Trip Reports

Introduction

Hi! Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek at my trip report. Let me start off by telling you a little about us; who we are, what kinds of things we like and what our impressions of Disney World are.

We are:

Julie—That’s me. I’m a first class Disney-holic if there ever has been one. I got hired at the Disney store the day before we left, so I was glowing for basically the entire length of the trip. I’m the one writing the trip report, so most everything will be written from my first-person point of view.
Debbie—My Mom. She, like I, has just become a Disney-holic in the last year. She’s the one that takes care of the finances (making sure we have enough money to pay the dinner bill) and is the one that usually ends up making the final decisions about where to stay, what kinds of tickets to buy, etc.
Ray—My Dad. He’s the one that will go almost anywhere we drag him. He doesn’t give much input as to what he likes and doesn’t like. He does most of the driving, and also gets angered easily if he doesn’t know exactly what we’re going to do next.
So here we go with the trip report.

Saturday, May 9, 1998 - Day 1 (Travel and Magic Kingdom)

We woke up at about 5:00. Ugh! What kind of ungodly hour is that? Oh well, I guess I can wake up early for Disney World. We had already packed everything over the course of the last few days, so all we had to do was throw the bags in the back of the van and go. I said goodbye to my grandpa that lives next door to me and we piled into the van and left.

We decided that we were going to have breakfast at the IHOP in Murfreesboro, about 30-45 minutes away from our house. I go to college in Murfreesboro, and there had been many late night trips to this IHOP during the final weeks of school. Two waiters had become good friends, and the cops always recognised us when we walked in. So IHOP it was.

We got to IHOP a little after 6:00. I was hoping that my favorite overnight waiter, Bruce, was there, but he wasn’t. I ordered my usual; cheddar omlette, no butter on the pancakes, and a glass of water with extra ice and no lemon. Hey, I’m picky. Sue me. Mom and Dad both got the International Pancake breakfast.

After we ate, we stopped at the nearby Wal-mart to grab a couple of last minute necessities. I decided that I needed a new pair of sunglasses, so I got a nice pair. Only five bucks. Hey, can I pick ‘em or what? We filled the tank and headed off onto the highway. A couple of hours later we arrived at our favorite rest stop, the Tennessee Welcome center just to the north of Chattanooga. Before this trip, I decided that I was going to take my plastic chicken with me and take pictures of him everywhere we went. My friend Cory gave me my plastic chicken a few years ago as a gag gift and I liked it so much that now it goes on all our vacations with me. So I got my chicken out of the car and prepared for my first (and only, unfortunately) picture of my chicken. I sat my chicken on a bench outside the rest stop and took his picture. The bench was a mosaic of lots of other animals, so he fit right in.

We went to the back of the rest stop and bought Mayfield Chocolate Milk (a tradition of ours), then proceeded on our way. Right as we got to the Georgia border, I started seing one of my favorite road signs I have ever seen. It simply says, "DUI. It kills. Don’t do it." ‘Nuff said. I fell asleep shortly after Chattanooga and slept until we were well past Atlanta. Finally, my parents woke me up and told me that they were going to stop and eat lunch. We like to get Jimmy Dean Tastefuls for lunch on long trips. They’re usually cheaper than a fast food meal would be, plus it’s a nice change from the ordinary. So we stopped at a rest stop past Atlanta and munched on our Tastefuls.

Back to driving. Another nap followed the first one (why am I sleeping so much? I don’t get it. I never sleep this much on trips). I woke up somewhere near the Florida border. Yeah! Florida Welcome Center time! It’s another one of my favorite rest stops. We pulled over and went inside. "Welcome to Florida!" the woman behind the desk exclaimed. Mom and I made our rounds, collecting any flyer or booklet that looked remotely interesting or useful and made our way back out to the car. We had collected some twenty or so booklets, coupons, flyers, hotel brochures, and even two window decals that said "FLA USA". We piled back into the car and headed off again.

Soon, we began seeing billboards advertising "Disney Radio", a small radio station in northern Florida that advertises different things around the Walt Disney World resort. All it is is a fifteen minute commercial loop talking about each of the parks, each water park, and Downtown Disney and Pleasure Island. It gets repetative after a while, but it really gets you in the Disney mood. I love the signs for it too. "Heigh Ho! Disney Radio!" Shortly after the station went out of range, we stopped for lunch. We decided on McDonalds so we could try to collect more of the Animal Kingdom toys they were giving away in the happy meals. Mom and I both got a Happy Meal and a hamburger and Dad got a value meal #3. Mom and I both got the lion. In fact, Mom got two. When we began to approach the Orlando area, Mom got out her sheet of directions and tried to find the exit number we needed to get to our hotel. We looked...and looked...and looked...and could not find the exit we needed. We finally decided to just get off somewhere and try to find our way. After about 30 minutes and $3.75 later, we finally reached U.S. 192, a.k.a. West Irlo Bronson Memorial Parkway.

We were staying at the Magic Castle Inn and Suites. We decided on that hotel for a number of reasons. First of all, it was pretty cheap. $30.95 per night for all three of us. Extremely reasonable if you ask me. Second of all, it had a free continental breakfast. It also had a refrigerator in each room, so if we didn’t want to eat the continental breakfast, we could get something at the grocery store for breakfast and be able to keep it cool. So we figured, all in all, it was a good deal. The majority of the hotels along 192 are at least decent, so we had no worries about cleanliness of the room or surroundings. Plus we found out that this hotel used to be a Ramada Limited, so the rooms would be nice. It was also close to one of the hotels we stayed at last year, so it was close to Disney World.

