go there until late afternoon. So I’ll just say that we had a great morning and probably a good lunch somewhere before heading to the Animal Kingdom.

As far as I’m concerned, there are only 2 reasons to visit the Animal Kingdom: the Kilimanjaro Safaris and Festival of the Lion King, that is until Expedition Everest opens in 2006. The first thing we did we when got to the Animal Kingdom was walk back to Kilimanjaro Safaris to get a fastpass and then back to the Festival of the Lion King for the 1:00 show. Man, I love this show! I spend the entire 25 minutes in awe and even though I’ve seen this show numerous times, I still can’t take my eyes off the stage because I don’t want to miss a single second of it. After Festival of the Lion King, Stephen and I hiked back across the park for the Kilimanjaro Safaris. I love the safari, it’s a great attraction and I love how every single ride is different.

Stephen and I have to start planning our attractions out better and stop criss-crossing the park. So far it’s been Kilimanjaro Safaris to Festival of the Lion King back to Kilimanjaro, and finally to Dinoland USA and Dinosaur. Whew! Makes me tired just thinking about it! I know there are quite a few people who aren’t exactly fans of Dinosaur, but I really, really like this attraction. Maybe because I love thrill rides and I love dinosaurs, so for me it’s the best of both worlds. The lines were so light this afternoon that Stephen and I had time to stop and take some pictures of the T-Rex skeleton. The lines in Walt Disney World are so detailed and intricate that Stephen and I love taking pictures in them, if we can. Dinosaur was a lot of fun and after about 10 rides, I know where the pterodactyl and Tyrannosaurus Rex are so I don’t duck and get scared anymore!

As we were coming out of Dinoland, USA and heading toward the Oasis Gardens, we were lucky enough to run into Lucky the Animatronic dinosaur. The only word I can think of to describe Lucky is amazing. Completely amazing. If you didn’t know any better, you would swear that Lucky was real. He was walking, turning his head, blinking his eyes; I think he was even breathing! The CM that was working Lucky did a fantastic job. We followed along with Lucky for a little while until the crowds got to be too much so we continued on our way to the Oasis Gardens in an attempt to find some of the paths that surround the Tree of Life. We didn’t find the paths that we were looking for, the ones that go right up to the Tree, but we did find some paths where we saw some animals. We were watching the mallard ducks and maybe an osprey when all of a sudden comes a kangaroo bounding out of nowhere. Stephen and I were both like “what the heck!” What is a kangaroo doing in the middle of the birds at the base of the Tree of Life? It was so funny because here is a flock of nice, dainty birds and BAM! here comes this big giant, jumping right in the middle of them. Neither the birds nor the kangaroo seemed surprised or startled by each other, so I’m guessing this is a pretty common occurrence.

Even though we had only been in the Animal Kingdom for a couple of hours, we decided to head out. It was a little after 3:00 and we needed to leave Saratoga Springs at 5:00 for our date at Artist Point. Since this was kind of a special dinner, Stephen and I decided to get a little dressed up. Not necessarily suits and ties/heels and a dress dressed up, but I was wearing a skirt and Stephen had on khaki’s—other than the California Grill, that’s as dressed up as we get on vacation!! Before we left Saratoga Springs, we stopped by the Artist Palette to see if the picture we had taken at Epcot had been delivered yet. No such luck.

Stephen and I both love the Wilderness Lodge, it’s one of our favorite resorts to stay. I love just being in the lobby and soaking up the atmosphere of the resort. We got there a little early to take pictures and to spend some time just being at the Lodge. We got some really awesome pictures by the pool, and when a CM saw us trying to set up our tri-pod in front of the falls, he rushed over and offered to take a picture of us. Thanks! We checked in at the Artist Point podium right at 5:30, we were given a pager since the restaurant had just opened and no one had been seated yet. We only had to wait a couple of minutes before our pager started to blink. I think it’s really cool when you walk in the restaurant and you have one of the first PS times and all the CM’s are lined up at the entrance of the restaurant. I felt like I was famous or something, with everyone smiling and looking like they would do anything I would ask them to do.

