Trip Reports

Stephanie Eich - December 15-19, 1998 - Dixie Landings

Time of Year: Holiday Season
Travel Method: Plane, Shuttle Service
Resort: DL
Accommodations
Ages Represented in Group: Elementary, Adult
WDW Experience Represented in Group: Frequent
Comments: Stephanie's report is a brief daily journal of her family's trip to WDW last December. If you hate the detailed play-by-play type of report, you'll still like this one because it's not overbearing with details (but there's a lot of great information for you to enjoy).


Summary

Date of Trip: 12/15/98-12/19/98
Method of Transportation: United Airlines, Tiffany Town Car
Resort: Dixie Landings-Standard room
Ages represented: Adult/Elementary
Type of Visitors: Frequent
Cast of Characters:
Stephanie--31 obsessive compulsive trip planner
Mike--32 obliging husband
Brandon—11 wonderful son #1
Cody—8 wonderful son #2
Pretrip planning—We went to THE WORLD last Thanksgiving, so we had definite plans in mind for what we wanted to accomplish this time. I made my ressies for Dixie Landings in April, and was lucky enough to get the Magic Kingdom Club discount. I also bought my plane tickets and was able to get a reasonable fare of $205 per person round trip from Omaha, Nebraska. Our original plan was to purchase 5-day hoppers from the Disney Store and also use the MKC discount. I made our Priority Seating requests 60 days prior and planned to buy our tickets a few days before we left. As luck would have it, a co-worker happened to have some complimentary 1-day park hoppers and some complimentary Pleasure Island passes. So as it turned out we only ended up having to purchase 1 adult 4 day park hopper, 1 child 4 day park hopper and 2 one day passes to Animal Kingdom (our complimentary 1 day park hoppers did not include Animal Kingdom.) Another of my co-workers liked our vacation plans so well, that she decided to make similar plans for her family and they joined us for vacation. Everything was covered: I had our itinerary over planned, I called Tiffany Town Car and made arrangements for ground transportation, and I had spoken with the room controller and asked for a room close to the main bus stop and also the food court. We were ready to go.

Day One—Our flight was scheduled to leave at 5:15 am, so we were up by 3:30 and made it to the airport by 4:30. We had a layover in Chicago and our flight was uneventful. We arrived in Orlando at 11:30. We were met by our driver DON at baggage claim. He helped us with our bags, and we were off to THE WORLD in a beautiful 1998 town car. He was a wonderful driver and entertained our boys all the way there with lots of jokes. (The grownups were entertained as well.) We arrived at Dixie Landings at 12:45 and left our bags with Bell Service as we assumed our rooms would not be ready. To our surprise, our rooms were ready and we were informed that the resort was only at 45% capacity. WOOHOO! We were in room 1531 in Alligator Bayou. EXACTLY WHAT I REQUESTED! We went to the food court and bought and filled our mugs. We went to the Bell stand to get our bags. We were taken to our room via golf cart. We were literally whisked right to our door. The room was great and just what we expected. We did a little unpacking and had a snack of goodies I had brought from home. We were ready, the wait was over. We walked (a very short walk) to the bus stop, and waited about 5 minutes for a bus to Epcot. I love arriving at Epcot. The sight of Spaceship Earth brings tears to my eyes. We immediately headed to Horizons. This was an agreement the family had made prior to the trip. This is one of our favorite rides, and memories of THE WORLD. There was no line and it was wonderful to smell the oranges. Next we were off to Body Wars. Again, no wait. We also did a few of the interactive things in the Pavilion. We decided we had enough time to do one more thing before our 4:30 PS at The Garden Grill. The preshow ant Ellen’s Universe of Energy was just starting, so we walked right in. Another one of our favorite things to do. After the ride, it was time for dinner. We met our friends in the Land pavilion. They had eaten lunch at their hotel (Hotel Royal Plaza) before they came to Epcot so they decided to skip out on their PS. We were famished and couldn’t wait. Dinner was AWESOME. The place was empty and we had the characters all to ourselves. Almost too much actually. It was almost too hard to eat, as they kept coming back. Chip and Dale were an absolute riot. They spilled salt and pepper all over the table and unrolled the roll of paper towels. Pluto kept licking Mike’s head and Mickey would just hang out with us. The food was very yummy and the smashed potatoes were to die for. It was great, and I can guarantee we will do this again! There was no line at the Living with the Land ride, so we thought we’d check it out. We had never done this one before and we all loved it. We all agreed that Honey I Shrunk the Audience should be next, so off we went. We walked right into the preshow. I know a lot of people don’t like " The Kodak Commercial", but I truly enjoy it. The show was even better than we remembered. I think we all jumped out of our seats at least once. We met up with our friends again at the Entrance to the World Showcase, under the Christmas Tree. All the Christmas lights are so beautiful. We decided to take a leisurely stroll around the countries and just enjoy the lights and music. We caught a little of the Candlelight Processional and it was beautiful. It really puts you in the Christmas spirit. There was no line at Maelstrom so we rode. Another new ride for us and we enjoyed it. We did skip out on the movie though. Our bodies were getting weary, so we decided to head back to Dixie Landings. But first we stopped at Ice Station Cool . The kids loved it. All I have to say is don’t drink the Beverly. We headed for the bus and lucky for us there was one waiting. We got back to the room and the boys put on their swim trunks and we headed for the quiet pool. It was not heated and was cold. The boys only stayed in for about 15 minutes. Mike went to fill our mugs while the boys showered and put on PJs. We had another snack of goodies from home and we all fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow.