When we drove up, the first thing we noticed was that the outside of the building had been redone to resemble a castle. Not too much had been done, just a little brick work on the front and the placement of some crests on the railing. Plain, but charming at the same time. We checked in and were assigned to room 208. We unpacked our stuff from the van quickly, because Mom and I wanted to make it to Magic Kingdom, because it stayed open until midnight that night. Dad didn’t have a ticket yet, so he stayed at the hotel and watched TV, got something to eat and went to bed early.

Mom and I headed out for the car to go to Magic Kingdom. It had been about five months since our last trip, so we were eager to go back. I wanted to see what had changed since the last time we were there. We had to drive up 192 to get to the highways, so we passed numerous landmarks that we recognised. Old Town, Movie Rider, American Gladiators dinner theater (which I’m still really curious about. Gotta go there sometime), Captain Nemo’s, Xentury City, Celebration, Einstein Brothers Bagels, Water Mania, and our beloved Larson’s Lodge, the hotel we stayed in last December.

We arrived at the Magic Kingdom fairly easily. Just follow the signs and you will get there. We showed my Mom’s annual pass and got in the parking lot for free. The first stop, I’d already decided, was going to be Space Mountain. When we got to the Transportation and Ticket Center, I was going to renew my annual pass, but all the ticket windows were closed. What to do...what to do? We went ahead to the Magic Kingdom entrance hoping that the attendant would let me in since I didn’t have the opportunity to renew my pass. When I got there, I told the guy what happened. He took my pass and came back a few minutes later. He told me that he would let me in since all the ticket windows were closed, but that I needed to get it renewed as soon as possible. That was very nice, in my opinion.

When we went inside, I was amazed by the throngs of people just standing around. The parade had just ended and everyone was waiting on the fireworks to begin. We battled our way to the Plaza Pavilion Terrace and were brought almost to a stand-still by all the people just stopped out in the middle of the sidewalk. It took us twenty minutes to make it from the end of Main Street to the entrance of Space Mountain. What a hassle. But hey, it’s worth it, right? I mean, it is Space Mountain. So I got on Space Mountain with only about a ten minute wait. Mom, as always, waited on the bench outside next to the Skyway entrance. I prefer the right side of Space Mountain. For some reason, it seems darker and isn’t as break-your-neck-in-two wild as the left side. The wait always seems longer for the right side, but I figure that it’s worth the extra wait. After I was done, we quickly went to Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Being an avid, if not obsessive, Toad fan, I vowed to ride it as often as possible during this trip. We rode the left side, which has always seemed to be my favorite side, first. After that came the right side. Somehow, the first time I rode Mr. Toad, I didn’t like the right side nearly as much as the left side, but I think this go-around, I changed my mind. I like the first half of the left side and the second half of the right side. I guess I’d call them equal now. Both sides have their advantages.

After Toad, we figured that we would head over to Snow White’s Adventures. Neither I nor my Mom had seen Snow White before any of our subsequent trips. I’d always liked the ride, but had never understood what some of the scenes were, what certain things mean or why things were in the order they were in. This would be our first ride since seeing the movie. When we got in the car, things immediately began making more sense. I recognised the crockodile logs, the skeleton reaching for the jug of water, and the scene where all the dwarves are dancing. I also, for the first time, understood why the witch doesn’t drop the rock on you at the end of the ride. I always thought that that would be a cool effect if the rock would actually come falling off the cliff at you. This time, I finally realized that she falls backwards off the cliff and the rock isn’t supposed to fall on you! I left the ride with a feeling of "Wow! I get it now!"

Then we went to the shop inside the castle, then looked around at the Fantasyland architecture and such. I’d never stopped and looked around at it before. It’s really beautiful. This was also our first trip in 13 years when the castle looked normal. Our other three trips were all last year, and it looked like a cake all three times. Absolutely beautiful if you ask me. We saw the fountain near Tinkerbell’s Treasures for the first time also.

We decided that, since we didn’t have too much time left (it was about 11:00 by this time) that we should see one more thing then make our way back to the hotel. We opted for the Haunted Mansion since it was close and had almost no line. I really like Haunted Mansion. One of my favorite effects, and it’s a really small one at that, comes right after the line "...and hot and cold running chills." There’s a really cold blast of wind that hits you. Every time I ride it, I have to remark to myself, "Oh that was a running chill!" I also love the hitchhiking ghosts. That’s one of the most unique and ingenious scenes I’ve ever seen. It always kind of gives me the willies, too! After we were done with the Haunted Mansion, we started to leave. We walked back through the castle, taking pictures of the murals as we left. We got out without much of a hassle, and went back to the hotel for a good nights rest.

Sunday, May 10, 1998 - Day 2 (Epcot)

Ok, this was the first real day we were going to spend in Disney World. Epcot was on the agenda today, as well as my first Toad In. We woke up at about 7:00, and everyone had showers before we headed downstairs for breakfast. I wore my Save Mr. Toad's Wild Ride shirt this day because there was going to be a Toad In at 4:00. We went downstairs to the lobby where the continental breakfast was being served and got breakfast. They didn't have very much, as far as I was concerned. I can't eat really sweet things for breakfast because they just make me feel yucky all day, so I immediately bypassed the table with the donuts and pastries. I finally decided on a bowl of cereal, two pieces of toast and a glass of fruit punch. We took it back up to our room and ate, but found it less than filling. The cereal was soggy, the toast was dry and the fruit punch...well, it was good. Oh well, we were going to have a big lunch, so a small breakfast didn't matter. Before we left for Epcot, we decided to have lunch at the Garden Grill. We thought about Alfredo's and Biergarten, but Garden Grill sounded better to us.