This was our first meal at Artist Point and I have to say, I wasn’t disappointed at all. In fact, I can say without a doubt that this meal was our best meal of the entire trip. We had the best server, I am so mad at myself because I completely forget her name, but I think it was something like Sudi, getting off topic for a second, we also had her when we ate here in October for our anniversary and she again was wonderful. Our server went through the menu, explaining it to us and then took our drink orders while we decided on an appetizer. Stephen wanted to try the venison spring rolls, I refuse to eat Bambi, so I decided to try the radicchio salad, I was a little unsure about this salad because radicchio is a very strong and spicy lettuce, but I wanted something more than a boring iceberg lettuce salad, so I decided to go a little wild. Let me tell you, my salad was amazing, it had several very different, strong flavors, but the end result was wonderful. The salad was radicchio lettuce, green apples, crumbled blue cheese, candied pecans, and raspberry vinaigrette. Outstanding. Stephen tried a bite (or 2 or 12) and was very impressed with my salad as well, trust me, Stephen’s not a huge salad eater. Stephen like his venison spring rolls, he offered me a bite, but I politely declined. His appetizer did look good; the spring rolls were deep-fried to a golden brown and were served with a spicy dressing. For dinner, I had the Hatfield pork chop with macaroni and cheese and if I had to describe my meal in one word, it would be divine. I love pork, but I rarely eat it, I joke that the only time I eat pork is on vacation.  I’m not crazy about eating meat off the bone, but the pork was so tender that it literally fell off the bone when I touch it with my fork. The pork chop was very tender and juicy and I was actually a little sad when I ate it all!! The macaroni and cheese it was served with was definitely not Kraft in the blue box! This was “gourmet” mac and cheese, made with cheddar cheese and a little blue cheese; it was sharp and tangy at the same time. The pork chop and macaroni and cheese were finished with a red wine reduction that was heavenly. For dinner, Stephen ordered the buffalo sirloin (rare—yuck!!) with sweet potato gratin and sweet onion jam. Stephen said his buffalo was wonderful, very tender and flavorful. Again, he offered me a bite and again, I declined. After 4 ½ years of marriage, Stephen has finally found a way to keep me from eating off his plate: order game entrees.  We were both completely full from our appetizers and dinner, but of course we had to get dessert!! The decision was hard, between the infamous berry cobbler and the coffee two ways, but after careful deliberation, we decided to go with the berry cobbler. I was a little unsure about this dessert, it features strawberries and blueberries—which I love, but also blackberries and raspberries, which I do not. But for some reason, this dessert sounded really good to me and I am so glad that I tried it, it was a wonderful dessert. The berry cobbler was blueberry cobbler topped with blackberry ice cream and a raspberry sauce and finished off with fresh strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries. I tried a fresh raspberry to see if maybe my taste buds had changed in the past few years, but nope, still don’t like them! The raspberry sauce on top however was very good; I guess the blueberries and blackberries mellowed out the tartness. A wonderful, wonderful meal; I think Artist Point is going down in the books as a new favorite restaurant.

Stephen and I heaved ourselves up and made our way out to parking lot, tonight was the Magic Kingdom’s extra magic hours. We brought shorts and shirts to change into, we thought about going to our car, getting our clothes and then coming back into the Lodge to change our clothes. After walking out to the car, we didn’t have the energy after such a heavy meal to walk all the way back inside and then all the way back to the car, and then back to the boat dock—that is a haul!! Since it was dusk and no one was around in the parking lot, we drove the car a little bit away from the other cars and changed our clothes in the car. I hope security wasn’t taping us or they got a show!! Once we were decent, we walked to the boat dock to catch a boat to the Magic Kingdom. I was curious to see what the Magic Kingdom would look like, tomorrow was the 50^th Celebration and the media would be out in the full force, we weren’t planning to touch the park with a 10-foot pole!! Main Street looked the same, nothing had changed there, but right in front of the Castle and on the walkway to Adventureland there were white media tents everywhere, I was glad that we had already had taken several pictures, as the tents were in the way and you couldn’t get a clear shot of Cinderella Castle. Stephen and I spent a few minutes talking to a CM about tomorrow’s festivities and what times we should avoid the Magic Kingdom, the CM didn’t tell us to avoid the Magic Kingdom, we asked what the projected crowd levels would be and he pretty much said if you don’t need to be here, then you probably don’t want to come!

