Trip Reports

September 29 - October 9, 1997

Planning and Introduction

This long trip report is about my husband Mark’s and my trip to Walt Disney World for our honeymoon. At the time of the trip Mark was 27 years old, and I was 28. We spent 9 nights at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge, and one night at the Quality Inn Plaza. We visited all the main Disney Parks, Busch Gardens, and Universal Studios. I had been to Disney World once before, and Mark had never been. We both had been to Disneyland.

Before we even knew we were getting married, we agreed that the Honeymoon would have to be at Walt Disney World. When we did decide to get married, I had about a year and a half to plan the wedding and the honeymoon. We live in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada. Basically in the middle of nowhere, so we decided that our wedding would be in Calgary, Alberta so that it would be more accessible for our guests. Long distance planning of this scale takes a while, and I sure needed that year and a half. The wedding was on Saturday the 27th of September, and we were leaving for the honeymoon on the next night (Sunday).

Arrival Day Mon. 29 Sept.

Our flight out of Calgary was scheduled to leave at about half past midnight. We went out to the airport at about 10pm and relaxed in a lounge for a while. The plane ended up leaving a little late, but arrived in Toronto on time at 6am. We literally slept the entire way, and were pretty tired when it came time to deal with customs and immigration. Finally we got our bags onto the right conveyors and made it to the gate for the flight to Orlando. We decided that we should wear our bride and groom mickey ears on the plane, so we put those on. Lots of people gave us strange looks, but a few made positive comments too. On the plane we got breakfast and we both slept some more. Arrival in Orlando was relatively trouble free. We collected the bags, picked up our rental car (National) and were on our way to Disney World. We got to the Wilderness Lodge at about 11am. We checked in, but of course our room wasn’t ready yet. We were both wearing jeans and long sleeved shirts and were suffering from lack of sleep, so not having a room yet was a little disappointing (although expected). We decided to go down to Roaring Forks to get our refillable mugs and make a plan for the next few hours. We decided that we would change clothes in the car and then head for Super WalMart to do some shopping. We picked up a styrofoam cooler and some other essentials, stopped at a liquor store for some beer and Canadian whisky (Rye). By the time we got back, we checked on our room and they had one ready for us. We got our luggage and stuff up to our room, unpacked, showered, changed and were all ready to hit the parks. Our room was on the fourth floor, woods view, and not too far from an elevator that is right around the corner from Roaring Forks.

We decided to go to Epcot first. We took the bus, as we were going to the Contemporary later on for dinner and wanted to take the monorail from Epcot. Before entering Epcot, I got to say the phrase that I’d been dreaming about saying for over a year, "Two Premium Annual Passes with Magic Kingdom Club discount, please." After entering, we did Spaceship Earth first, as there was no lineup. From there we grabbed a snack at Electric Umbrella - excellent chicken fingers, and then went on to the Wonders of Life pavilion. We did Body Wars and Cranium Command and looked around at some of the displays and stores. Then we went over to Imagination and did Honey I Shrunk the Audience. This was my first time on the ride, as well as Mark’s, but I knew what was supposed to happen. When we sat down, Mark had his legs crossed, with one foot off the floor and I told him that he would enjoy the show better with both feet on the floor, but I wouldn’t tell him why. We both really enjoyed this show, and I think it is my favorite attraction at Epcot.

After HIStA, we exited the park and hopped on the monorail over to the TTC. The monorail smelled like it had a bad case of mildew. We switched monorails at TTC to head for the Contemporary. We had priority seating reservations at Chef Mickey’s. What a pleasant surprise this meal was. The food here was excellent! The characters were an added bonus. We got some good pictures with Mickey and Chip and Dale. This rates as one of our favorite restaurants in WDW and will probably become a first night tradition. After this meal, we monorailed back to TTC and caught the bus back to the WL.

Day 2 (first full day) Tues. 30 Sept.