We left for Epcot and arrived at about 9:30 and pulled into Journey 10. We parked the car and walked with awe-filled reverence toward that glorious, huge, magestic sphere. I had to renew my annual pass (since I hadn't gotten to do it the night before) and we had to buy my Dad's pass. I got the Annual Park Hopper renewal and my Dad got a five day park hopper pass with Simba on it. Our first line of business was to go to the land and make our priority seating at the Garden Grill. We got to the land pretty quickly and made our priority seating for 12:30. While we were there, we decided to see Food Rocks, my favorite thing in the whole "world." I love Food Rocks! I absolutely love it! It's so cute and so funny...I just love it!

We went inside and sat down and, of course, sang along. We video taped Food Rocks the first time we saw it, and I now know every word of the entire show. And of course I have to show off my Food Rocks knowledge, so I always sing along. I also noticed what would be a great trivia question. How many grams of fat per serving does Fud Rapper have? I'll give you a hint; I'm talking about the one in the show. The answer is different for the animatronic Fud Rapper in the show and the drawing of Fud Rapper in the theater's lobby. I'll give you the answer at the end of today's trip report. Next we went on Living with the Land. I like Living with the Land too. I think it more interesting than entertaining. I like seeing the alternative ways of growing foods, like the plants that grow with the roots exposed.

After the Land, we went to the Imagination pavilion. Seeing that a show was about to start, we decided to see Honey I Shrunk the Audience. This is one of my Dad's favorite things in Disney World. I've never liked it that much, but it's ok. I guess I compare it too much to Muppet*Vision 4D, which I think is much better. Anyway, after the show was over, we joined the hordes and went inside to ride Journey into Imagination. It's another one of my favorite things in Epcot. This time, we were in the last car on our train. One of my favorite scenes is the one in the white room with the flowers and the carousel. I'd never noticed that what was making the room change colors were the crystal prisms. I also like the room with Dreamfinder; "Let's look at nature at this speed. From germination, then back to seed."

Since we still had a little bit of time left before lunch, we decided to go in Innoventions West. I tried to send myself some e-mail, but I couldn't get any of my online mail accounts to work. Then I tried to bring up the Save Mr. Toad's Wild Ride page, but I got an error message saying that that page had been blocked. Hmmm...

Now it was time for lunch, so we went back over to the Land and checked in at the desk. We were given a little red box thing and told that when the lights started flashing that it would be time for us to be seated. About ten minutes later, our box began flashing and we were seated. We sat on the upper level, which I kind of liked, because I didn't really like the idea of everyone watching us while we ate. Our waiter was nice, but not the most efficient waiter I've ever had, but it was ok. He brought us a large skillet full of steak strips, rotisserie chicken, fried catfish and roasted vegetables and a big bowl of "smashed potatoes." I had some chicken, catfish and potatoes. The chicken and catfish were excellent. The potatoes...well, I'm not a big fan of real mashed potatoes. I like instant potatoes, so I wasn't that impressed with them. Mom and Dad loved them. They also said that the steak was really good. I didn't have any of it.

All through the meal, the characters were making their rounds greeting everyone. It was really cute at first, but after their third or fourth time around, it got a little annoying. I mean, I can only hug Chip and Dale so many times. We did take a few pictures; Me with Minnie, Mom with Mickey, and Chip and Dale by themselves.

After we were done with the main course part of the meal, our waiter came by and asked if we were ready for dessert. He explained that they had some sort of baked apple stuff served with cinnamon ice cream. I'm not too much of a fan of baked apples either, so I asked if there was anything else. He said, "You like dirt and worms?" and I said, "Oh yeah! I love dirt and worms!" So when he brought Mom and Dad's apple and ice cream dessert, I received a little glass jug with pudding, cookie crumbs and gummie worms. And it was good!

When we were finally done, I looked down at my watch and noticed the time. We had spent almost two hours eating lunch! Actually, if the service had been a bit more prompt, we could have made it out about a half hour earlier. But it was ok. It was very relaxing not to have to rush out of the restaurant. So now we had just a little bit of time left before I had to leave for the Toad In at Magic Kingdom. We decided to ride Horizons, possibly for the last time. I love Horizons. It's a really great ride. It's going to be sad to see it go, but I think it has more than done it's part as a good ride, and it's time for something new. The animatronics were pretty old and it just doesn't seem to reflect current views of the future very well. I would love to see a complete refurbishment of this ride, but I don't see it happening. As much as I love Horizons, it's time has come.

We walked over to the Wonders of Life pavilion in hopes that I would be able to see Cranium Command before I left, but I decided that I probably wouldn't have time. We decided to meet at 6:00 in front of the American Adventure so we could all see Davy Jones!!!!!! So I left and took the monorail to the Magic Kingdom. By the way, it was so convenient not to have to take a bus. It would have taken probably three or four times longer to get there. I'm really glad that I wasn't at MGM Studios or Animal Kingdom. I also really wish that Disney would extend the monorail to include both of the other parks.

