Trip Reports

Jason has also written some additional report information entitled "Jason's Overall Impressions" and "Jason's Disneyland/Walt Disney World Comparisons." As soon as I'm able to get copies of them I'll add them to this post.

Cast of Characters:

Jim Wolniakowski -- Hope's Father, 4th timer
Kathy Wolniakowski -- Hope's Mother, 3rd timer
Hope Wolniakowski -- 2nd timer
Jason Maxwell -- First timer
Mr. Elephant -- Hope's stuffed elephant brought to her from D.C. by me
Oso -- Hope's stuffed polar bear brought to her from Las Vegas by me
Locations:

Seattle
L.A.
Orlando
WDW
Dallas
Dates of Trip: Aug. 24th - Sept. 4th

Overview:

This was a graduation present for Hope, which included her significant other, me! 8-) I'm going to write this day by day, with comments dispersed throughout. Each day will be a part except for the travel days, which will be included in the first and last days, for a total of 10 parts. I'll also post my general comments and a comparison between Disneyland and WDW.

Aug. 24th

Well today's the day! We're all packed and ready to go. Hope's parents picked us up at 1pm, and we had some time to burn, as our flight didn't leave until 6:50pm. We checked out some antique stores in Seattle, grabbed lunch, and hung out at Hope's parents hotel for a while. Took the shuttle to the airport and waited for the plane. We left Seattle about 7:15, so not too late. BTW, don't EVER fly Delta, more on this in the last day.

Get into L.A. about 9:30 and have an hour and a half to kill. Grab some fries from the McDonalds in the airport and finally find a copy of the new Games magazine, couldn't find one in Seattle. Get on the plane and try to get some sleep.

Aug. 25th

Well sleeping on the plane was unsuccsessful. The guy next to me moved and bumped me every 5 minutes it felt like. Plus it was a completely full flight so there was no way to spread out. Flight was due into Orlando at 6:30am, we finally got there at 7am.

Retrieved luggage without a big problem, turns out that the manufacturers logo on the fron of our (Hope and I) suitcase had gotten torn off and left a very small hole. Other than that, no problem. We had Florida Town Car Service for transportation to and from the airport. The driver tried to stump Hope on Disney songs, got her on an unusual rendition of Zip-a-de-do-dah. Made it to Dixie Landings by 7:50. Now we had reservations at the castle at 8:40. We blew through check-in, stored our luggage, and raced for the MK bus. We flew down Main Street, barely acknowledging that we were there! We made it to the castle at 8:40 exactly and were seated immediatly.

Breakfast was fun, but I wouldn't do it again for the price. The characters were Cinderella, Peter Pan, and Wendy. Breakfast was standard eggs, sausage, hash browns, etc. We were on the daily breakfast plan for 9 of the ten mornings, so we paid for this breakfast ourselves. We asked if they took the daily breakfast though, just to see, nope, they didn't.

After breakfast we went to our groups traditional first ride, the Peoplemover/TTA. (depending on what coast we're on) From there I performed my first TDC duty as Acolyte of the Sacred Order of Pluto, I spotted Pluto and Goofy. I didn't get a chance for a picture though.

After that we headed over to Adventureland. We knew the Tiki Room was closing in a week, and we wanted to make sure to get to see it. It also allowed me to perform the other part of my TDC duties as Keeper of the Tikis. 8-) After the Tiki Room, which was great, we did the Jungle Cruise and Pirates, finishing off Adventureland except for shopping and pressed pennies.

After that we stood in the longest line of the trip, Splash Mountain at 1pm. It was a lot of fun though! After getting drenched we were feeling pretty worn out due to the red-eye flight so we hopped the train in Frontierland to go to Main Street and head back to Dixie Landings.

Kathy was the most exausted, she took a 2 hour nap. I slept for about 45 minutes, and Hope and her father weren't tired, so they swam and looked over some Disney trivia.

We got back to the Magic Kingdom about 5pm. There's a 25th anniversary cart just inside the left tunnel as you come in. I stopped there to buy one of the Sorcerer Mickey hats. This was a great purchase and ended up starting a lot of jokes over the trip. I really like this hat. It was $19 though.

We headed for Tomorrowland after that and did the Timekeeper, Take Flight, and Carousel of Progress. I really liked the Timekeeper, Take Flight was dull, and the Carousel was fun once, but I think it could get boring. We grabbed dinner at Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe. I had a burger and fries. Then we hopped the Skyway to Fantasyland.

Once off the Skyway we did one of my favorite rides, the Haunted Mansion. I really like the look of the Mansion at WDW. People don't scream as much in the elevator room as they do in Disneyland though.

On our way out of the Haunted Mansion we did some shopping and then the sky opened up. It started pouring! We headed in to do the Legend of the Lion King show, which I loved! The Lion King is my favorite movie, and Rafiki is my favorite character, so I really enjoyed this show. I did see one of the puppeteer's hands controling young Simba once though. After the show we decided to head back to the hotel early since we were tired and it was really raining, then it got ugly.

I suggested heading for the Frontierland railroad station to use the train to get to Main Street. Does anyone listen to me? No, of course not! So we head through the castle to get out. BIG BIG BIG mistake. The castle was jammed packed. Seems like the people at the front of the castle either thought the parade or fireworks were still going to happen, (wrong) or they were afraid they were going to get wet. They weren't moving. It got really ugly in there, we're talking minutes from a riot. I got scared enough to put my arm around Hope so we could use each other for support in case the pushing got any worse, and so we wouldn't be seperated. People were screaming at the people in front to move, if you weren't at the fron or the back there was absolutly no way to move, and people were starting to push. Luckly Disney got someone there just in time to get the traffic moving, but I was really starting to wonder if everyone was going to come out in one piece. If this was anything close to what Al Lutz has been complaning about w/ Light Magic and Disneyland, I can see why he thinks there is a huge problem over there! Everyone in our area agreed that Disney needs to learn that when the rain starts coming down hard to get someone directing traffic in the castle ASAP! I meant to stop by City Hall and leave a comment, but I forgot.

After that we headed back to Dixie Landings for a much needed night's sleep.

Aug. 26th

We decided to take advantage of early entry at EPCOT today. Got there as the gates opened and hit Spaceship Earth. I really enjoyed the ride. After that we headed for Honey I Shrunk the Audience, but the line was almost to The Land pavilion. Then we found out that the attraction was broken, so we decided not to wait and went over to The Living Seas. I really liked this pavilion, I could ahve spent hours looking at the fish.

After The Living Seas, we went over to the Land and took the boat ride. I really liked seeing the different types of farming. Then we had priority seating at Garden Grill for breakfast. Really good breakfast. The characters we saw were Chip, Dale, Mickey, and Minnie. After breakfast we went to see Food Rocks. Rafiki was outside, right where people here on RADP told me he'd be. I made sure to get my picture with him. Food Rocks was fun, Kathy really liked it. On the way out we saw the Circle of Life show, which I really liked.

We headed over to Horizons after that. The scent of oranges IS really strong in that ride. We selected the space finish. After that we were going to do Ellen's Universe of Energy, but it was broken, so we went to the Wonder's of Life pavilion.

Body Wars was packed, probably people who tried to get on Energy. We did Cranium Command instead. It was cute, I enjoyed it. After that we decided it was time to hit World Showcase.