We started the day with the Mickey wake up call, and headed off for Disney-MGM. When we arrived, we decided that The Great Movie Ride was the right way to start the day. This was enjoyable right up until we hit munchkin land. At that point, the car refused to move any further. The CM did a pretty good job at keeping us entertained while technicians came to look at the car. After about 10 minutes, they determined that the car would not come back to life and we would have to walk out. They gave us front of the line passes for GMR when we wanted to return. They let us take pictures on the way out, so I took one of Dorothy with the Lion, tin man, and scarecrow. From GMR, we went down Sunset Blvd. to hit Tower of Terror. Beauty and the Beast was just starting, so we popped in for that one. Then came the Tower. Neither of us had ridden this one before. I really do not like the feeling of being dropped, so I knew that this would not be my favorite ride, but I knew that there were some neat effects, so off we went. The line was quite long because the ride had been down earlier in the morning. I think they were only using one elevator shaft too. I enjoyed the ride all the way until the drops. I can see why the paint has worn off the grab bars in the cars. My grip was pretty tight. I survived though. I even rode it again later on in the week. ToT will never be my favorite ride, but I can probably tolerate it a few times per vacation. From ToT, we headed over to Star Tours and Muppets 3D. After Muppets, we went to our PS at Mama Melrose’s. This was also an excellent meal. Mark said that this was the best lasagna he’s ever tasted. I had clams in red sauce, and this was pretty good. After lunch, we caught some shows; Indiana Jones, Superstar TV, Sound show. We dropped up to the Catwalk Bar for a couple of drinks before calling it a day.

For dinner, we decided to head off site to Pizzaria Uno’s. I wanted to go there, as it brings back memories from college in Boston. This meal was good, but we ended up a little bit rushed so that we could make it to MK for E-ticket express.

We entered the MK gate after 8:30 (closing time), so the guy at the gate wanted to see our passes as well as our E-tickets. Also, he wasn’t at a gate that had a biometrics scanner, so we needed to pull out our driver’s licenses as well. We exchanged our tickets for wrist bands at city hall and headed to Tomorrowland to do Alien Encounter. Mark was very excited about this ride and wanted to try it first thing. I’m glad we didn’t stand in a long line to get in, because frankly both of us were disappointed. This only rated as ok. From hearing about the ride, Mark expected something to be actually walking around, not just the lights going out and getting splashed on. From AE, we went to Space Mountain. There was a bit of a line up here, and we probably waited about 15 minutes to get on. This again only rated as ok. Mark had fond memories of SM at DL when he was a kid, and I was at DL last year, where I think the ride is much better. There is too much light inside the ride. It is no problem to see where you are going, and if you close your eyes, you loose a lot of the other effects. To finish Tomorrowland, we headed over to the Timekeeper. This was a good show, but probably not worth seeing as an E-ticket attraction, as the theater holds a lot of people. Then we headed for Frontierland. Splash Mountain was on the agenda! This has always been my favorite WDW ride. What fun! We went a couple of times on Splash and a couple on Big Thunder and then headed over to the Haunted Mansion for a spin. Then over to Pirates and then back to Splash Mountain. At Splash, it was nearing closing time, and there weren’t too many riders left, so we asked if we could ride in the front of a log by ourselves. This was no problem, so off we went. We decided to do an arms raised kiss for the picture. The picture turned out well, so we bought it. Then we headed back to our room.

Day 3 Wed. 1 Oct.

This was to be an Epcot day. We slept in a little bit and arrived at the park at about 11am. We did some more of Future World, and then had PS reservations at the Coral Reef. This was good food, and plentiful quantities, high prices though. Our server here was excellent, we mentioned that we had been thinking of doing the Dive Quest tour, and she brought out a pamphlet for us on the Epcot tours. She also told us we could stay as long as we liked, as they had closed her section so there was no one waiting for tables. After leaving the Living Seas, we jumped on to Journey into Imagination. Then we headed out into International Showcase. We wandered around Canada a little bit, and then on to the UK. We grabbed a couple of beers here, and headed into the courtyard where the British Invasion were just getting ready to play. We thoroughly enjoyed their music, although the set was quite short.(only about 5 songs) Then we headed out through the International Gateway to tour the Boardwalk and Hotels. We looked in the shops along the Boardwalk, and at the hotel lobby. The Wyland Gallery is beautiful. If only I could afford some art from there. We continued around to take a look in the Swan and Dolphin. We were planning on using our $50 coupon on this trip, so we wanted to look at the menus of the restaurants. Further around, we came to the Yacht and Beach Clubs. Both of us liked the hotels, and would like to stay there sometime. We stopped at Beaches and Cream for a shared banana split. Excellent. Then we headed back into Epcot and up to the front to pick up our car and head back to our hotel.