I got to Magic Kingdom about fifteen minutes before the Toad In was going to start. I figured that that would give me just enough time to get in and get over to Mr. Toad before anyone else started showing up. When I got over to Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, I saw no one. Ok, I thought. Everyone will start showing up pretty soon. Five minutes later...no one. Ten minutes later...no one. Finally, one person came up to me and said something. This was Bill, and finally I wasn't the only Toad supporter around. A few minutes later, Brian showed up, complete with Save Toad shirt and all. After a few more minutes, we decided to ride the left side. While in line, a few people asked about our shirts, and we spread the word of Toad's impending doom. When we got up to the loading area, I had the CM running the ride take our picture. Wow. A whole Toad In fitting in one car. Oh well, I think we made our point.

When we got off the left side, Bill said that he had to leave so he could get to his dinner at Spoodles on time. So Brian and I said goodbye then rode the right side of Mr. Toad. After stepping out to our left, I noticed that it was only about five o'clock, so I still had about an hour before I had to get back to Epcot to see Davy Jones!!!!!! We decided to go over to Frontierland and ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad to kill a little bit of the time. The wait was not prohibitive, so we got on fairly quickly. After that, we walked back up to Main Street, said goodbye and I headed back over to Epcot. I'd had a good time, even of only three people were there. I think we made our point.

So I rode the monorail back to Epcot, and by this time I was dying of thirst. I made a stop by the Land again and bought a Jiminy Cricket, my favorite drink in Disney World, aside from Hi-C Pink Lemonade of course. Then I booked it on over to World Showcase (didn't want to be late to see Davy Jones!!!!!!). I took the Friendships boat over to Morroco and hurried my way over to the American Gardens Ampitheater to see Davy Jones!!!!!! On the way I ran into Mom buying some lemon ice slushie things, so I got one. I took one bite and decided it was gross. It just tasted like ice with lemon. No sugar, no sweeteners, no nothing. Yuck.

So we went back to the seats that Mom and Dad had staked about an hour earlier. I couldn't believe I was about to see Davy Jones!!!!!! I was completly in love with him when I was eight (when they made their comeback and released "Pool It".) They had sat through the first show, and when everyone left, they ran (well, knowing them, walked quickly) up to the front and snagged three seats in about the sixth or seventh row back. That was a really good spot because the stage came out into a little runway, so we were only one row away from the end of the runway, which was where he spent most of the show. A few minutes after we sat down, I saw hordes of people rushing to the side of the stage. I heard someone say that Davy Jones!!!!!! was going to be signing autographs. I ran over and got in the end of a VERY long line. After about five minutes he left, and I decided that I would rather have a good seat for the show that have his autograph, so I went back to my seat.

The show was excelent. Davy Jones!!!!!! is so cute! He's just as cute now as he was in the Monkees TV show! He sang lots of his old Monkeys songs and a few new ones that I was not all that familiar with. He even ended the show with my favorite Monkees song ever, Daydream Believer. Oh, it was so great! A couple of times he looked directly at me when he sang. AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! It was so cool!!!!!! Once, he came out into the audience, and I thought he was going to motion for me to come out into the isle and sing or dance with him (but he didn't

After the show was over, we left the theater. I saw the people begin to get in line again, but I knew that it was only going to be about 15 more minutes until his next show, and he would never have time to sign all those autorgaphs, so I decided not to get in line. We walked around World Showcase in the direction of Norway and Mexico, stopping occasionally to look at the beautiful topiary of Disney characters, like Hercules, Megara, Timon and Pumbaa. When we got around to it, we stopped in Norway to ride Maelstrom. I love Maelstrom. I hate the part with the trolls (goes back to a traumatic incident at Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga), but other than that, it's cool. I think my favorite part is the "You are not ze first to pass ziss vay, and nor shall you be ze last." My Mom doesn't like the last drop that you go down, eventhough it's not bad at all.

After leaving Norway, we hopped over to Mexico and perused the shops in the courtyard. I noticed that they sold the same hot sauce there as they have on the tables at IHOP in Murfreesboro. Thought that was sort of odd. It's a small world after all (Hey! we haven't even been on that ride yet this trip!). Then we rode El Rio del Tiempo, or, for the Spanish illiterate, The River of Time. I like this ride too, eventough it always seems to smell a bit musty. I wonder how often they clean out the water? Lets just say that the main reason that we've never eaten at San Angel Inn is because I don't think I could stand eating next to that water.

By this time it was about 8:00, and realizing that we hadn't had dinner yet, we went back into Future World and had dinner at the Electric Umbrella. Mom and I split a chicken strips meal and Dad had his own chicken strips meal. I love their chicken strips. They get my vote for best in the World.

Being just about time to leave, we stopped in the Emporium because I wanted to do some shopping. The only thing on my list this night was a Little Mermaid waterglobe. I found one and bought it. Ugh! Over $60, but that's ok. I really liked it and I had the money...so why not? We left shortly after I bought my waterglobe and had no trouble getting to our car or out of the park. There was a dispute about which way to go to get back to or hotel, so we accidentally ended up about five miles away from our hotel. When we finally got back to the hotel, nothing was left on the agenda except a good night's sleep.

By the way, Fud Rapper has three grams of fat per serving and contains four servings.