We started with Canada and worked around. Saw the movie at Canada and the bagpipers. Took a quick look at the gardens, but we're only a couple hours away from the real things so we didn't stay very long. Then we headed to England. I was going to buy a T-Shirt with the Maxwell family crest on it, until I found out it was $40! I ended up getting a book about heraldry instead. I am going to get one of the double crest pictures with my parent's wedding date on it for their 25th anniversery in March. Mary Poppins, Pooh, Tigger, and Eeyore were there so Hope and Kathy got pictures and autographs.

After all that we needed a break so we went over to check out the EPCOT resorts and get the anniversary quarters. We saw the Yacht and Beach Clubs and the Boardwalk, but couldn't find the quarters. We did get some food on the Boardwalk, because I was feeling pretty light headed. After that we took the boat back to EPCOT.

We watched the movie at France, which I thought was so-so, I prefered the Canada movie. Then the other three hit the bakery for French pastries. I had eaten a pretty rich brownie at the Boardwalk so I wasn't really interested. While we were eating we had a chance to relax, we had been snipping at each other during our hotel visit, but the rest helped. We decided that we would head back to Future World, do Honey I Shrunk the Audience and Ellen's Energy Adventure and then head over to the Magic Kingdom for Spectromagic.

While waiting for Honey I Shrunk the Audience I bought one of the Spaceship Earth Souviner Mugs with Lemonade. I really like the mug. Honey I Shrunk was pretty good. After that we hit Ellen's Universe of Energy with Bill Nye the Science Guy. I'm a BIG Bill Nye fan, from his start as "Speed Walker" back on Almost Live here in the Seattle area. I was really upset with the message this attraction sent though. Typical of Exxon though. "Don't worry about our fossil fuels, we'll just find more." I don't think so! I agree with a post I saw before I left. The best was to experience this attraction is to go see the Circle of Life attraction in The Land right after it. Interesting ride, but the information was a bunch of baloney! Well not ALL of it, but a lot. After this we took the Monorail to the Magic Kingdom.

On the Monorail Hope and I decided to find out if there were still tickets for E-Ticket that night left. We figured at 8pm there wouldn't be, but we checked at guest relations and there were! This made me REALLY happy because I had been wanting to do E-Ticket since before we left, but the only dates were the firstday, when we would be too tired, this day, and the 28th, when we had Luau reservations for the 9:30 show. Earlier in the day Hope had said she didn't want to do it, and she didn't want me to do it by myself, so I was bummed. Turns out she was getting tired of her parents and wanted to spend some time in the parks without them, so she decided to do it. After we bought the tickets we headed into the park to get seats for Spectromagic.

We headed up Main Street which was already packed. Hope's parents were cranky and not happy about not getting a good seat. We suggested by the bridge from Liberty Square. They weren't happy with that, so they found a space across the street in front of the Christmas store. It was behind the crowd at the curb standing up. We went for clam chowder bowls, and ran into Katie.

Katie was the CM working in Libery Square at the junction between the path from Frontierland and the path from Fantasyland by the flag pavilion. Obviously, until the parade was close, they had to keep the passage open, so they had a passageway marked with tape and anyone who wanted to sit where the passageway was going to be roped off sat behind the tape until ot was roped off. Well nobody was sitting behind the tape yet. We went by on our way to the Columbia Harbor House and saw this empty spot. We asked the CM (Katie) if we could sit there, which we could, and Hope staked out a spot while I went back for her parents. Her parents were happy with the spot and after we got chowder bowls we struck up a conversation with Katie. After a while another CM came over to help out, Mike, and he disagreed with Katie that we should get the from seats. So we had a good-natured arguement with him and convinced him we deserved to be up front. Then their supervisor, Lisa, came over to see how they were doing and we told her that they were doing a great job. Lisa laughed and talked to us for a while. We told her that Hope and I were planning on coming back next Christmas for our honeymoon and that Hope was interested in getting a job as a CM. She told us where casting was and to go there during the trip and when to go. Then she pulled me aside and asked if I had officially asked Hope to marry me yet, which I did a year and a half ago. She said that she had a great idea otherwise, but didn't tell me it. The then asked me if I were willing to move to Orlando. I had just been hired by Boeing, but there is a Boeing plant at Kennedy so I told her it was an option.

Well when it got close to being time to rope off the area there were people "Hanging around" planning to jump right up front. They were asked to move and they said they were waiting for the area to be roped off, to which the CM's response was, "and so are all these people, so if you'll just step to the back of the line..." When they did rope it off Katie said "OK, people in the front move in, now everyone else fill in behind." So we had spots right up front! The parade was really cool. I never saw the Main Street Electrical Parade, so I couldn't compare the two, but I really liked it. Especially when one of the glowing ball things came right at us and stopped right in front of us.

After this we went shopping at the Christmas store. Hope's parents are HUGE Christmas decoration fans! To the point of having 23 trees in their house last year, and over 100 lawn figures! We saw the fireworks from outside the Christmas store and headed out. We were going to stop by City Hall to get our E-Ticket wristbands and drop a compliment about Katie, Mike, and Lisa, but with the crowds we told Hope's parents we would take care of the comment after E-Ticket and headed toward the Tomorrowland Arcade.

We traded in our tickets and hit Space Mountain. This was my first trip on the WDW version. I don't like it as much, too much light. We then hit the Astro Orbiter, which was fun, but took too much time. Then we headed over to the other side of the park. We hit Splash Mountain with a log all to ourselves! We bought the picture to that one. We then did Big Thunder twice, the farther back you sit the better. Then we went to Haunted Mansion. The CM's on this ride were really fun! They fit the Haunted Mansion perfectly. The guy that led us into the stretch rooms had a perfect non-expression on a very pale face. He shook the doors like something was trying to get out before he opened them. The he told us to "drag our wretched bodies to the DEAD center of the room." While the narration of the stretch room was going on he walked around the edge of the room and snuck up behind a girl, scared the living daylights out of her. The other CM's were just as good. Then we hit Alien Encounter, which I thought was so-so. That was enough for one day for us, so we headed to the resort, stopping to leave a comment at City Hall on the way.

Aug 27th

Well we decided to start with MGM today with Early Entry. We got there just after the park opened, we were a little slow getting up. First thing we hit is Hope's favorite ride, the Tower of Terror. I really liked the theming of this, especailly the dissapearring hallway, but I wasn't too fond of the ride itself. Definetly a once a trip ride. After that we made priority seating arrangements for 10:45 at Cape May and saw the Little Mermaid show, which I thought was pretty neat, especially the water and laser effects. Then we got to do what I had been waiting for, Star Tours. I'm a big Star Wars fan, and I REALLY liked the theming outside of Star Tours with the AT-AT and other vehicles. Much better than Disneyland. The ride is, of course, the same at both locations, but I still enjoyed it. Then it was time for breakfast.