We had 9:30 reservations for the Hoop de Doo Musical Revue. I wasn’t sure whether we would enjoy this or not, as it has gotten some mixed reviews on the newsgroup. Getting there was easy from the Wilderness Lodge. The bus takes you right where you are going - non-stop. We weren’t too sure what the procedure was, but I knew our table number was on the tickets, so I knew we didn’t have to line up. A guy was there with a sheet of paper taking names, so I asked him if we needed to check in. He marked our name off his list, and told us which door to enter. We still had a good half hour before we needed to go in, so we headed over to the saloon to get a drink. Then we wandered around outside for a while and looked at the booths that were selling things. The cast member that checked us in definitely gets the award for most enthusiastic CM that we encountered on the trip. He belts out a pretty loud, "Howdy Folks!". I made the reservations for HDD about a year before the trip, so I knew we would have pretty good seats. I wasn’t expecting to be right at center stage, front row though! I think we literally had the best seats in the house. Our server was Professor Bob, and he did an excellent job. We really did enjoy this show, and plan to make it a yearly event. The food was pretty good considering how many people they need to feed all at the same time. We both thought that the leading male was an excellent actor, and really made the show. Getting back to our room was also easy, as we did the reverse from coming and had a non-stop bus trip.

Day 4 Thurs. 2 Oct.

We decided to use Early Entry at Magic Kingdom, so it was up early today. We took the boat over to MK, and wandered on in. The EE attractions were already running, so we headed straight into Fantasyland to hit the rides we had been looking forward too. First off was Dumbo! I’ve always wanted to ride this, just to see why it is so popular. We got some good pictures of ourselves on here just by holding the camera at arms length and shooting. It was fun, but a little crowded for two full size adults. After this, we hit Snow White, Peter Pan, and It’s a Small World. While at Peter Pan, we stopped out front to take a picture of the 0 mins. wait sign! We wandered around some more, and decided to head out early for our Priority Seating lunch at Narcoosee’s. We took the launch over to the Grand Floridian, and looked at the grounds there. Many people were busy painting and doing renovations. If I were paying $300+ per night, I wouldn’t want a painter peeking in my window! Anyway, the restaurant wasn’t open yet, but we took a look at the menu posted outside. We were quite disappointed, as our idea of seafood and their idea of seafood are slightly different. Their idea of seafood is an entire menu of fish. We’re not big fish eaters, but love seafood such as lobster, crab, scallops, etc. We made a quick decision to skip out on our reservations and drive to Red Lobster. We had to pick up the car at the WL, so first we had to head back there. Lunch at Red Lobster was good and quick, but the air conditioning was too cold. After lunch, we decided to drive to the Orlando Visitor’s Center to buy tickets for Universal and Busch Gardens, as we planned to hit both of these places later in our vacation. Having ticketed ourselves, we headed back to the Lodge to pick up swimming stuff and go over to Typhoon Lagoon. I had been there before in 1993, and it was very noticeable to me how much more foliage there was now. We tried a few slides, and floated around the creek for a while. Then we laid down on some lounge chairs and napped for about half an hour. When they were closing up, we headed back to our room to nap some more before our 9:30 reservation for the Polynesian Luau.

Awoke in time to see the Magic Kingdom fireworks from our balcony, and then headed over to the Poly. We took the bus to TTC and then the monorail to the Poly, later I’ll tell you why I would recommend driving instead. We were early for the luau, so we registered and waited in the pre-show area. I wasn’t too impressed with the guy that takes your picture to sell you later, but we ended up buying it, so who’s the bigger fool. Anyway, we got our seats, again right up front due to the fact that I booked about a year in advance. Neither of us really liked the food. It’s not really our style; Mark’s not into any kind of salad, and I didn’t really like the meats, I found them overcooked and dry. We both thought the show was very good. We had to get up on the stage at one point when they called all the honeymooners up, but Mark survived the embarrassment! The fire dancer was very impressive, and we got some excellent pictures of the show. Overall, it was ok, but we won’t be going back for a few years. Getting back to the hotel was a chore, as it was a long, dark, lonely walk back to the TTC. I was glad I wasn’t alone, as this walk would have made me very nervous. The bus arrived shortly and we headed back to the Lodge.