Monday, May 11, 1998 - Day 3 (MGM Studios)

This was the day we planned around going to Disney/MGM studios. The Studios closed at 7:00 this night, so we figured that we would go for the stuff that we knew we liked and add on just a couple of things we had missed in our previous trips, mainly Superstar Television and the preshow area of Tower of Terror (Yeah, we’re all wussies. None of us wanted to actually ride it).

We got up at about 7:00 or 7:30 and tried to decided what to have for breakfast. Mom said that she wanted the continental breakfast, but Dad and I concluded that it wasn’t good enough to merit eating it two days in a row. We got dressed and Dad and I went to McDonalds for breakfast. When we got there, I ordered what I normally order, an egg and cheese biscuit and hash browns. Usually it takes a couple of minutes to get my order since they have to specially make it without the bacon. Well, this time, we got our order almost immediately after we told her what we wanted. I opened mine to make sure they hadn’t put bacon on it. I didn’t see any, so I didn’t think anything else about it. Dad ordered his two Egg McMuffins and we went back to the hotel. When we got there, Mom had already been downstairs to the lobby and gotten her breakfast. We started to sit on a bench outside and eat, but there was bird poop on the table, so we went back up to the room. When I started to take a bite of my egg and biscuit, I noticed something dark red. Dang it! They did put bacon on it. I peeled the bacon off and took a bite. Bleh! Bacon! Yuck! I proceeded to eat the rest of it, squelching my obvious disgust over it’s bacon flavor.

We left for MGM at about 9:00 and were parked in Comedy 17 of the MGM lot by 9:30. The first thing on the agenda, like yesterday, was to make our priority seating for the 50’s Prime Time Cafe. When we got to the kiosk, the only time they had available was 11:45. That was cool with us, so we took it and set off for our second stop, Muppet*Vision 4D. We got there right as one show had just started, so we had to wait through the entire preshow. That was ok with me though, because I think this preshow is one of the best in the World. I also love the preshow movie in the Living Seas. Well, it always seems like I see something new every time I see Muppet*Vision. This time I noticed that when the Chef threatens to blow up the theater, he actually sticks a big cannon out the hole in the back of the theater. That was cool. Next we rode Star Tours. I know that Star Tours is my Dad’s favorite Disney World attraction (he calls it "Star Wars"), and is also one of my Mom’s favorite rides. I like it, but I would much rather ride a real rollercoaster than a fake one. But for what it is, it’s fairly nice. Better than Body Wars, at least. We rode it, with no wait, and when we got off, we encountered a surprise guest. When we left there was an Ewok standing near the exit. It was standing perfectly still, so no one could tell if it was a person in a costume or a statue. Almost everyone that walked by it touched it. One woman went to touch it’s hand, and right as she touched it, it reached out and grabbed her. She let out quite a yell, then we all began laughing hysterically. It was so funny! Since the line was still really short, we decided to go ahead and ride again, this time having less wait than the first. Next we headed over to the Great Movie Ride. We had a smaller wait this time than any other time I had ridden it, including when I rode with my grandfather who is in a wheelchair. He even got to go to the front of the line and it was still a longer wait than this time. We got directly on, and we got to go through the gangster scene, which is my favorite of the two. Our gangster was really good. Afterwards, we noticed that it was almost time for our lunch.

We walked on over to the 50’s Prime Time and sat down for a few minutes in the waiting room. In just a few minutes, a lady came out and said "Williams children?" We followed her and walked back to our table. This restaurant was so awesome. The waiting area was so neat. It was covered in cheesy interior designs from the 70s, old TV sets and really old looking furniture. The whole dining room was set up like a kitchen or dinning room with TVs that play clips from old TV shows on them at each table.

We were seated in a small room off the side of the main room. There were four tables in it, but only one was full of people. We sat down next to them and waited for our waiter to show up. Just a few seconds later, a guy burst through the door and introduced himself as Brother Lerroy. It was such a blast. He was so cool. He told Dad that he had to set the table since Mothers day was the day before, and he needed to do something nice for Mom.

He also went down the list of house rules: Everyone had to clean their plate, no spitting, always use good manners, and don’t put your elbows on the table. Right as he said that last one, we all noticed that we had our elbows on the table. We all took them off and he looked at us with a satisfied expression. Then, I wanted to see what he would do if I put them back, so I put my elbows back on the table defiantly. He made a disgusted look and said "I told you not to do that." Then he stepped out into the main room and yelled, "Hey Ma, I told this girl in here not to put her elbows on the table, but she did it anyway, Ma!" Everyone was looking over at our table. It was kind of embarassing, but kind of funny at the same time.

When he came back to take our orders, he brought the dessert ViewMaster and told me to look at the dessert menu. It was so neat; just like a regular ViewMaster, only it had 3D pictures of the dessert menu on it. After perusing the regular menu, I decided on the Chicken Ceasar salad, and Mom and Dad got the "Leftovers", a turkey and dressing meal. I also ordered water without lemon to drink, and Brother Lerroy gave me a hard time about why I didn’t want lemon. I told him that I was alergic to lemon, and that seemed to quiet him. Just then an older woman with a nametag that said "Mom" showed up at the table and asked Brother Lerroy what he was yelling about. He explained about my putting my elbows on the table, then she began to scold me. It was so funny. It was above and beyond the call of duty funny. I couldn’t believe that the servers went out of their way like that!

