Trip Reports

Time of Year: Spring
Travel Method: Plane, Shuttle Service
Resort: BWR
Accommodations: Standard Room
Ages Represented in Group: Adult
WDW Experience Represented in Group: Frequent
Comments: Joe and his friend Todd stayed at the Boardwalk Resort. This is another of Joe's trips without kids, and the perspective of no spouses and no kids might be very helpful if you're planning a similar excursion. Joe has a particular love for Epcot, so he spends a lot of his time there...and the descriptions he gives of the park are excellent.

Joe and Todd's WDW Trip Report May 3-7, 1997

Back from the Boardwalk with a view of the World, this is my trip report for our stay on the lands of the Mouse. The cast for the trip was me, 27 and Todd 28 (both single), with a guest appearance by John, a friend of mine from college who is married and living in Orlando. The setting was from the mountains of Virginia to the famous Disney Boardwalk and the time was May 3-7, 1997. You may remember us from my last trip report in December of 1996 (preserved on the Web at DVClubber's web site).

With the basics out of the way, let's get to the report. As usual, this may go long, so if you're easily bored by such things, the quick rundown was that it was fun (gee, what else would you expect?). Without further ado...

Sat. May 3, Arrival

Running a little late, but I got all the work done I was supposed to do and we took off to the Airport the back way (this means lots of twisting and turning but it's Todd's favorite way to the Airport). We arrived with enough time and made checked in. Up and down, then a layover, then up and down, it was a full plane in coach, nothing particularly interesting.

Grabbed a Mears shuttle to the Boardwalk and checked in. We were staying one night then three nights (we had an AP discount package for $170/night but then discovered that the difference in plane tickets between Sunday and Sat. was greater than a night's stay so we added a night at the top to cover it). The first night was in a Boardwalk Villa studio unit right down the hall with a view of the front entrance. It was late when we got in, so we headed down to the Boardwalk and got a pizza and drink each to take back to our room ($9 each). It was better than I expected, but not fantastic. Other than that we were boring that night, staying in the room until bedtime.

Sun. May 4, Changing rooms and hitting the parks

The next morning, we moved to our real room, 5276, which by sheer luck had a GREAT view of Epcot. And when I say GREAT I mean it. It was high enough that there were no obstructions and close enough that you could even mostly hear the music for IllumiNations (at the Beach Club in Dec., we had to lean out on the teensy balcony to see the fireworks properly. This balcony comfortably seated three of us with no leaning required. And we were paying a lot more for that BC room). We didn't even have to wait until 3:00, getting the room immediately upon checkout. My name was on both the cards, but we knew better than to worry about it (Here a reference and an explanation is in order to give you some context: last time there were three of us all with different names and they wouldn't put different names on the room cards, leaving us worried until we realized that as long as the signature on the back of the card matched, they didn't care if you were Joseph Cochran or Genghis Khan. Knowing that it was coming, we just took the cards without comment. The cards worked just fine, although every time we paid for a meal with the cards the waiter or waitress would comment on the fact that it was difficult to tell us apart. "Ha ha." Ugh.).

We took breakfast at the bakery on the Boardwalk and headed into Epcot, which is kinda our "home" park (thus our obvious preference for Epcot resorts, eh?). We wandered a bit, checking out the Flower & Garden festival in Future World. We went into Wonders of Life, but weren't really in the mood to actually ride anything. I did one of those exercycles, which was neat and all until I banged my shin (even at the furthest setting was too short). We also checked out the hot-and-cold pipes and some of the other displays before we headed out, catching a ride on Horizons before our late lunch seating at Marrakesh, yummy. When the check came we realized that we had forgotten to separate the checks. Oops. We remembered (mostly) for the rest of the trip.

After Marrakesh, we headed over to MGM for what remained of the afternoon. It was relatively uncrowded, so we were able to hit ToT with a 5 min wait, buy a couple of CD's at Ellen's, hit Star Tours with just a hair longer wait than ToT, and then catch the 4:50 Hunckback show. The rides were cool as always, but the show was a little off (you could really tell that they were nearing the end of the day). It was an interesting side note that Matt the juggler (BTW, anyone know where he went to school? A friend here at home thinks he might know Matt) changed pretty quickly and was lurking around the theater before the show. With the normal t-shirt and shorts in sunglasses look you'd barely recognize him.

Then it was back to the boat to the hotel to freshen up a bit before meeting John (the guest appearance noted above) for dinner at Spoodle's. I had the Duck Sausage Pizza, which was good, with Delizia for dessert. Had a great time catching up (hadn't seen him since October when I was in Tampa on business) and chatting about life, work and Disney. Then we headed up to the room to take advantage of our spectacular view of IllumiNations and chat a bit more. Finally, it was time for John to go, what with having work and all in the morning, so we hitched a ride with him over to the DVM and said goodbye.