Day 5 Fri. 3 Oct

The plan for today was driving to Tampa to see Busch Gardens. So, once again Mickey woke us from our slumber early, so that we could arrive around opening time. The drive out was uneventful and took about 90 minutes. The directions I had were easy to follow, and we didn’t get lost. Pulling into the parking lot, we could see Montu, and knew that later that would be us looping upside down with feet flying through the air.

We headed in, and knew that we would be able to do a fairly relaxed tour, as the park was pretty empty. We started off with some of the animal exhibits in Nairobi, seeing the gorillas, alligators, nursery, reptiles, tortoises, and elephants. We headed north and into the Timbuktu area. There we rode our first coaster of the day, Scorpion. This was a good starter for the day, as it is a looping coaster, but short and no line. Jumped on the Phoenix here too, which is your standard pirate ship type ride that loops all the way over. We continued north into the Congo area. First we rode another small coaster, Python. This was also short but fun, 2 barrel rolls on this one. Meanwhile Kumba was calling our name. I convinced Mark to ride the River Rapids ride first, because it looked like fun. Well it is fun, but very very wet! They have lots of lockers out front, and I would even recommend bringing a partial change of clothes if you want to ride this ride. We took off our watches, camera etc., but came off the ride with our shoes soaked, and our butts soaked. This meant that we sloshed around Busch Gardens the rest of the day. Next stop Kumba. It is one of the two biggies at Busch Gardens, and we were there to ride the big coasters not available at Disney. This ride was really a lot of fun. The best part was that there were no lines. They have a special line for riding in the very front, but even that was a very short line. We rode once in the middle, and then once up front. Then we decided that it was time for Montu. We headed all the way back towards the front of the park and continued into Egypt to ride Montu. I was nervous about it, as I have never ridden a suspended coaster before. The first time we rode in the middle, and I survived. I wasn’t positive that I wanted to do it again, but Mark convinced me, and this time he wanted to ride in the front. I certainly enjoyed it, but twice in a row was enough for me. It was around lunchtime now, so we decided to try lunch at the Crown Colony Restaurant. We were seated right away, inside overlooking the African Plain. The food here was good, and not too badly priced. We would recommend it.

After lunch, we decided to try Questor; Busch’s simulator ride. It was ok. Not as good as Star Tours or Body Wars. The simulator just seemed a little beat up, and the story line was weak. Next, we took the monorail ride through the Edge of Africa. This would have been very enjoyable, if it weren’t for the people we were sharing a car with. They talked, and talked loudly, through the whole trip which made it impossible to hear the narrator. This was our worst experience of the day for shear frustration. We did however see a lot of animals. The monorail works very well for this, as you can see out both sides, and if you can hear the narrator, he will tell you what you are seeing and where to see them. After our very frustrating monorail ride, where else could we go but the Hospitality House; Free beer for everyone! We enjoyed our free beer, and looked at the birds in the area, then headed north to Stanleyville. We bypassed Land of the Dragons, as there didn’t seem to be much there for adults. We watched the orangutans for a while and then decided to hit the two rides in Stanleyville - Stanley Falls and Tidal Wave. Stanley Falls is a flume ride. It is decent, but no more themed than most flume rides. Splash Mountain it is not. Tidal Wave is a boat ride with about 4 people across, and maybe 8 or so rows. The finale is a big drop that soaks everyone, including spectators. We thought this ride would be a lot of fun, as we couldn’t see the other adventures the boats were traveling through. Well, the big drop is 90% of the ride. You start out going through some slow moving canals with scenery, not bad, but not exciting. Then you go up a lift hill and down the big splash. Much shorter than I anticipated. After this, we headed back to Congo to ride Kumba some more. After each ride, there was no one waiting, so we were able to stay in our seats. After about three or four times in row, we had enough, so decided to get off. Mark found a Kumba T-shirt on sale that he really liked, so he picked that up. We were pretty much done for the day, except wanted to do one final ride on Montu, so all the way back to Egypt. One last ride on Montu ended our day at Busch Gardens.