He brought us our meal very promptly by anyones standards and was very attentive to our drink needs and even suggested bringing me more dressing and cheese for my salad when he saw that I didn’t have much left. My salad was good, but a salad none the less, and it’s pretty hard to mess up a salad. Mom and Dad said that their turkey was good, but wasn’t anything spectacular. Once, when Brother Lerroy came to bring me a refilled glass of water, I showed him how to make a worm out of a straw wrapper. You bunch up the wrapper as you take it off the straw, then pull it off, set it on the table and put a few drops of water on it. He was amazed that the straw wrapper wriggled when I put the water on it. He then handed me another straw and made me show the little girls at the next table how I did it.

We finally decided to leave after about an hour. We asked Brother Lerroy how long he was going to be working, and he said until the end of the day. We told him that we might come back for a milkshake later, but since we would have had to get another priority seating, we decided not to come back. It would have taken way too long to get in again.

As we left, we decided to go see the preshow area of the Tower of Terror. Seeing as how we are all chickens, none of us actually wanted to ride it, but we’d heard that the preshow area was really neat. We also knew that there was a chicken exit, so we wouldn’t have to ride. The interior of the waiting area looked really neat, and most of it was pretty creepy and spooky. It was cool though. I really want to ride it, but I don’t want to have those big drops at the end. That’s just too much.

Next we went to the Backlot Theater to see the Hunchback of Notre Dame stage show. We saw it the last time we went and thought that it was absolutely fabulous. We were definetly not going to miss it this time. Dad had never seen it nor the movie, so we wanted him to see it. We got there about 20 minutes before the show started so we would make sure to get a good seat. We sat one row back from the runway at the end of the stage so we would be able to see all the stuff on the stage and all the stuff on the runway. Mom also wanted to videotape it, so this would be a great spot. This is, by far, the best stage show Disney does. I love the Beauty and the Beast show and Legend of the Lion King, but the Hunchback show is soooo awesome! The guy that played Quazimodo was excellent, and Clopin was very good as well. In fact, I like the voice of the Quazimodo in the stage version much better than the guy’s voice in the movie. I think I like Clopin better too. The whole show is absolutely excellent...I can’t say enough good things about it. I love the use of puppetry in the beginning during the "Bells of Notre Dame" song. At the end of the show, Quasimodo came out into the audience and shook both mine and my Mom’s hands. I also got to pet the Djali puppet.

After the Hunchback show, we went on the Backlot Tour. I had already decided that I wanted to try and get me and Dad to be in the special effects water tank show they have. I wanted to do it last time, but my Mom didn’t want to do it because she wanted to tape it. So we asked a CM at the front of the line if we could do it. She said that we could, but we would have to wait until the next show. That was cool with us, so we agreed. After a bit of confusion, Dad and I were led backstage, dressed in yellow raincoats and galloshes, and given insructions on what to do when we got on stage. Dad was going to be the Skipper and I was going to be Captain Duck. That means that I was going to be soaked in the S.S. Totally Sinkable. They told my Dad, who was going to be in the little cabin, to not lift his hands above his waist so water wouldn’t go up his sleeves. I had a longer list of stuff to remember, like that I was supposed to salute when the guy called me Captain Duck, to act scared and surprised when the "bombs" started going of, and, whatever I did, NOT to look over the side of what I was standing in. They stressed that more than anything...DO NOT LOOK OVER THE EDGE!!!! We walked out on to the stage and took our positions. Dad went and got in the little cabin, and when prompted, I got to dump hundreds of gallons of water on top of his cabin. At the time, it looked like Dad got soaked, but later he said that he didn’t get a drop of water on him. Then it was my turn to get soaked. I went into the barrel looking thing and pretended to act scared as all the air cannons went off around me. Then my Dad had to fire the torpedoes that would soak me. I held onto the edge, did NOT look over, and tons of water came rushing down on top of me. Dad got a nice chuckle out of it, I do believe. After the rest of the tour was over, we decided to see Superstar Television. We had never gotten around to seeing it on any of our other trips, so we decided that we definately wanted to see it this time. When we got into the waiting area, a guy was there casting for the show. When it came time for him to cast the guy to star as Al Borland in Tool Time, he started looking straight at Dad. Me and Mom were really hoping that they would pick him, but right at the last second they picked someone else. Then he casted everyone else, and we went inside the theater. We sat in the middle of a row about four or five rows from the stage. At one point, the guy asked if we knew of anyone who had not shut up for the entire trip. Dad and I jokingly started pointing at Mom. Then he asked if there was someone who would not shut up when we were in the waiting line for Tower of Terror. Dad and I really started to point at her (when we were in the Tower of Terror line, she kept saying "this isn’t the elevator is it?" like every room we went in was suddenly going to drop out from under us). The guy looked straight at Mom and said, "She wouldn’t shut up?" We shook our heads no, and he asked her to come up on stage. Mom flashed a really dirty look my way, but then I reminded her that I and Dad had already been in a show and she hadn’t. It ended up that she did an interview with Johnny Carson. Very cool. I think she enjoyed herself, even if she didn’t want to do it at first. Everyone that we’ve shown the video of it to swears that they can’t tell that she wasn’t sitting there with him.

We left, feeling like we were really cool for having all been a part of the action, and decided to stop for milkshakes at the ABC Commissary. I felt bad for not going back to 50’s Prime Time, but these Milkshakes were probably just as good, and were probably cheaper too. The reastaurant was completely empty, which I found abnormally strange since there were so many people in the park, and since it was about 5:00.