Day Two—Mickey called at an early 7:00 am. We got ready and had breakfast pizzas from the food court. Very yummy. We headed for the bus stop to catch a bus for Magic Kingdom. Again we were lucky and only had to wait about 5 minutes. We arrived at about 9:05. We made our way down Main Street and spotted the 7 dwarves. We stopped for autographs and pictures. We also stopped to talk to the Mayor. We headed to Tomorrowland and rode Space Mountain twice with only a 5-minute wait both times. Once on the right and once on the left. In my opinion the right side is by far smoother. We then did Alien Encounter with about a 10 minute wait. We headed toward the other mountains. We did Splash Mountain with absolutely no wait and Big Thunder Mountain with about a 10-minute wait. Next was the Haunted Mansion, again no wait. We decided to do Peter Pan even though there was a 20-minute wait. We had never done this before and our goal this trip was to do things we had not done before. I’m glad we waited. It was fun. Next we headed to The Lion King Show. Again something new for us. We waited about 15 minutes. On the way to the Teacups we did autographs and pictures of Pinocchio, Gideon (character from Pinocchio) and two mice from Cinderella. There was no wait at the Teacups and we love this ride. We were getting hungry for lunch so we decided to head back to Dixie Landings for Pizza. On Main Street, Mike spotted Donald and Daisy Duck dressed up in Christmas Clothes, so we stopped for pics and autographs. Caught a bus back to Dixie and then went to the room so the boys could put on swim trunks and we could get our mugs. Headed to the food court to have pizza and slushies in our mugs. We went to the pool for about 1-½ hours. We headed back to the Magic Kingdom at about 5:15. We took the train to Mickey’s Toontown. We walked through Mickey’s house and then went over to the judge’s tent. We got pictures and autographs for Goofy, Pooh, Tigger, Minnie, Eyeore, and Piglet. Waited 10 minutes at most to meet the characters. We decide to head back over to Tomorrowland. We rode Space Mountain again (right side) with a 5-minute wait. We then rode Buzz Lightyear 3 times in a row, with no wait. We caught the end of Spectromagic and headed out of the park. We took the Ferry to the TTC and the Monorail back to Epcot. We rode Spaceship Earth-no wait, and Horizons- no wait. We videotaped the fountain and decided to call it a night. We caught the bus back to Dixie, picked up our mugs and had a very late dinner. We were asleep by 11:00.