We really enjoyed Busch Gardens, and would not hesitate to go back. However keep in mind that we enjoy large roller coasters. Some rides were excellent, but others were not highly themed or memorable.

We were pretty beat by the time we got back to Orlando. In fact Mark slept most of the way. We relaxed/napped for a while and then decided we should get some dinner. We looked in our guidebooks and settled on The Outback in Buena Vista Palace, as we both like steak/seafood type places. We headed over there, and found that there really is nowhere to park near the restaurant (valet parking). So we valet parked and then found out that the wait would be about an hour. We wandered around the hotel for a while, had a couple of drinks, decided that we would never want to stay there (too fancy looking) and by then our table was ready. Our waiter was kind of obnoxious, however we found the food to be excellent and plentiful, although expensive. In short, a mixed review. We would go back, but would attempt to make reservations, and alternate arrangements for parking.

Day 6 Sat. 4 Oct

A sleep in day - Thank god! We had priority seating at Morocco for lunch at 1:00, and we arrived at Epcot only minutes before our reservation. The restaurant was mostly empty, but it was interesting to see the belly dancer. When the belly dancer was inviting the young girls up to dance, there was one girl who was the perfect age and obviously was having fun, but there was also a mother with a video camera that was pushing her toddler up there. The toddler had no clue what was going on, and was mostly getting in the way of the dancer and the other girl. I guess some people just have to have those home movies.

After lunch, we headed back to the Wilderness Lodge, as we had made arrangements to go on the tour with the Disney Vacation Club. We knew that we were interested in a time share in the WDW area, but I also knew that DVC was one of the more expensive ones. Mark liked the idea of still having E-Ticket express and early entry. I had looked into DVC myself, before we were married, and although I liked it, at the time I didn’t have the money to invest. A few things had changed since I looked into it, new properties had been added (VB, HH, and BWV), the park passes were no longer available, a lower minimum buy in price. One thing that was in their favour was the fact that you can get credit for your stay in a Disney Hotel. For our 9 nights at the Wilderness Lodge, we would get a credit of $1125 ($125/night). You also give up some of your first year points doing this though. It would cost us 98 points out of our first year to do this. Anyway, we toured the resort, got our information, told our salesperson that we would look the information over, had our ice cream and left. Definitely not what I would call high-pressure sales.

Later on that evening, we were supposed to be meeting a bunch of people for a RADP meet. Coincidentally, the meeting was at Artist’s Point in the Wilderness Lodge, so we didn’t have far to go. We met up with everyone in the lobby, including Joel Raskin who organized the event and Barb Herrera (gardenia) who was helping out with her Disney Dining Card. The dinner was excellent, and the waiter was really great. I really liked the food at this restaurant and would recommend it. I would say better for a small group than a large group though. After dinner we took some pictures in the lobby. I had left my camera upstairs though, so I didn’t get any. I haven’t seen any either. After pictures, we headed upstairs, to relax for yet another day of theme parking.

Day 7 Sun. 5 Oct

This was to be a fairly relaxed day spent mostly at the Magic Kingdom. The plan was to take in smaller, no line attractions. We saw Hall of Presidents, Dreamflight, Peoplemover, WDW Railway, and browsed in the shops. I wanted to have lunch at Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe, so we did that and enjoyed the show. Then we got seats up on the railway platform for the Remember the Magic Parade. We waited quite a while for the parade to finally hit where we were, but we got some really nice pictures of the floats.

After the parade, I wanted to take Mark to see a surprise I had been planning for several months. I brought him over to the Polynesian to see our very own brick in the Walk Around the World. It is one with wedding bells and our names and date. We found it without too much trouble, as they are mostly in numerical order. We took some pictures, and probably will go back to visit it every year.

After visiting the Polynesian, we decided to go shopping at Downtown Disney. We drove there, and had a heck of time finding a parking place. Anyway, we decided to do some of our Christmas shopping while we were there, so we spent quite a bit of time in the World of Disney Store. We had our packages delivered to the Lodge, and then continued to wander around. It was fairly hot and crowded, so we decided to head back after only a little wandering.