Dad said that he wanted to ride Star Tours again, so we went back over there and rode with the smallest wait yet. The entire way up to the loading dock there was no one in front of or behind us. We got in line in front of the doors, and it took the entire length of the safety video to get enough people to fill up one car. This time, the Ewok was still walking around and decided that it wanted to ride with us. It was pretty neat riding Star Tours with an Ewok in the car. We stopped and realized that the only thing left on our "don’t miss" list was Voyage of the Little Mermaid. We went over to the theater and got in within ten minutes of getting in line. Another really short wait. We had to sit in the very front row on the end this time since we were some of the last people to enter the theater. I don’t mind sitting up front except that you can’t see all of what is going on and that you get wet from the rain falling on the stage. Voyage of the Little Mermaid is another really good stage show, right behind Hunchback, Beauty and the Beast and Legend of the Lion King.

After leaving, we wondered if there were any more performances of "One Saturday Morning..." but there weren’t. We saw a small room off to the side of the theater so we went inside and investigated. We found things called Sound Booths or something that were demonstrating 3D sound technology, so I decided to see what it was all about. This turned out to be one of the coolest things of the day for me, aside from the water tank acting, of course. You go into this little soundproof room and put on some headphones. Then the recording tells you to close your eyes and listen carefully. It then starts telling this story where you are the boss of a company and you are getting ready for a meeting with "MM" (not going to spoil it for you, but you should be able to figure out who "MM" is). The 3D sound is so realistic that it really FEELS like the stuff is happening. You get your hair cut, have someone pour you a drink, get your hair blowdried and, one of the best 3D sound effect, someone makes you a paper hat. It was so cool. I could actually feel someone lay a piece of paper on my head and almost feel the air of someone blowdrying my hair. The only downside is that all the booths have the same story.

After experiencing hauntingly realistic 3D sound, we deicded to call it a day and go back to the hotel and rest up for Animal Kingdom the next day. We stopped at the Checkers in Old Town and got a very cheap dinner (about $7 total) and headed back to the hotel for some rest.

The only other memorable event of the night was that the fire alarm went off three times. The first time, it scared everyone, so we went outside. When we didn’t see any smoke, flames or firetrucks, everyone went back inside. The second time it went off, tons of people all down the hall came out of the rooms carrying suitcases and looking really scared. We started packing up a few important things just in case the hotel actually was on fire. After the third time it went off, someone came out of the office and said that some kids had pulled the fire alarm accidentally. Nerve wracking to say the least.

Finally we all got calmed down enough to sleep.

Tuesday, May 12, 1998 - Day 4 (Animal Kingdom)

Alright! Animal Kingdom day! We were all excited about making our first ever visit to Animal Kingdom, so we woke up fairly easily at about 6:15. We decided to heed the warnings of everyone I’d heard talk about the Kilimanjaro Safari that said we should try to get there early. The park opened at 7:00, so we figured that the crowd wouldn’t be too bad if we got there by 8:00. That way, it would be cool enough that the animals would still be out where we would be able to see them instead of waiting until the afternoon.

Mom opted for a breakfast at McDonalds instead of having the continental breakfast, so we headed to the nearest one. I had an egg and cheese buscuit (no bacon this time! good!), Mom had an egg McMuffin and Dad had a sausage buscuit. We all had hash browns and Hi-C Pink Lemonade too. After breakfast we stopped at Einstein Brothers bagels to pick up my breakfast for the rest of the trip. I got two tomato bagels and two sesame bagels. What?!?! No spinach bagels? Bummer. The bagels would have to sit in the car all day, but I figured it wouldn’t be that bad.

We got to Animal Kingdom very easily since the signs were so efficient, and pulled into our Unicorn 27 slot right at 7:50. Hey, whaddaya know. We got there early! We had to stop at the ticket gates on account of Mom. She had an annual pass that she bought last year and it didn’t include Animal Kingdom. The plan was to upgrade her pass, but the woman at the ticket window said that she couldn’t do it. So Mom bought a one day ticket and we went inside. We went directly over to Rainforest Cafe and made Priority Seating for 4:30 for our dinner. We picked up a map, studied it for a good long while and headed off in the direction of the Tree of Life.

At the end of the narrow walkway that supposedly held numerous animals (all we saw we some parrots), we came upon the Tree of Life. It certainly was a site to behold. The entire bark was composed of different types of animals, including tigers, elephants, a squirrel, a camel, ladybugs, and even a gross looking rat at the end of one of the branches. We walked around the left side of the Tree of Life in the direction of the loading area for the Kilimanjaro Safari. The wait was not terribly long, about ten minutes I guess, and we were soon on our way. I found the safari quite enjoyable, even though it was way too bumpy. Our guide was great. I definitely think that’s the hardest attraction job in the World. Sure, being a Jungle Cruise skipper or a backlot tour guide might be tough, but these guys have to drive the vehicle (which is not on tracks), spiel their banter, and identify and talk about the animals you see on the safari. Whew! I wouldn’t want to have that job! We saw a fair amount of animals, including a lion and lioness, a couple of elephants, a giraffe, lots of flamingos, some antelope and gazelles, and even two rhinos fighting. That was the best part of the safari. I sort of liked the poacher storyline, eventhough it could be easily done away with. And then, knowing Disney’s audio-animatronics expertice, I even had to ask if the guy at the end that is with the baby elephant was real or not. I think he was.