Day Three—Mickey called even earlier today, 6:00am. We got ready very quickly and brought Poptarts and granola bars in our bags. We wanted to get to Animal Kingdom very early. We were in the park by 7:15. We made the long trek to Kilimanjaro Safari and rode with no wait. We did not see that many animals but it was COLD. They were probably huddling together for warmth somewhere. We did see hippos, elephants, giraffes and a lioness. We thought the poacher act was pretty cheesy. We made our way to the Tree of Life. What an amazing work of art. We walked right into It’s Tough to be a Bug. Cute show, we all liked it. We saw Flik and did a picture and autograph. We decided to make our way to Camp Minnie Mickey to catch the first Festival of the Lion King Show. It was still about 30 minutes till the show started when we got there and there was no line, so we went over to the character greeting area and got autographs and pictures with Baloo, King Louie and Rafiki. Since there were no lines here we did more pictures with Pooh, Tigger and Eyeore. We walked over to the Lion King show and waited about 10 minutes until they let us in. The show was awesome! After the show we stopped for some Mickey ice cream bars and walked over to Countdown to Extinction. We rode 3 times with maybe a 5-minute wait each time. Incredible ride. We could have done this one all day. Next we were off to the boneyard to let the kids burn off some energy. At about 11:00 we decided to head back to the resort. We did a little shopping on our way out. We caught a bus back to Dixie Landings and headed for our room. Did the swimsuit change, grabbed our mugs and headed for the food court. We had lunch and swam for about 1-½ hours. We went back to the room and worked on the dreaded homework.grrrr. At 6:00 we grabbed a bus to Magic Kingdom. We encountered a less than friendly bus driver that didn’t want to take us because Magic Kingdom closed at 6:00. I let him know that I was well aware of that, but we needed to get to the TTC and would catch the monorail from Magic Kingdom. I’m still puzzled about his attitude since Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas was going on so busses were running late. Hmmmm??? Anyway, we caught the Resort Monorail from the Magic Kingdom to the Polynesian. We met our friends at the Neverland Club and dropped the kids off. We drove to Pleasure Island in our friend’s rented car. Our first stop was the Comedy Club. Our friend sat next to the phone. And for those of you that have been there before, you’d understand. We’ve never laughed so hard in our whole life. After the show we headed over to the Adventurer’s Club. We had many laughs here too. We stopped at 8Traxx for a drink and then off to the Rock and Roll Beach Club. We danced for a while and then headed back to the Adventurer’s Club. Before we knew it, it was time to go get the kids. They had a wonderful time and wanted to stay. It was midnight and we were tired. We took the Monorail (we got to sit up front with the driver) back to the Magic Kingdom and caught a bus back to Dixie Landings. I was very grateful for our comfortable beds.

Day Four—Mickey called at 7:30. It was getting increasingly harder to get up at the vacation went on. We put breakfast munchies in our bags and headed for Disney Studios. We got there at about 9:00 and headed directly for Tower of Terror. We rode twice with no wait. We headed over to the first Beauty and the Beast Show. We walked right in and were entertained by a wonderful quartet. We had not seen this show before and it was even better than I thought it would be. Next we were off to see Voyage of the Little Mermaid. We waited about 10 minutes. Another cute show that we had not seen before. It was time for a snack, so we headed over to the Studio Catering Company. We got popcorn and giant pretzels and the kids played at Honey I Shrunk the Kids after they ate. We walked over to the Hunchback of Notre Dame show and walked right in. We only caught a few minutes of the juggler before the show started. The show was good but both Mike and the boys had not seen this movie so they didn’t appreciate it as much as I did. It was getting close to lunchtime so we made our way out of the park and caught a bus back to Dixie Landings. We picked up our mugs and had lunch again at the food court. (Do you see a trend here?) After lunch we went back to the room to work on homework. We headed back to the Disney Studios at 3:00. Our first stop was Star Tours and we had about a 5-minute wait. Then it was off to Muppetvision 4D. We walked right in and totally missed the preshow. We headed back to Tower of Terror and rode again with about a 20-minute wait. It was about 5:30 so we decided we better get over to Fantasmic to get decent seats. What can I say, Fantasmic was awesome. Mike taped the whole show so every time we get "homesick" we can watch it and relive our vacation. The worst part of the entire vacation, was the mass exodus at the exit of Fantasmic. Hello, who decided to only build one exit? Once we finally made it out, we headed over to see the Osbourne lights. We were given special glasses so that when you looked at the lights you saw angels. Very cool. We made our way out of the park and caught a very full bus for Dixie Landings. We picked up our mugs, did the swimsuit change thing, and headed for the food court. We ate another yummy dinner and headed for the pool. After about an hour of swimming, we headed for the room for showers and bedtime.