We went to Cape May for breakfast. I like buffets, and this was a pretty good one. Plus it had Pluto in the waiting area! I was wearing my Pluto hat this day, because I figured I'd have to take my Sorcerer Mickey hat off all the time for all the shows at MGM anyway. I got a picture with Pluto, with my hat pushed down thanks to him! 8-) Chip, Dale, and Goofy were also there, all 4 of them dresses in their aquatic gear. After breakfast we went and found the Yacht and Beach Club 25th Anniversary quarter we missed the day before. Turns out it was outside and we went inside two doors up from it and came out one door down from it. After the quarter we decided to test the "go to the parks the day after Early Entry" theory and went back to EPCOT.

We did the Japan and America pavilions. We had a Kaki-Gori in Japan, yum! In America we heard the Voices of Libery sing, they're really good. Then we went and saw the American Adventure. I noticed the closed captioning in the back. I'll admit, I was so tired from the night before that I fell asleep! After this both Hope and I were worn out, so we went back to the hotel to sleep.

We were going to go swimming first, at about 2pm, but we were too tired so we set the alarm for 4pm to go swimming before we had to get up and get ready for dinner and the RADP meet. We were too tired at 4 to swim, so we slept another hour. At 5 we got up, changed clothes, and headed for the Sassagoula Steamboat about 5:30 to get to the Marketplace for our 6pm reservations at the Fireworks Factory. We just missed the boat. So we figures we didn't have time to wait for another so we tried to catch the bus. We were still late. Dinner was pretty good. Hope's parents enjoyed their steaks, but the ribs I had could have been better. I checked out the window in the bathroom too. Then it was up the hill to the Adventurers Club for the RADP meet!

I have to say I LOVED the Adventurers Club! It was my type of place. I'd reccomend that everyone at least stop by during their trip. Well we were the first ones there, even if we were 5 minutes late. Then Ron, Aven and Gene, Gail and Trent, Kenney, and Norm and his family showed up. I'll post a more comprehensive RADP meet report under the title, "Aug. 27th RADP Meet." Hope's parents weren't sure that they would enjoy the Adventurers Club, but it turned out that they loved it. I bought a Senior Membership for $30 which included a T-Shirt, 2 pins, a copy of the charter, and a Kungaloosh in a canteen. After the meet we headed back to the hotel.

This was the first day of the mosquito scare so the pools we closed at night. It didn't stop anyone from swimming, and we couldn't actually tell they were closed right away. This changed after this night. We did swim for about a half and hour though, then went to bed.

Aug. 28th

Well today we had arranged to take the Backstage Magic tour. We also had reservations for the 9:30pm Luau. For those of you who don't know, this is an all day tour costing $160. It takes you behind the scenes at all three parks, plus information about animation. We had to be at EPCOT Guest Relations at 8:45am so we only had time to eat breakfast at Boatwright's. I thought the food was OK, but I really liked the decorations. The rest of the group didn't think they wer that interesting, but I grew up with a grandfather who loves boats, so I recognized a lot of stuff. I liked it.

Hope already wrote up a report about the tour, so I just copied it into my trip report. Additional comments from me are inclosed in these brackets: [ ].

Many of you have read other's reports about the Backstage Magic Tour or have taken the tour yourself, so I won't try to bore you with the details, but briefly mention the order of events, and then elaborate on the crazy things that our tour created.

The tour starts approx. at 8:45 in front of Guest Relations at Epcot. There were 15 of us on the tour, and we were all there about 10 min. before our tour guide showed up, so as soon as he got there we boarded one of those mini-bus things and we were on our way.

Besides our family of four, there was another family of four with two teenage girls (I think they were 16 and 18), a local, Laura, who came on the tour with her brother from out-of-town and she was not prepared for what would happen, two men who were visiting from Scotland, and three solo men. Roddy was our driver, this was his first time doing the tour. Doug, was our guide. Doug had worked at WDW for five years, he started out at River Country as a lifeguard, worked every attraction in Future World and then had been working in guest relations for about 2 years.

Once on the bus, Doug asked if anyone knew what to expect on this tour, and I said I did, he asked how, I said the internet, he said that I shouldn't believe everything I read over the internet, I smiled and said you learn what you can trust. Then Doug asked a trivia question, one of the guys answered it, Doug was surprised, and the guy who answered the question said, "I guess the internet is right sometimes," then everyone laughed.

[Doug obviously didn't think much of the internet, even to the point of saying that he is on-line, and 90% of what you read isn't true.]

Doug then told us that he could answer any question that we might have about WDW, no one spoke up, so I asked, "When will Test Track open?" Everyone laughed again, especially Doug.

[Zing!]

His answer: The current date for a soft opening is Nov. 4th but that all references to an opening date have been pulled from all press releases. He never really talked about why it wasn't open yet, but that there were "problems". Then he talked about how he just toured Animal Kingdom, and they were ahead of schedule and that it was opening to the public in May, but the entire month of April the park would be open to CM's for everyone to get their bearings for the new park.

The first stop was the American Adventure, one of the maintence men was there and answered several questions, then on to the Living Seas. Doug told us to keep an eye out for the contrast between the unthemed backstage and "on stage". We were shown the manatees, and the kitchen, and shown the hydrolators, Doug talked about how the one person tried to sue Disney over the ear thing. That started everyone talking about the recent lawsuit and how it got thrown out of court. After the living seas, we went over to Body Wars. Probe 4 wasn't being used at that time, so we didn't get to see it in action, but Doug told us how the ride could be stopped if anything is left on the exit walkway, and told us a story about how one time when he worked there, the ride was stopped because someone had relieved themself on the walkway. At this point we were starting to get concerned that the tour, although interesting, would not be worth the $160...boy were we worried about nothing.

After Body Wars, we left Epcot and went over to MGM for the Animation class. No one was particularly looking forward to this part of the tour, because we can't draw, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. This also provided the first time for someone on our tour to make a Disney employee speechless.

We were all seated around the table, and Tom, the animator, came in and explained that we were going to learn to draw Goofy, and that regardless of what we might think, we could draw if properly instructed. He ended his little spiel, by saying, "it's not like drawing is rocket science." Now Jason, and I had graduated in June with a degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering which is basically just rocket science, so I told him, "Good, cause I already did that." Tom just stared, and was like "Huh". And my mom pointed to Jason and I and said, "Yep, they're rocket scientists." Tom continued to stare and asked if we were joking and we smiled and said, nope. Then Tom said that in all the times he used the joke, he never had any rocket scientists in the group, and that he couldn't wait until lunch to warn the others about that rocket scientist joke. Anyway, we drew Goofy and when we were done, Tom gave his Goofy to Jason, the Rocket Scientist. Then we drew Pumba. I was surprised how well my drawings came out, and how much I enjoyed it. Before we left, Tom drew Mickey (sort off) in 2.5 sec.

[I really enjoyed this part of the tour. I keep meaning to practice drawing Goofy, but haven't got around to it yet. The other three weren't as excited about it as I was.]

Next we went to Central Costuming, and were each given a swatch from either Snow White, Ariel, Jasmine or one of the guys, it was either Prince Eric or Aladdin. On the ride we passed a couple of characters backstage. Doug explained that unlike the other parks, characters are considered "on stage" anywhere on MGM, because you don't know what someone might see while on the tram tour. We also say some people working on the "From Earth to the Moon" sets, and they had a fabulous lunch spread out on tables for the crew. 11:30 came and on to lunch at Mama Melrose's. I had of course read about the food, and that we would be joined by one of the streetmosphere people, but nothing could prepare us for Helen and nothing could prepare Helen for us. Lunch itself was worth the $160, but I have decided that the mileage you get out of the tour is dependent on who is your guide, who is at lunch, and most importantly who are the people in your group.