That night, we had reservations for Victoria and Albert’s. We cleaned ourselves up and headed over for our dinner. We valet parked the car, and then arrived at the restaurant. The class and service were impeccable. You get to choose what you would like for each course, and then they are brought our separately. I also chose to have the wine pairings with each course. The food was very good. Each course is fairly tiny, but you leave full after having so many courses. They also brought us a mini chocolate cake to celebrate our honeymoon. They are prepared to box it up for you to take with you, if you are full like we were. Each lady gets a rose at the end of the meal too. It was very nice and elegant, but probably the kind of thing we will only do on very special occasions.

Day 8 Mon. 6 Oct

We had made our decision to buy into the Disney Vacation Club, so we used most of this morning to go over and sign all the paperwork. There is a lot of paperwork. Not that I think they are trying to scam you, but they rush through a lot of it, just so it doesn’t take too long. After that, we toured around Old Key West, a little bit more. We drove around to see the rest of the buildings, walked around the Turtle Rd. Pool, bought some souvenirs at the store, wandered into the Community Hall, etc.

By this time, it was almost lunchtime, so we headed over to Disney-MGM for some more touring there. We had lunch at Pizza Planet. Buzz and Woody were both wandering around. After this, we did the Studio Backlot Tour, wandered through all the shops, and did Twilight Zone Tower of Terror a couple more times.

Next we headed over to Epcot to enjoy Illuminations. We also had hoped to jump on Honey I Shrunk the Audience one last time, but that entire side of future world was closed for a conference. We decided on a quick dinner at the Electric Umbrella, and then headed into World Showcase to catch the American Adventure before Illuminations. We did that, and managed to get decent spots for Illuminations. This was an enjoyable show that I’m sure we will catch again each trip to WDW. Back to the Resort.

Day 9 Tues. 7 Oct

This was our Universal Studios day. We headed out to arrive around the 9:00 opening. Their parking garage is massive, and it’s a long walk to the park entrance. This was the only day we ran into tour groups. There seemed to be several large groups of pre-teens and teens. We ran into them right off the bat as we headed to Back to the Future. A couple were blocking the line and then calling all their friends to join them at the front. We just stayed side by side so that people couldn’t push by us, and then when we reached the people that were calling for their friends, they let us by so that they could join their friends behind us. The people loading the rides at Universal seem much more disorganized than at Disney or Busch. It seemed that frequently they were rushing people onto rides at the last minute such that you missed any preshow to give you the premise of the ride. After Back to the Future, which we both found very rough, we headed around the lagoon to Jaws. It seemed to us that every single effect was on one side of the boat. We were on the wrong side. Next was Earthquake. Not bad, but the ride is only a small, short section of this one. Then we headed down to Kongfrontation. This was pretty good. Short, but fun. After those, we wandered around a bit, looked at the Islands of Adventure Preview, and stopped in to look at the tribute to Lucy. Then we had lunch at the International Food Bazaar. This is like your typical mall food court, with a little variety. This was definitely fast food - cheap, but ok. After lunch we caught a couple of shows. First the Wild...West Stunt Show, and then Animal Actors. Both were good. The stunt show was more entertaining than the Indiana Jones one at Disney. The animal actors was entertaining also. The biggest drawback is lining up for the shows with the sun beating down on you. Once you are in they are covered though. Next we wanted to try E.T. This has a very deceiving line. Most of the line is inside the building. We had a fairly short line outside, so I wanted to try it. It was about 45mins. later before we actually got on the ride. The ride itself was ok, with the highlight being when ET thanks you by name. Our next stop was Terminator 2 - 3D. The TV shows in line and the preshow were pretty good. The show was exciting, but as with the movies a pretty dark storyline, not for younger children. It was one of our favorites at Universal. Then we tried the Horror Make-up Show. This was pretty neat and entertaining. The actors here were excellent. Not to be missed. We both had pretty much had enough by this point, but I wanted to ride Hanna-Barbera before we left. We were the last two of a group to get in, so that was lucky. This was also enjoyable. On the whole, we enjoyed Universal Studios, but we are not in a rush to go back. We are really looking forward to Islands of Adventure opening, as we think we will enjoy that park more.