Day Five—Mickey called at 6:30 this morning so we could do early entry at Magic Kingdom. We made it to the park by 7:55. We headed straight for Tomorrowland. We rode Space Mountain (5 minute wait), Astro Orbiter twice (5 minute wait each time) and Buzz Lightyear twice (no wait.) We rode Tomorrowland Speedway (20-minute wait) and headed for Mickey’s Toontown. The boys rode Barnstormer 3 times in a row without getting off the ride. We went to the Judges Tent to get our picture taken. We rode the train to Main Street and were out of Magic Kingdom by 10:00. We caught a bus back to Dixie Landings, packed up and checked out. Bell Services picked up our bags and we headed to the food court for a nice big brunch. After we ate, we caught a bus to Epcot. We did Honey I Shrunk the Audience one last time and did some shopping at the Centoreum. We left Epcot and took the Monorail to the TTC and another Monorail to the Magic Kingdom. Our most important goal of this whole trip was to see and video tape the Christmas parade. We were on the train platform above Main Street at 1:00 and got prime seats. We played hangman and tic tac toe and we let the boys ride the train around the park if they promised that they wouldn’t get off. (They made it back safely.) We saw and taped the parade and our vacation was complete. We caught a bus back to Dixie Landings and waited for our Towncar driver. Our ride back to the airport was uneventful. We had a different driver this time and missed Don’s entertainment. We checked in at United and headed to Burger King for dinner. When we got to the gate we noticed that our plane was not at the gate yet and that our flight would be delayed. We only had a 40-minute layover in Denver and we were concerned. I asked an agent about it, and she said we would make time up in the air and that we would be fine. Yeah right!! As it turns out, we didn’t even end up leaving Orlando until an hour after our posted departure time. Needless to say, we were not going to make our flight. When we landed in Denver, an agent was waiting for us at the gate with hotel and food vouchers. There were no more flights that night. We were very concerned at this point. It was –5 degrees and snowing in Denver and our coats were in our luggage. We went to baggage services to see if we could get our luggage. The told us our bags had make the flight. Huh???? They said they had toothbrushes if we needed them. Mike told the lady "We’re concerned about frost bite, not tooth decay!" We caught a shuttle to the hotel and caught some sleep before we had to catch a shuttle back to the airport. We had breakfast in the airport and just hung out for several hours. (The only shuttle we could get at the hotel was at 7:00am and our flight didn’t leave until 10:30 Grrrrr) We thought we had boarding passes not tickets so we didn’t head to the gate until 30 minutes before departure. We were WRONG. We had tickets and the flight was overbooked. Fortunately they had 4 seats left in First Class, so we got a nice ride back to Omaha. Back in Omaha, we went to Baggage Services to pick up our luggage that should have gotten in the night before. IT WASN’T THERE. We talked to the agent, and she told us there was no way our luggage made the flight if we didn’t. GO FIGURE. Sure enough our luggage was on the same flight as us and was in Denver last night. GRRRRRRR. We pulled out our coats and headed home. It’s great to be home.

Afterthoughts After being in THE WORLD at Christmastime, I could never go at any other time of year. The decorations, lights, and music were outstanding. There were no crowds to speak of, but the weather was cold everyday. Lows in 40s, highs in low 60s. If I had to choose between great weather and no crowds, I’d choose no crowds. I will definitely stay at Dixie Landings again. Great atmosphere, people and theming. Take time away from the parks. We loved that afternoon break for lunch and swimming. Plus it saved us a bundle eating at the resort. The food was about the same price as in the parks, but we had our mugs. Definitely the thing to do for people on a budget. Bring a water bottle and small snacks to the parks. Another great money and time saver. If you use Tiffany Town Car, don’t give them the full tip on the initial ride. We were told we’d have the same driver both directions, so we tipped him $20 on the first ride. We felt really bad when we didn’t tip our second driver, but $20 seems like a reasonable tip for a $65 fare. Be prepared for rude people. Especially at parade time. We had people try to push in front of us when they showed up 10 minutes before the parade started and we had been waiting 2 hours. (Yes, I went psycho and yelled at them. If you were there, Sorry.) Do things you haven’t done before. Some of these were the highlight of our trip. Remember that you’re on vacation. Have a good time and enjoy!

Next Trip December 7-11, 1999 I CAN"T WAIT

Stephanie Eich

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