I would like to stay lunch started normal enough and I guess the first 5 minutes were. We were brought in through the back, were introduced to Helen, Doug invited her to lunch and we went to the two table that were set up for us. Helen sat at our table, along with Laura and her brother, the two men from Scotland and Doug started out at our table. Helen and Doug chit-chated for a couple minutes, I suppose it was to warm us up, (we didn't need warming). Basically our group struck Helen out and she lost it; we all lost it.

Then Helen started asking everyone their name, when she got to me she said. "Hope is such a pretty name" and my mother said thank you. Helen was a little confused, so my mom explained that she had given it to me.

My mother and I are often taken for being sisters, because she looks so young. Helen asked my mom how old she was and didn't believe her when she said she was 44, and said she had ways of telling how old someone is. She got up and started playing with my mom's hair and face looking for wrinkles and grey hairs. Helen said she did not look 44 but eventually believed she was my mother.-Strike 1

Helen went back to her seat, finished getting everyone's name and then started asking what everyone did. The first person she asked was Steve, one of the people from Scotland. He said he worked in the computer industry, and Helen went off saying how she couldn't understand them and he must be really smart. Then Laura said wait until you find out what these two do (pointing to Jason and me), they're rocket scientists. Helen stared for a moment like she didn't know what to do, then she found out that we were engaged and made us stand up and kiss.-Strike 2

Now for most of the tour, videotaping is prohibited, but during lunch it isn't so Steve and his friend pulled out their video camera. I would like to explain what their presence did at lunch, but it might turn out to be one of those "you had to be there" moments. I don't think I could do it justice, but Steve and his friend had the camera everywhere, Helen couldn't understand what they were saying through the Scottish accent and the laughing. She kept having to ask for them to repeat what they were saying and they would very slowly repeat what they were saying. Needless to say, there were moments during lunch when she had to put her napkin over her head, to compose herself, and at one point she crawled under the table to breath, and Steve's friend crawled down on the floor with the camera following her.

Anyway, lunch included drinks, caeser salad, wonderful, marvelous bread (which Helen stole), lasagna, vegi pizza, cheese pizza, bowtie pasta, pasta w/ marinara. I think I had more stuff up my nose than I actually ate, but the lasagna was absolutely fabulous. We also had a desert platter.

At the end of lunch, Jason pulled out his sorceror Mickey hat, and Helen said that was it and he would have to take his hat off otherwise she would die. Helen joined us on the bus, and at this point she was supposed to break character, and explain who she was and talk about her job. She couldn't do it. Everytime she tried to compose herself, she would look at all of us and start giggling. She kept telling Doug that she couldn't do it. We arrived back at the Animation Studio, and this was where she was supposed to leave us, but she still hadn't broken character. Finally she was able to tell us that her name was Donna, and that she was a streetmosphere performer, and most of the rest of the time she was thanking us profusely for playing along at lunch, and how she had the most wonderful time she had ever had, and she would never forget us. She told us how she also played Rosie the Cleaning Lady at Indiana Jones, and my family decided we would make sure we saw Rosie at Indy(more on that later). The people at the studio were getting anxious, so Donna gave anyone a big hug and kiss and we were went inside.

I kind of felt sorry for Heather, the lady who was supposed to show us how to draw cels. We were all still recovering from lunch, Doug tried to explain what happened at lunch, but I think she felt a little left out. Anyway we got to choose from Dalmatian puppies, or Cruella De Ville. We also saw a short video explaining the cel creation process from Beauty and the Beast.

[Cel painting was pretty cool. Hope has since bought a couple of cels to paint herself. I was going to, but decided I wanted other souviners more.]

At this point, we changed from the mini-bus to a full size bus, because the mini-bus was "needed" elsewhere. Doug also brought everyone a copy of the "Eyes and Ears" that had the color pictures of Coronado Springs.

Next we went over to the Magic Kindgom, where we saw the parade warehouses, and the central shops, and met the lady whose job it is to take care of the horses from Cinderella's carousel.

[On the way there Doug "inticed" us with telling us that we would be able to see the shops working on one of the MK attractions that was about to go down to rehab. I leaned over to Hope and whispered "Tiki Birds." Doug looked at me and said, "I can read lips Jason!"]

[Jim and I each grabbed a burnt out lightbulb that was tossed on the floor at the SpecroMagic storage area when nobody was looking! Spend $10 for a MSEP Light Bulb? No need! 8-)]

[We also saw the Electric Water Pageant floats. While looking at them someone asked about the Main Street Electrical Parade and what was being done at Disneyland. Doug responded that they had a new show called Light Magic and then pointed at Hope and said "No comments." Sounds like Doug DOES read the internet! 8-)]

Then we went into parade control and saw the computers for that. Then finally we were taken to Main Street where we were able to watch the parade. I'll talk more about the parade later, but I am glad we got to see it this way (no wait) because although I liked it, it was really short and I am not sure I would have felt the same way about it, if I had waited an hour to see it.

[I thought it was pretty short too. The really neat thing is that when the first float came by with Sorcerer Mickey on it he looked down and us. He saw me wearing my Sorcerer Mickey hat and pointed at me and waved and pointed at his hat!!!!! Big smile and big memory time!!!]

After the parade, we all boarded the bus back to Epcot. Half of our tour took off right away, but the other half of us milled around and talked for about a half hour. Steve took everyone's email addresses and snail-mail addresses so he could send us a copy of the video from lunch. Roddy (the bus driver) had picked up an extra copy of the most recent "Eyes and Ears" and said my Dad could take it if he wanted to, so he did.

All in all, it was a wonderful time, but we had a very active and entertaining group of people on the tour, and Helen was absolutely marvelous, and we got a lot of stuff.

The list of Stuff:

- Really cool nametag

- Backstage Magic Folder

- Goofy drawing

- Pumba drawing

- Goofy drawn by Animator

- Disney cel and paints

- 2 copies of "Eyes and Ears"

- Pop and water

- A fabulous lunch

- The most wonderful memories, and new friends.

A couple of things I would add to this. First, Doug didn't seem to happy that Hope and I knew so much. To be honest, I really didn't learn anything about park operation on the tour, everything he told us I had already learned from RADP. It was interesting to actually see the stuff though. Second, there were 2 questions that Doug said are always asked douring the tour. The first is Is Walt frozen? (No) and the second is Are they going to extend the monorail? (No) The second was asked by Jim.

After the tour we went back to the resort to drop our stuff off and we decided to take a swim. Afterwards we got ready for dinner. Since we had time to kill we went to the Magic Kingdom to get our 25th Anniv. badges and lithographs and we went to the Monorail resorts to get the pressed coins. We still had time to kill so we watched the water pageant from outside the Luau.

The Luau was fun. Lots of good food! I didn't have the dolphin fish since I couldn't bring myself to eat dolphin, as Hope told me it really was. What can I say, I just spent 2 years with an environmental group working on endangered species issues. The rest of the food was good though. I thought the show was only OK, except for the fire dancer, I really liked that part. Next time we're going to try to do the Hoop-De-Do so we'll see which we like better. After the Luau it was off to bed!