Stephen and I wondered around the Magic Kingdom, riding rides (I forget exactly what we did), waiting for Wishes to start at 10:00. Wishes was of course wonderful, I love the show more and more each time I see it. Stephen and I stayed on Main Street until well after 11:00 before heading back to the Wilderness Lodge to get our car. We drove back to Saratoga Springs and fell straight into bed.

Day 7—Thursday 5/5

The Plan: Animal Kingdom, PS California Grill 5:30, Cirque du Soleil 9:00.

Reality: Stephen and I changed our schedule and went to Animal Kingdom yesterday, since we saw everything we wanted to see, there was no need to go back. Last night was kind of a late night, so the plan for today was to sleep in and then do whatever until our PS at California Grill. I don’t have a problem sleeping in at all; in fact, I think I could stay in bed all day long. This is where Stephen and I are very different. Stephen is a morning person and cannot just lie in bed all day long. I think he made it until 9:00 before getting up and going for a run and then heading to the fitness center. I didn’t feel the need to exercise, so I stayed right where I was. The problem was, I was awake and the sun was shining in the window and I couldn’t just lie there when I was in Walt Disney World. I got up and took a quick shower before grabbing my book and leaving a note for Stephen that I was at the quiet pool. I wasn’t intending on swimming, I was intending on reading my book and working on my suntan. Once I got to the quiet pool, I changed my mind and ended up sitting on one of the rocking chairs that face Downtown Disney and settled in for a good read. As much as I love my husband and as much as we get along, it was really great having an hour to myself. About an hour and a half later, Stephen came sauntering over; we had a quick discussion about what to do and decided to go over to Downtown Disney. We were both hungry for lunch and wanted to try the Earl of Sandwich.

The walk from Saratoga Springs to Downtown Disney was a pleasant walk, we didn’t think it was too long at all; it would be nice path to run in the morning before Downtown Disney got too crowded. Goofy’s Candy Company sidetracked us on the way to the Earl of Sandwich. Oh my goodness, what a store!! This may be my favorite store on all of Disney property. I couldn’t believe all the cookies, fudge, and candy apples—it was a dream come true for a kid or a dessert lover. Of course we had to buy something, it would have been a sin not to. It took us a few minutes to decide, but we finally went with peanut butter and chocolate fudge (the choices of fudge were overwhelming) and a German chocolate chip cookie. We really wanted to try our goodies right then, but we both knew we needed something more than straight sugar in our systems, so we continued on to the Earl of Sandwich.

The Earl of Sandwich was packed, the line was almost to the door, we didn’t feel like eating at Wolfgang Puck’s Express, so we stayed put. It was a good thing we did, the line moved very quickly and before we knew it, it was our turn to order. We had a big dinner planned for tonight and a bag full of sweets, so Stephen and I decided to split a Hawaiian barbeque sandwich, Stephen also got a bowl of tomato soup and I got a green salad with a raspberry vinaigrette dressing. While Stephen was paying, I saw a table open up, so I quickly made my way over there before anyone else could claim it. Stephen found me and came over with the salad and soup and our drinks. The sandwich wasn’t ready yet, but there is a number on the top of your receipt and when your order is ready, your number is called over a loud speaker. As soon as Stephen sat down, our number was called—quick service, and since the sandwiches are made to order, everything was fresh and hot. I’ll start with my salad first, since I wasn’t that impressed with it. As far as salad’s go, it was okay; your pretty basic green salad with iceberg lettuce, cherry tomatoes, onion slices, and a couple slivers of carrots. What made the salad not so great was the dressing; the dressing was very tart—strong on the raspberries and my salad was absolutely drenched in the dressing. I tried to pick out the pieces of lettuce that weren’t so saturated, but I left quite a bit still in the bowl. I tried a little bit of Stephen’s tomato soup, I think it may have been a tomato bisque soup, it was very good and creamy, he finished every last bite. Now, let’s get on to the good stuff: the sandwich!! I love sandwiches, they are one of my favorite foods, and the Earl of Sandwich did not disappoint. The Hawaiian barbeque is barbecued ham with Swiss cheese and pineapples on that amazing Earl of Sandwich bread. All of the flavors blended together perfectly, the barbecue was sweet and tangy which went together with the very sweet pineapples, and the smoothness and the bite of the Swiss cheese evened out the sweetness of the barbecue sauce and the pineapples. The bread it was served on was crusty, but soft and chewy under the top crust. I’m not exactly sure what kind of bread they use at the Earl of Sandwich, but I can tell you it is very, very good. The sandwich was so good that we didn’t leave a crumb of it to throw away and I think we were both a little disappointed that the other person finished theirs. We were both hoping to get the leftovers! We left the Earl of Sandwich as soon as we were finished eating, and as hard as it is to believe, we weren’t ready for our dessert yet. Besides, the restaurant was so crowded; I would have felt bad sitting at the table, eating food from another restaurant when someone was circling the restaurant with a try of food, looking for somewhere to sit.