After leaving Universal, we headed back to the WL, and had pizza from Roaring Forks for dinner. We had E-ticket Express passes again tonight, so we headed over to Magic Kingdom in time for Spectromagic and the Fireworks. We found spots near Liberty Square to watch Spectromagic. Good Parade, too bad it will not be shown every night once the 25th Anniv. is over. Then we headed closer to the hub so that we could see Tinkerbell and the fireworks. Those we also enjoyed. We had our wrist bands already, so it was time to start with the rides. We wanted to hit Pirates of the Carribean first. We were the only people on the whole ride. We had a boat to ourselves and no one in sight. It was really creepy down there with all those pirates. I think we managed to hit all of our favorite E-ticket rides that night, and a few of them twice. Although we skipped Country Bears and Time Keeper this time.

Day 10 Wed. 8 Oct

Boo Hoo. The bad news had been delivered under our door this morning. Checkout Day. We managed to get all our stuff packed up and down to the car. Neither of us really felt like theme parking today, so we decided to take it easy. We headed over to the Boardwalk to look at the DVC units there. They made us wait for a long time, and then were only able to show us a studio and one bedroom (together make a two bedroom). They didn’t tell us while we were waiting that we wouldn’t be able to see a Grand Villa. We may plan a visit here at some point, but Old Key West seems much more relaxed to us, and it takes fewer points to stay at OKW. We toured a little more on the Boardwalk, and stopped into the ESPN cafe to have lunch. The food here was pretty good, but the waiter was having trouble changing the channel on the TV at our table. After lunch, we toured around most of the other resorts that we had not seen. Mostly we just drove around the grounds so we could get a feel for them. Then we checked into the hotel we were staying at that night. Quality Inn Plaza. This was no Wilderness Lodge, but at $30, the price was right, and it was just fine. We headed out for early dinner at Boston Lobster Feast, a buffet seafood restaurant, off Sand Lake Road. This was surprisingly good and fresh. Lots of variety, and we probably will return each visit to Orlando. The price before 6pm is $19.95 per person, which we though was a good value. After dinner, we just returned to the room to relax, before we leave the next day.

Day 11 Thurs. 9 Oct

We got up in time to pack up, gas the car, get to the airport, drop off the car, and check in. Of course even though I got lost trying to find the road to the airport, everything else went super smoothly and we had an hour to kill at the airport. We wandered around a little bit, but the Disney Store just isn’t as exciting when you’ve just spent a week and a half at Disney World. So, we moped around and then caught our flight. Our stopover in Toronto kept getting longer and longer due to our outgoing plane being late. Luckily we had passes for the Airline Lounge, so we spent the day in there drinking free drinks, and looking out the window. When we finally got home, we found out that our house sitter and some of our "friends" had filled our car with confetti. How much fun is that!

Reflections and Regrets

Believe it or not, even with 10 days, we still didn’t get to do everything we wanted to. I think we pushed too hard at the beginning, and then really tired out towards the end. On our list of things that we didn’t do for one reason or another were: Dive Quest Tour, Hunchback Show, Blizzard Beach, Pleasure Island, Pirates Cove mini golf, Dinner at Swan/Dolphin ($50 coupon), more time at Downtown Disney, and more Epcot entertainment.

We are planning another trip for September 98, so hopefully we will be able to incorporate some of these things into that trip.

My Favorites from the trip:

Favorite Resort Restaurant: Chef Mickey’s
Favorite Outside Restaurant: Boston Lobster Feast
Favorite Dinner Show: Hoop de Doo
Favorite Attraction (MK): Splash Mountain
Favorite Attraction (Epcot): Honey I Shrunk the Audience
Favorite Attraction (D-MGM): Voyage of the Little Mermaid
Favorite Attraction (Busch G.): Kumba
Favorite Attraction (Universal): Horror Make-up Show
Highlights:

Buying into Disney Vacation Club
RADP meet at Artist’s Point
Hoop de Doo Dinner Show
Seeing our Walk Around the World Brick
Lowlights:

Talking Family on Busch Gardens Monorail
Foreign Tours jumping lines at Universal
The bill at the end
Carol Gould

blizzard@axion.net

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