Aug. 29th

Well today we started our tour of the water parks. WE decided to go from oldest to newest, so it was off to River Country.

We had breakfast at Artist Point. This was a fun breakfast. The characters were Meeko W/ Flit, Pocohantas, John Smith, and the Govenor. Meeko was very interested in our food, and had Hope hold Flit while he signed autographs at our table. Our Pocohantas was never "in character" with us, which we thought was wierd. Instead she asked us where we were from and mentioned that she had a friend going to school nearby, etc.

After breakfast we caught the boat to Fort Wilderness and got the pressed coins there. In the process we had to go into the arcade to get change. Then we headed over to River Country, where Hope found out she lost her park ticket! After 15 minutes of looking, it turned out that she left it on the change machine in the arcade, luckly it was still there.

We got a locker in River Country, a shady table, and hit the river raft ride. This was my favorite slide there. We also did the rope slide, well I did. Hope tried, but fell off as soon as she left the platform! 8-) I held on until the end. We tried the other slides as well. We only spent about 2 hours there, there just wasn't enough to keep us busy, though it was a nice park for being 20 years old.

After River Country we did a little shopping at Fort Wilderness, I bought my sister a candle holder in the shape of Mickey's glove. Then we headed back to the Wilderness Lodge by boat. At the Lodge we did some shopping, some picture taking, and went after more pressed coins. I bought Hope the moose Beanie Baby, which she asked me for before we left home. This started a collection after we got home. It's 2 weeks since I bought that Beanie, she now has 30! She was already collecting the Disney ones before we left, and she has ALL of those as well! Of course I can't complain too much, I have all the new Star Wars figures!

After that we headed back to the resort by a boat to the Magic Kingdom and a bus back. We changed clothes, took showers, etc and went to the Marketplace by the boat. We went to the casting office first since Hope was interested in a job, but the best they could do is give her a phone number to call to set up a phone interview. We could have watched a movie telling us what Disney expects from their employees, but it was a 45 minute wait and we already knew it all from here on RADP. So we went back to the Marketplace to look at some stores and then we headed for MGM.

We took the bus to the Boardwalk, so that we could find the 25th Anniv. quarter. We finally found it, out by the bike rental. After that we caught the boat to MGM. The first thing we did was Muppetvision 4-D. I loved this show! This and the Legend of the Lion King show at the Magic Kingdom are my favorite shows at WDW. I'm a big Muppets fan anyway. I even laughed at Statler and Waldorf's jokes. I was hoping to see this again on the trip, no luck though. After this we went into the Christmas shop and did some coin pressing. We hit the Great Movie Ride, cowboy version, as well. After some more coin pressing, the park closed. We decided to head over to the All-Stars and get the coins from there. Then we headed back to dixie Landings, we had pizza in the food court for dinner and went to bed.

Aug. 30th

Well today was the continuation of our tour of the water parks. Today, Typhoon Lagoon.

We hadn't made breakfast arrangements for this morning, so we walked over to Port Orleans and ate at Bonfamille's and got the smashed coins. Breakfast was pretty good. From there we went to Typhoon Lagoon.

We got there about 15 minutes before opening and planned our strategy. Hope and her mom took the clothes and stuff and got a locker while her Dad and I headed for a good place to drop our stuff. I had learned from the day before that the group generally liked tube rides so I suggested heading for that section. We headed over there and got a great spot. Typhoon Lagoon Hint: If you're not real interested in the wave pool, head for the kiddie area. Just after you cross the bridge before you enter the kiddie area, there's a table w/ umbrella and lounge chairs nearby. Great spot to set up for the day!

Since we were right at the entrance to the tube rides, we hit all three of them. My favorite would have to be the shorter solo ride, just because the longer one is just too much of a hike! The family ride was too short and calm for the distance you carry the family tube!

After hitting the tube slides we headed over to do Shark Reef. At first Kathy and I didn't do this, since neither one of us were great with snorkels, but when we saw you didn't have to use the snorkels, we went ahead. I'm glad I did. The only negative was that I had to take my glasses off, so it was hard to see a lot, but it was still really neat.

Since we waited to do Shark Reef, when Hope and her father got out, they couldn't find us. Kathy and I ended up doing all three body slides while they were looking for us. We assumed they were doing Humunga Kowabunga. The body slides were so-so. After that we went back to the table to wait for them. Since Kathy was waiting I hit the shorter tube slide a couple of times, then Kathy saw the other two in Castaway Creek, so we grabbed a double tube and caught up to them. Then they went to do Humunga Kowabunga, something neither Kathy or I were interested in.

After they did that and we got back together, we realized the park was getting busy so we decided to hit the tube rides one more time, and then head for the wave pool. This was my first time in a wave pool, and I have to say it was only OK. Of course I did have a big scare. They were doing the big surf waves while we were in there. I didn't realize HOW big and powerful these waves were. The first wave ripped my glasses off and sent them somewhere. BIG PROBLEM! I had no clue where they went, or howe to find them blind. The four of us fanned out hoping to find them before another big wave hit and sent them who knows where. No luck. However that next wave sent them craashing into somebody who picked them up and held them up. Hope saw this and rescued them! I never saw the person who found them, but if it happened to be someone reading this, (a million to one chance) thanks!

After that everytime a big wave came, I took my glasses off and held them in my hand. It was fun after that. After a while I got tired and told Hope, "After the next big wave, I'm going to go float in Castaway Creek." What is it about the last one always being the one that gets you? On this wave I ended up getting caught underwater underneath Hope. While normally being close to Hope is not a bad position, *smile* when you're underwater fighting a current, it's not so much fun. I ended up scraping an elbow and a knee on the bottom and getting an elbow from Hope and kneed by Hope in the worst spot possible. So after that I was really ready for a nice trip in the creek. I told Hope to come find me in the creek when she was done in the wave pool.

Castaway Creek has to be my favorite part of Typhoon Lagoon. It's so relaxing! I took two trips around the creek, and as I floated by the table the second time, I noticed Jim telling me to come up. Turns out they floated around 1 ½ times looking for me. Well at that point we decided that the park was pretty busy, and we were pretty tired, so we left. We headed over to the Carribean Beach Resort to check it out and get the smashed coins, and then headed for Epcot.

Once we got to Epcot, we realized that we were hungry. We planned to each at Resturant Askerhaus, but they're closed between 3:30 and 4:30. So we grabbed some fries and ate them watching Barb's fountains. The only thing that Hope's parents hadn't done in Future World was Body Wars, and Hope and I hadn't done Journey into Imagination. Hope's parents got some stuff done on Wednesday while Hope and I were taking our nap. We hit Body Wars first, which we walked straight onto. Nothing different than Star Tours, which I liked better. We did get into Probe 4 so we told the CM's that we had been below the pod a couple days earlier and they pointed to us where we had been standing. I wouldn't have seen it if they hadn't pointed it out.