We made it as far as Captain Jack’s before we had to try our yummy goodness from Goofy’s. We sat at a table overlooking the lake and held tight to our desserts, it was very windy today and there was paper flying everywhere. It didn’t matter; there were desserts to be eaten! We started with the fudge first. I’m not a huge fudge eater, in fact the only fudge I’ll really eat is peanut butter and I’ll only eat a little bit of that. This fudge was so good, it was so creamy and peanut buttery, mixed with the chocolate layer on the bottom, it tasted just like a giant Reese cup. While the fudge was good, the German chocolate chip cookie was the star of the show. I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s a chocolate chip cookie, I’m assuming made with German chocolate, topped with a huge glob of caramel and coconut shavings. The slightly bitter chocolate and the caramel were so rich together, I was glad that we were sharing the cookie; I doubt I could have finished it on my own. Well, I could have finished it, but I think I would have made myself sick. Between the two of us, we polished off the cookie nicely.

Shocker of all shockers, I didn’t need to go shopping, so we decided to walk over to the West Side and to that end of Saratoga Springs. I haven’t been to the West Side or Pleasure Island since our honeymoon in 2000, so it was interesting to see the changes. We checked out Starabilias and the Virgin Megastore, I really wasn’t that impressed with the selection of stores at the West Side. Other than the Virgin store, there isn’t a store where I would buy anything. I think it would be cool if Disney put in some upscale stores like Prada or Louie Vuitton—something like that. Of course that would never happen, too much red tape and hassle, I’m sure, but it would fun, especially since the slogan for Downtown Disney is “a metropolis of fun”. To me, Mickey’s Groove or Magnetron is not “a metropolis of fun”, but I don’t make the decisions!

After Stephen and I browsed the shops, we took some pictures of each other and Saratoga Springs across the lake. We noticed the sky was starting to get dark and the winds were picking up. We decided we had better head for home and we had to make it fast, we continued on the path through the West Side and then through the golf course when it started sprinkling, but at least Saratoga Springs was in sight. We made it inside the Carriage House when the skies opened up—it was definitely a close one! We entered through a side door and in a room with couches and chairs, I’m not exactly sure what that room is for, I guess just a place to hang out and talk. While we were waiting for the rain to let up, Stephen walked over to Artist Palette to check on our missing picture (still missing, but Stephen made it absolutely clear that we were checking out tomorrow and we needed that package before then or shipped home) and I curled up on a big chair and read my book that was still in my back pack from earlier. We were afraid that we were going to have to go out in the pouring rain, it was getting close to 4:00 and we had a PS at California Grill at 5:30. Thankfully after about 20-30 minutes, the rains let up to a sprinkle so we could venture out and walk to the building our studio was in. I guess we should have paid better attention to the forecast before we left that morning!

We didn’t have too much to do once we got back to our studio. We had already taken showers and we didn’t do anything strenuous that afternoon, so we just had to change our clothes and freshen up to be ready. I had to dry my hair after the rain, that did take a few minutes because I have long and very thick hair, but Stephen and I were both ready to leave a little before 5:00. We drove over to the Contemporary resort, valeted the car, and headed straight up to the 14^th floor. Since we had an early PS time, we only had a short wait before being shown to our table. We had a fantastic table, over looking the Magic Kingdom; I would have loved to be sitting here in about 3½ hours for Wishes! It was really neat being seating by those huge windows, another rain storm came and we could see it coming across the sky, pass over us and then continue on it’s way. I really love eating at the California Grill, but today’s meal wasn’t the best meal, it was by no means bad, I think I just wasn&r