We shopped at the DVM, picking up a few goods, and Todd headed back to the room while I went over to Pleasure Island to take in the New Year's show (in December they weren't doing the long show, just a cheesy little countdown with a few small fireworks on the main stage (not the West End), so I was looking forward to seeing the real thing). Hung out at the Adventurer's Club until 11:40 and walked out. Waited 5 minutes. Nothing. 10. Still nothing. Okay, now I'm getting annoyed. 15. "Get to the West End stage for our New Year's show!" I think, "What show?" Lo and behold, it's the cheesy countdown!!! ARGH! The fireworks were more impressive, but still the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. I headed straight for the exit, where to my surprise a CM was handing out envelopes. I asked her about the show and she apologized, saying that there were some technical difficulties and that they canceled the show at the last minute. Then she handed me an envelope.

You know what? There IS justice in the world, for the envelope was a feedback form! I will be filling it out RSN, and am glad that someone will hear that the only reason I went to PI that night was canceled!

Mon. May 5, MGM and Epcot

Wakey from Mickey and get up an hour later. Breakfast at the bakery, then off to MGM. I played show-hound this trip, since the last thing I did on our previous trip was almost accidentally catch a show of Hunchback (which I absolutely LOVED). So today was my "see the MGM shows" day as well as try to catch some of the things I missed because I was doing a working vacation last time. So, the plan for the day was to hit some of those things. First up was the BatB show, which was slightly disorienting since they don't even pretend to give you the whole plot. But it was nice. ToT had a long wait, so we skipped it (a pattern we would repeat, unfortunately) and headed toward Voyage of the Little Mermaid. We just missed the show, so we headed on back, and saw the entrance to the Making of Evita. It was more of an ad for the movie than anything else, but it was cool to learn about the shooting locations and watch the small bit of behind the scenes stuff.

Next, we went for lunch, hitting the Soundstage Restaurant for the character buffet lunch. While we're not big on autographs and pictures, I love to watch the characters run around and play (people watching is a great passtime for me), and the buffet wasn't bad, although both of us didn't see the chicken fingers and french fries on the kid's buffet (which we both said we would have preferred) until after we had eaten our fill. Such is life. The genie made a surprise attack on Todd while we were there, walking up behind him and clapping him on the shoulders before shaking hands with us. Meeko and Belle went by several times between tables with kids, and Aladdin stopped by to say hello.

After lunch we got into VotLM. I liked the show a lot, but they spray you with mist twice, which was slightly icky given that it's air-conditioned in there. The main feature of this show really is Under the Sea. The rest seemed to be mostly just dressing to give you the plot. The Mermaid didn't turn in that great a performance, either.

Next up was the Backlot Tour, which I missed during our December trip. A CM approached the couple in front of us to participate in the show. The guy was up for it, but the girl wasn't so they asked us. Todd gave me the "not me buddy" look, and I said "sure". I had seen the water tank thing on Inside Out, so I vaguely knew what was coming. So, the other guy (named Dave) and I were ushered into the water tank area and Todd and the girl were given front row center spots. We got into the oh-so-cool yellow raingear and the guy asked us "who wants to be the captain and who wants to be the skipper?" Uh, whatever, so I was the captain. First, I got to dump water on him in the boat, then I got to stand in the conning tower of the sub while they splashed me. Then I saw the big red button, which they let Dave push. It was a LOT of water. You know what? Those raincoats are GOOD. I'm not sure how much water they actually dump on you (it's a LOT, I could feel that), but except for a few stray hairs that stuck out of the hood, I didn't get all that wet. Then it was on to the tram (they were showing the making of The Lottery and then The Lottery in the line). Dave's girl put him on the left, and off we went. Catastrophe Canyon was cool, although I was left briefly wishing for the raincoat again before I realized that I wasn't actually getting wet.

Out of the Tour, it was time for the Toy Story parade, so we ducked into the Great Movie Ride, hitting the Gangster side (we saw the western side in December).

Having done all of the shows in MGM (well, except for Hunchback which we had done already and who wouldn't show again for a long time), we looked at the line at ToT and then headed out of the park. We dropped into Epcot, and spent a while at the Fountainview Cafe, watching the shows and the people (warm weather and women.... ahhhh). The cannons didn't seem as powerful, which we wondered about, but we watched four or five shows and I had a chocolate dessert. Then we decided to attack Epcot before our dinner seating. Starting at Imagination (line looked bad for HISTA), we rode JiI, then headed over to The Land for the boat ride. Our tour guide talked VERY fast. The first time I rode it, the guide covered selected highlights of the greenhouses. This guy seemed to cover ALL of it. I'm not sure how he managed to take breaths in there, but he did a great job.