After that we went over to Journey into Imagination, which we also walked onto. It was fun. Afterwards we looked around in the imagination area, and Hope and I became seperated from her parents. After waiting outside Imagination for 20 minutes we decided to continue with our tour of EPCOT, assuming that's what they did. We first went to the two small stores that frame the pathway between Future World and the World Showcase. They contained the last penny presses we neede to do in EPCOT. Her parents weren't there but we knew they had been, since Kathy left her refillable mug on top of one of them. After that we knew that they would have to double back to find the mug so we just sat on a bench and waited. As soon as we sat down we saw Jim headed our way. He was looking for us though, not the mug. They didn't realize they had lost it. They had been waiting for us at Resturant Askerhaus.

After meeting back together we ate at Resturant Askerhaus, which was really good. After that Hope and I went on Maelstrom, while Hope's parents waited for us. We brought Mr. Elephant and Oso with us, since we had promised Oso we would take him, since there were polar bears on the ride. I liked Maelstrom, probably the best ride at EPCOT. After that I bought a book on lefse for my grandmother who's adoptive parents were Swedish. Then we went to Mexico and did the boat ride there. At this point Hope's parents had done everything in EPCOT except for Illuminations. They went to wait for seats in the viewing area in the front of World Showcase while Hope and I went through the last 3 pavilions. We had 40 minutes to race through China, Germany, Italy and get back to the front of World Showcase. We did it, and had time for Hope to buy ornaments in the Christmas store in Germany.

We were at the front of the line for the sitting area in the front of World Showcase when 8:30 rolled around. When the CM's dropped the ropes at the two front entrances and told everybody to walk to the front the people on the sides took it upon themselves to unhook there ropes and race in. So the people that had waited patiently for seats for an hour did not get seats since the people who had waited 5 minutes, on one side a tour group, cut. It was a bummer, but we did get second row seats behind some kids, so we had a pretty unobstructed view. We had a half an hour to kill, so I went and bought my last EPCOT souviner, the Goofy dresed up in the Scottish kilt.

Right before the show started a tremendous wind came up that blew from Spaceship Earth across the World Showcase. It cooled us off and kept the smole away from us. We were wondering if it was Disney magic that did it because it stopped right after the show did! I really liked the show, but I have never seen the regular version. The fireworks were really cool! We did notice that the fireworks stand on the Norway side wasn't operating all the time and it appeared that it had a small fire on it. After the show we headed out to the buses, stopping to see the lighted sidewalk on the way. We got another light show on the way out, as we could see a thunderstorm rolling in, with lots of lightning. We hit the sack back at Dixie Landings after being really worn out!

Aug. 31st

Well today finished out tour of the water parks with a trip to Blizzard Beach. We didn't make any breakfast arrangements, but we decided to be at Ohana's at the Poly when they opened. They had no problem fitting us in. The food was your typical breakfast, but it was a character breakfast. Chip, Dale, Goofy, and Minnie were all there. This was one of my two favorite character breakfasts because we had some great character interaction.

Goofy had a couple of banannas he was using as pistols. When he headed to our table he snuck up behind Kathy and "stuck her up." He stole her breakfast plate and took off across the resturant with it, using his "pistol" to make sure we didn't follow him! This lasted until one of the waiters asked him what he was doing and told him to take it back. On his way back over Hope strolled over and stuck him up with her butter knife and took the breakfast back! Goofy wasn't happy and stomped away into the kitchen and camp back with a can of whipped cream, which he used to decorate Hope's waffles. After that he asked for Hope's hand and he sprayed some whipped cream into her hand! After returning the whipped cream to the kitchen, he took a picture with us, and just as the picture was being taken, he kicked Hope and got her to look away from the camera! During the "kids parade" everytime he came by our table he glared at Hope.

It was a lot of fun.

After breakfast we headed over to Blizzard Beach. We got there about 15 minutes before opening and used the same strategy as the day before. After getting the locker and lounge chairs we took the ski lift to the top and rode Teamboat Springs, the family raft ride. This one is much better than the one at Typhoon Lagoon, because it's longer and wilder, and because they have a conveyor belt that takes the rafts back to the top. After the trip Kathy and I waited at the bottom while Hope and Jim went on Summit Plummet. After their ride we went over to the Double Dipper tube ride which I thought was a lot of fun, even though I had the slowest time of the group. We tried out one of the mat slides after that, but none of us were that impressed with them.

After that it was time for some exercise, we hit the tube slide. It's quite a hike to the top! They have 3 slides, two open, one enclosed. The open ones were only OK but the enclosed one was darker than Space Mountain! That one is worth the hike, the others aren't. Once we finished the tube slides we took a trip around Cross-Country Creek, which isn't as nice as Castaway Creek because there isn't as much shade. Then we went into Meltaway Bay, a bobbing wave pool. Here we found a Hidden Mickey! If you look at the rock indentations under the first lifeguard post on the right as you enter the pool. One of them forms a perfect Mickey head! I liked this wave pool better than the one at Typhoon Lagoon.

After this we were pretty tired, and the park was filling up, so we grabbed foot-long hot dogs for lunch. Afterwards Hope and I took another trip around Cross-Country Creek, and then we packed up a got ready to leave. I did some shopping on the way out, I bought the 25th Anniv. beach towel. We also took a picture of Oso and Mr. Elephant with the snowmen. After that it was a trip to Coronado Springs. Hope and I are thinking about staying there on our honeymoon next December, so we anted to check it out, and get the pressed coins. We really liked everything except the 10% gratuity the tack on at the food court. You do all the work, but you have to tip. Really stupid. After touring the hotel we went to the Magic Kingdom.

We got a locker at the Magic Kingdom to stash our stuff in. Then we headed on a pressed penny hunt. We wanted to finish the Magic Kingdom pennies today. We went through Adventureland and did some shopping as well. We saw the Fab 5 and the Pooh gang stuffed animals dressed as if they were on safari. They even had a Pluto!!! I couldn't afford it but Kathy loaned me the money. Thanks Kathy! Hope bought Eeyore and Kathy bought Tigger. Hope wasn't feeling real good so I got her a citrus swirl and sat with her while she regained some energy and her parents went and did Country Bear Jamboree. After they did that, we decided to split up since there was a lot in the park that they had to do that we did during E-Ticket. Hope and I did Country Bears and then headed over to Fantasyland.

Once in Fantasyland we did some of the dark rides. We let Oso and Mr. Elephant drive us through Mr. Toad's. Mr. Elephant got do drive the Disneyland version last year when Hope visited with her parents, but apparently he didn't learn anything becuse we STILL ended up in hell! 8-) We also did Snow White and the Caruosel. At that point it was time to meet Hope's parents. Jim wasn't feeling well and Kathy was tired, so they headed back to the resort while Hope and I decided to do a couple more things.

We grabbed burgers and fries at Pinnochio's Village Haus and then hit It's A Small World. I like the ride, hate the song. After that we were tired, but we knew that this was supposedly the last day for the Tiki Birds, so we wanted to see it one last time. Turns out that it was open the next day, not what Disney.com said, but that was OK. After this we were tired so we stopped and found the last penny press we needed and headed back to the resort for bed.

Sept. 1st

Well we really realized today that the trip was almost over. We need to hit some of the longer line rides in the Magic Kingdom, so we headed ove r there for Early Entry. We didn't have any breakfast plans, so we were able to get a nice suprise.

We got to the Magic Kindom just as it opened and headed for Tomorrowland. Jim and Kathy went to the Astro Orbiter, so we went and did the Grand Prix Speedway. We were the first people on the Speedway, and nobody else had shown up yet when we were done so we had to walk on the track a little bit to get out since the cars hadn't moved up far enough yet. After that we couldn't find Hope's parents so we did Space Mountain again. After waiting for them for a while we decided to head for Fantasyland and finish the rides in there. We did the Mad Tea Party, and then headed for Dumbo. Mr. Elephant had been looking forward to Dumbo forever, so we took him. We took pictures of him that match the pictures Hope took of him on Dumbo on Disneyland. After Dumbo we did Peter Pan and then finally found Hope's parents. They still had some of the dark rides in Fantasyland to do, so we went and saw Legend of the Lion King again. After that they were done so we needed to find breakfast.

We thought that Tony's, on Main Street, would be the only place in the Magic Kingdom that would accept our Daily Breakfast so we headed there. Probably the best breakfast of our trip. I had a two-egg breakfast, Hope had waffles, and her parents had steak and eggs. After a great breakfast, we headed over to MGM.

We took a convoluted route to MGM. We had to go by central lost and found at the TTC. Kathy had lost a shirt earlier in the week in MGM. We took the express monorail to the TTC. WE got to ride up front on this trip! The CM driving didn't say anything to us, and din't offer us the co-pilot's licenses but I saw them in a container on the back wall, so I grabbed some for all of us. After that we took the monorail to EPCOT since we hadn't rode the monorail that direction yet. From EPCOT we took a bus to MGM.

The first thing we did was take the Tram Tour. This wasn't too much different than the tour I took at Universal Hollywood a few years ago. I did like seeing the tank from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. On the way out of the tour we saw a speeder bike and the holotable from Star Wars. We also ran into Woody, Buzz, and a Green Army Man. We got their autographs and I got a picture with the Green Army Man. We wwent back to the Christmas store and Hope's parents made some purchases. It was starting to rain so we went to the Sci-Fi Diner for snacks and dessert. We had onion rings, french fries and we each had a dessert. It's an interesting environment, but expensive!

After food we went to the 101 Dalmation tour. While in line we realized that we were about to miss the last Beauty and the Beast show of the day. We decided to go see the show instead. We raced over and just made it in. The show was fun but nothing too remarkable. Then we headed for the Hunchback show. Hope and I made a detour to the Tower of Terror store to buy a shirt and a button. I really enjoyed the Hunchback show, and I'm now interested in seeing the movie. After the show we happened to see Chewbacca outside Star Tours. This was the first half of what changed my mind about having queues for characters. The other half was a little later when I saw Pluto outside the Dalmation tour.

I'm a big Star Wars fan and Pluto is my favorite Disney character. All I wanted was a picture with each of them, no autograph or anything. Both these characters were unqueued and it was a headache. You had people stepping in to pictures, cutting in front of people who had been waiting, etc. Someone started pulling at Chewie's arm to get him to go toward a camera. Chewie yanked his arm away and walked over to someone who had been waiting patiently. I wanted to lean over to the group he walked away from and say in my best Han Solo voice, "Just to let you know, it's not wise to upset a Wookie!" With Pluto there was a little boy and me waiting for him when Pluto headed off up the street chasing someone. The little boy said to his mom, "Where's Pluto going? Is he coming back?" in a really worried/upset voice. When he came back he was mobbed and the little boy and I ended up waiting another 5-7 people before we got our pictures. I made sure the little boy got in before I did. After that, I was all for queuing the characters!

We went and saw the ABC Saturday Morning Sound Show. It's fun, but nothing great. After that we went back to the Dalmation tour. The tour was interesting. We saw the great GONK from Star Wars fame! He's on the shelf right above the door into the first room. We also saw a little bit from the new HBO movie being filmed, From The Earth To The Moon. It's a mini-series being directed by Tom Hanks and Ron Howard. After the tour we decided to get the rest of the pressed coins. At that point we were going to visit the Marketplace one last time, but we were too tired so we went back to the resort. We decided to get pizza and watch the Monday Night Football game. It was Chicago vs. Green Bay and Hope was born in Milwaukee, so you know why we had to watch the game. None of us made it through halftime though, we were too tired. We're used to the game starting at 6pm, not 9pm! 8-)

Sept. 2nd

Well we knew our vacation was coming to an end, but we still had stuff to do. Today was the day to finish MGM.

We took the bus over to MGM and got there before the rope drop. We had breakfast arrangements for the Soundstage Resturant first thing. I liked this resturant. The characters were Alaadin, Quasi, Clopin, and Meeko. Clopin wanted to trade hats with me! I was wearing the sorcerer Mickey hat. We finished the MGM pressed coins by getting the ones here.

After breakfast we went on the Animation tour. It was really interesting seeing how it's done, though it felt a little too much like a commercial for Mulan. Alot of it was repeating what we had learned inthe Backstage Magic tour, but it was still fun.

After the tour it was over to the Indiana Jones show. We made sure to see Rosie the cleaning lady, otherwise known as Helen from our Backstage Magic Tour. She did her "show" in the row behind us after recognizing us. The Indy show was OK, I thought it was funny when they explained why Harrison Ford needed a stunt man so he wouldn't get hurt during the stunts. I'm a BIG Harrison Ford fan, and he's asked in almost every interview he does if it's true that he does his own stunts, to which he always says he does. There was no stunt man for Ford. It was still a fun show though.

After that all we had left was Superstar Television. Nothing special here really. We hadn't seen the Herc parade and had time to kill. The rest of the group wanted to go on the Tower of Terror to get a picture, something I wasn't doing again. We walked over there and the 3 of them rode it while I waited. After that it was a bout 1pm so we grabbed a turkey leg and then decided it was time to find seats for the parade.

I still wanted to get pictures outside of Star Tours and maybe ride again, so Kathy said she would get the seats while we headed over there. On our way over we noticed there was one empty bench left along the parade route so Hope and I grabbed it quickly until Kathy walked by. We left her at the bench and went to take pictures of all the stuff outside Star Tours. Hope took a picture of me underneath the foot of the AT-AT. We decided the line was short enough to ride again and then we headed back to the parade, with a stop at Dinosaur Gertie's for a slush.

The parade was fun, but short. I still think Hades looks like the best character. I haven't seen the movie yet. After the parade we decided that MGM was done so we should go to the Marketplace and get our souviners so we could pack them tonight. We took the boat to the Boardwlak and the bus to the Marketplace.

At the Marketplace I bought a nice candle holder for my sister for Christmas. I also bought one of the 25th Anniversary sweatshirts, the purple one, and the white embroidered WDW T-shirt with the drawing of Pluto in black and "Walt Disney World" embroidered in purple and gold. Hope and her parents bought a lot of stuff. Hope and I also headed back to Pleasue Island to get the pressed penny there. After shopping we took the boat back to Dixie Landings.

After we got back we just took it easy for the rest of the night. Hope's parents went to Port Orleans to do some shopping and ended up going back to the Marketplace while Hope and I relaxed and packed. I got a burger and fries from the food court for dinner and then we hit the sack for our last day at WDW. 8-(

Sept. 3rd

Well this was the last day at WDW. 8-( Hope was very depressed at this thought. We got up early in the morning and got everything packed and ready to go, and then called the bellhop to store the bags while we went to the Magic Kingdom for the last time.