Continuing around Future World, we stopped by Innoventions and tried to find a web browser (I needed to look at something for work, but I wasn't sure about the URL, so we had to keep trying), but West didn't have one, so we stopped by Spaceship Earth and then went on the East to find a browser. I couldn't remember the URL for the life of me, so after a few minutes we abandoned the effort, electing to do it from the hotel room. So we headed into Ellen's Energy and watched the show (yeah, Ellen and Bill are great, but I like to watch it for Jamie Lee.... she wants me. <grin>).

Not really having more time for rides, we walked toward World Showcase, stopping to watch the Flamingos bathe and fight. Then off to our seating at Alfredo's (BTW, I realized later that it was Cinco de Mayo, and was REALLY annoyed that we didn't at least stop by Mexico...). Very good dinner, although largely uneventful, after which Todd headed back to the room while I stayed for IllumiNations 25. Not having seen the old show such as I'd remember (I last saw it when I was 14), I can't comment on it, but I think I liked Holiday IllumiNations a bit better.

I'm not sure why I wanted to subject myself to the New Year's show at PI again, other than that I was determined to SEE the thing. So I headed out to PI again, getting there around 11 again and putzing around at the AC. THIS time, sure enough, there was a Metamorphosis show, which was pretty cool, although a bit esoteric. "2:00 until your complete transformation to the new year," from a giant pair of woman's eyes on the back screen. Neat dancing, though. I was feeling much better, so I hung out until about 1:30.

Tues. May 6, MK and Epcot

Once again, late rising was the order of the day (although I did have an 8:30 wake up call and it was cool having Mickey wake me up). Out for the morning baked goods, then off to the busses. Today was MK day, so we (of course) just missed the appropriate bus and had a 15 minute wait.

The first stop was lunch at the Crystal Palace where Todd got mugged by Pooh and Tigger and Eeyore floated around. We had forgotten to make seating arrangements for lunch and dinner so we had a short wait, but a party of 2 never has all that long of one. Of the buffets, CP is the winner for food and SR is the winner for characters. As we were leaving we stopped at the window outside the CP to make our seating for dinner at the Teppinyaki Dining Rooms. Quick hint: while the Epcot brochure calls it "Teppinyaki Dining Rooms," the computer lists it as "Mistukoshi Teppinyaki." Neither the CM nor I could find the thing on the pulldown list the computer offered her until her manager came by and showed us where it was.

The rest of the day at the MK was a blur, so I won't attempt to stay chronological. High points included BTMRR, Teacups, listening to the parade while Todd was in the restroom and Legend of the Lion King (they just HAD to spread out the shows, didn't they?). Great as usual were TTA and the Skyway. Bummer of the day was Splash Mountain. Too long a wait ALL day. Well, at least until about 4:00 or so when Todd wanted to escape from the Too Many People syndrome. So we hopped the monorail back to Epcot (a visit to WDW just isn't official until you ride the monorail), and decompressed at the Fountainview for a while (warm weather and women, you recall). The fountain was back up to full strength, too, so we figured that the previous day's windiness had been the reason for the lower power on the cannons. Then we picked up the tour of Future World, riding Body Wars and Horizons before stopping by Test Track to ask the GM folks about opening ("summer is what they're saying now <grin>"). Then we strolled through China and stopped by the mini train in Germany on our way to dinner at Japan.

I'd never had teppinyaki before, so this was a treat. Neat to watch the preparation of the meal, and a good meal, although it was the longest wait we had (we showed up early, and with the tables set up for a fixed number, you don't get much leeway). Afterwards, IllumiNations was ending, so we watched the tail end from Japan's balcony. Todd again headed back for the room while I wandered and shopped both in Epcot on my way out and at the Boardwalk. Then back to the room for our final night in the Inn.

Wed. May 7, Departure

One last time Mickey called me, and it was time to get up and pack. Again, we preferred to sleep late, getting up and out only just at checkout time. Lunch was at Beaches and Cream, where we were served by Bobbi, the same waitress who served us when we were there in December! And not only that, but she remembered us! We had burgers and I had a shake, and all was fine with the world. Needless to say it was a great lunch and we tipped well.

Then over to MGM, where the first stop was Guest Relations to compliment Bobbi. Next, up for a last show of my favorite, the HoND show. While the previous performance was a little weak, this one was great. The audience was really responsive, and all of the actors were spot-on (both times I've seen it before I haven't been all that thrilled with Quasi (being a tenor myself I'm a hard critic on them) but this time he was doing wonderfully). I even got some confetti.

Next, over to Epcot for a showing of the Pops series before it was time to go. During the walk back Todd opined that it was too hot and he would prefer to leave in the morning next time (I had made the travel arrangements), so we'll have to think about that next time. An uneventful Mears trip got us to the airport a bit early, and it was finally time to head home.

Now we're back, and I've FINALLY finished this thing. I hope you enjoyed it!

Joe Cochran

GoH '73

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