We ate at Tony's again, everyone had the same thing except me, I had the steak and eggs. Then we took the train to Toontown Fair. We went and saw Mickey and go pictures taken. Then we visited Donald's boat and rode the Barnstormer.

After the Barnstormer we went to the Hall of Fame and went to the classic characters room, Goof, Minnie, and Pluto were there. I got a picture with the "classic" Pluto which I hadn't done yet. Hope Jim and I did some shopping in the store outside the room after that, while Kathy went to the Princess room. I bought the 25th Anniversary motion button. This finished up Toontown Fair and we walked over to Frontierland.

On the way I noticed the Sword in the Stone ceremony was starting. I wanted to get some pictures so I said I was going to go take 2 pictures. I knew we were heading to the Hall of Presidents, so after I took the pictures, I headed there. No Hope or her parents. I didn't know where they were, so I went back to the ceremony, knowing that they knew I was going there and figuring that when they realized that I hadn't rejoined them that they would retrace to there. In other words I "hugged a tree." the last two times we split up in the Magic Kingdom we had met up there, and Hope had mentioned that fact earlier, so I figured they would at least think of going there. Well an hour and 15 minutes later Hope walks up and asks me where I've been! Apparently they stopped at the bathroom and then waited on a bench outside the Hall of Presidents. Hope's parents went on Splash Mountain while Hope waited for me, something I wanted to do. Hope and her dad also went on the Riverboat.

That hour ended up wasting a lot of our time, so after we got together we didn't have much time to do stuff. We went to the Hall of Presidents, and then it was close to time to go. Hope's parents wanted to shop, and Hope and I wanted to take Mr. Elephant on the Jungle Cruise, something she did with him at Disneyland. So we headed for Adventureland, first stopping to take a picture of Mr. Elephant at the Dumbo statue in the hub. Then we rode the Jungle Cruise and took a picture of me with the Tikis in Adventureland.

After that we met up with Hope's parents and headed out. We weren't sure if we got all the pennies at the Contemporary, so Hope and I took the monorail over there while Hope's parents went back to Dixie Landings. We found out we did have them all, caught the monorail back to the Magic Kingdom, and ran for a bus back to Dixe Landings. Bye, bye Mickey! 8-(

We grabbed some food in the food court and our Florida Town Car was there right at 2:30, so we headed for the airport saying goodbye to WDW. Our flight was supposed to leave at 4:45. Remember in part 1 when I said never fly Delta? Here's why...

We got to the airport about 3:15 and checked in. After the attendant check our baggage and checked us in, but before she printed up our boarding passes, a message showed up on her screen, this was about 3:30. It said that our flight from Orlando to Atlanta was going to be late, and that would cause us to miss our connection in Atlanta. She resceduled us, and she had a choice between transferring in Dallas or Salt Lake. I was hoping for Salt Lake, as Utah is the only Western state I haven't been to. She decided on Dallas since she knew that those planes were on time. That flight didn't leave until 6 so we had time to kill. We did a little shopping in the airport, didn't buy anything though, and mainly read books until our plane loaded. Once we were on the plane we were informed that there would be a slight delay of 15 minutes while some weather passed over Dallas. After about a half an hour we pulled back from the gate.

At this point everything was fine, then we heard the pilot again. he told us we would be sitting another half an hour while we waited for a thunderstorm to pass Dallas. Half an hour later he told us another hour. An hour after that he told us ANOTHER hour. We left 30 minutes after that. It was 8:30 by the time we left Orlando, our flight originally left at 4:45. Our connection in Dallas was supposed to leave at 9:30 Orlando time. We barely got out of Orlando I think, we flew through the edge of a thunderstorm on the way out. We got to Dallas about 9:30 Dallas time, 10:30 Orlando time. Our flight, as all flights, was delayed, it was supposed to leave at 11:00 Dallas time.

Sept. 4th

We were still in Dallas. Our 11:00 flight got delayed until midnight then delayed indefinitly, then delayed until 2:00 am. The reason our flight was delayed was that out flight attendants were stuck somewhere else and hadn't flown in yet. They got there at 12:15. Unfortunatly our pilot and co-pilot lost their FAA eligability to flight at midnight since they had gone too long w/o sleep. Only then did Delta call a new pilot and co-pilot to come in. They finally got there, to applause from the waiting people, and we got out of there! We did meet a nice family who had been waiting since 6 though. They were either from or visiting Seattle, I couldn't tell. I could tell that they either lived there or visited a lot. from there knowledge of Seattle. I asked them why they were going to Seattle and it was because her father had died that morning! I felt horrible! I wanted to stick my foot in my mouth! She had been pleasant and funny, not at all like there was anything wrong. They did tell us that there was a group of people that were supposed to leave at 2:30pm but they were delayed. 2:30pm was 3:30pm Orlando time, the same time the Delta attendant in Orlando was telling us she was sending us through Dallas because the planes were "on time."

Well we finally got on the plane and left Dallas. We slept on the way home, getting into Seattle a little before 4:00am Seattle time. WE finally got home about 4:45am Seattle time. Total time from leaving Dixie Landings to my place in Seattle - 17 hours. We hit the sack for a long rest and recovery.

TDC trip report of the: TDC Keeper of the Tikis and Acolyte of the Sacred Order of Pluto

My first responsibility required me to take a trip to Adventureland. I had to make sure the Tiki's were being well cared for in the area. First stop, the Tiki Room. The tikis in there were in working order and well cared for, but they were in need of a vacation. Luckly they got one this winter. I also stopped in at the ring of tikis outside the Tiki Room and made sure they were well polished, and had my picture taken with them. I also toured thejungle rivers, checking for water damage on any of the tikis in the jungle. They were all in good shape.

I also took a couple of trips to the Polynesian Resort, a home for many tikis. There were a lot of tikis here, so I was only able to check on the ones guarding the main lodge. These were all well maintained and well-polished. I almost had to go save one of them from Dale and Goofy though. Seems that they decided that the one of the Tiki's in Ohana's would make a good noisemaker during the character breakfast. Luckly the tiki was not damaged, and one of the staff reprimanded them before I had to step in. 8-)

As to my second position, Acolyte of the Sacrad Order of Pluto, I had a harder time with. I did visit Pluto at three different locations, and spied him three other times as well. I met him as he was preparing for a swim at the Capy MAy Character Breakfast. I also saw him at work in MGM with Oliver and Company. Finally I met him entertaining people in the Hall of Fame in the Toontown Fair. I also visited his home in Toontown Fair. I also saw him on Main Stret by the Fire Station, in Tomorrowland by the Carousel pf Progress, and again in Tomorrowland getting ready for a space journey by Alien Encounter.

The problem I had was the lack of Pluto merchandise. I did find two things of interest though. The first item I bought was an embroidered t-shirt with a line drwing of Pluto and "Walt Disney World" embroidered on it. I also bought a stuffed Pluto preparing for safari in Adventureland. I really tried to find more Pluto merchandise, but they didn't have a whole lot. Any questions?

Jason Maxwell

kildar@u.washington.edu

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