After the safari, we decided to see It’s Tough to be a Bug inside the tree. We walked all the way around to the right side before we found the entrance. It looks just like all the other little trails leading closer to it except that there is a CM standing there saying "It’s Tough to be a Bug...right this way..." The waiting area was so big. I mean, it ran all the way around the Tree, or at least it felt like it. It seemed like we walked forever. Once inside, the big waiting room was fairly nice. It had movie posters all over the walls for movies starring bugs, none of which I can think of the names to now. There was also a big ball of something. We went to investigate and discovered that it was a big ball of dung, fake of course. Later as we walked by the Tree, I turned to Mom and said "There’s a big pile of dung over there under that tree," reminiscent of Pinky.

The show itsself was cute enough, but way too short for me. I thought the 3D effects were kind of blurry. They didn’t even seem all that 3D to me. We ended up sitting on the end of a row, and for some reason, some of our effects didn’t work. None of us got stung by the bees, and I only felt one "bug" leave the room. The rest of the effects worked fine though. I must say that it was definitely the loudest theater we had ever been in. Everyone was laughing, screaming or reassuring their children that it was gonna be ok. The woman and little boy next to me wanted to leave, but had a bit of trouble stepping over our bags. Next time, I will make sure to tuck my bags under the seat. I didn’t hear all that many crying children, but maybe the laughing and screaming adults drowned them out. Seemingly as soon as it began, it was over and we left the show feeling satisfied with the quality, but definitely disappointed by the length.

Next was Countdown to Extinction. We went over to Dinoland USA, finding nothing spectacular along the way, and went straight into Countdown to Extinction. I was almost worried about whether I would like this ride or not, but I figured that since I liked Space Mountain, I would at least like this, so I wasn’t TOO worried. Mom even had no qualms about riding it. We got straight on the ride, which was much less wait than we’d expected. I wasn’t expecting the ride to be as violent as it was. At moments, I was litterally scared that I might fall out of our "CTX Time Rover." I was holding on so tight that my hands felt like they were going to give out any second! About halfway through the ride, I concluded that it was my new favorite ride in Disney World. I loved the part where you are sort of hurtling through the darkness. Wow! How awesome.

When we left, we saw that there was still no line. Since we liked it so much the first time, we decided to go ahead and ride it again. This time, forgetting how violent the ride was, I decided that I was going to try and take pictures inside. It started out ok, passing the Triceratops and the first encounter with the Carnatosaurus, but then it started getting rough. I snapped a few more pictures and then decided to hold on for dear life. I still had the camera in my right hand, so I only had my left hand to hold on with. Honestly, there were times when I thought about dropping the camera just so I could hold on. I made it out still holding on, but barely. I just can’t stress how wild this ride is. I would never ever ever take a small child on this ride. I think it is one of the most awesome rides I have ever ridden, but it is also one of the roughest.

When we finally decided that we’d had enough, we noticed that it was time for a showing of Journey into Jungle Book. We had to wait, in FULL SUN no less, for about fifteen minutes before the show began. Then when we were finally let inside the steamy hot OUTDOOR theater, we were herded into some less-than-wonderful seats. They seemed to want to fill the theater from left to right instead of front to back. Well, since I didn’t know the story of the Jungle Book, I had no idea of what to expect from the show. Overall, I didn’t like it that much. The person playing Baloo was kind of annoying. I guess if I had known and liked the story I would have liked it a little more. The best part was the Sheer Khan puppet, which looked like five or six flat boards on sticks that moved. Very ingenious, if you ask me. Mom and Dad both liked the show a lot more than I did. About mid-show, we all began looking at each other as if to say, "I’m hungry...lets go get lunch." We looked at a map trying to find a place that would suit us all. We discovered that, aside from Rainforest Cafe, there were only four resaurants in the entire park. We were in DinoLand USA, and were fairly tired, so the Tusker House was out. Pizzafari was also out since we didn’t really want pizza, plus it being very far away as well. Flame Tree barbecue was closer, but I don’t eat pork or beef barbecue, and I didn’t see any chicken on the menu when we passed by it, so it was out too. The only one left was Restaurantasaurus, the McDonalds type restaurant. I am completely opposed to having McDonalds inside the parks. Disney World is supposed to be detatched from the rest of the world. The last thing I want to do is eat at McDonalds while I’m there. So that one was out as well. So now what were we supposed to do. What a fine situation this is. Mom suggested turkey legs, but of course since I’m a picky eater, I didn’t want one. I can’t stand eating chicken or turkey legs. All those tendons make me sick thinking about them. So Dad went and got one of those and Mom and I bought hot dogs. Definitely not my favorite food, but I was willing to eat it. As far as hot dogs go, it was quite good. I can’t say that I’ll get another one, but if you like hot dogs, it was pretty good. This was the first time in all my trips that I was glad I wasn’t a vegetarian. I would have had to walk, literally to the other side of the park to find something without meat in it.

After we got our hot dogs, turkey leg and ice cold (ahh...) drinks, we tried to find a nice shady spot to eat. But could we find one? No. Of course not. There’s no shade ANYWHERE in Animal Kingdom. And then, what few shady spots we did find were already occupied by parents with sleeping children or older folks appearing to be near heat stroke. We sat down on a bench in FULL SUN once again and ate quickly. I was afraid of getting sick since we had been in the sun all day and were obviously not going to find shade any time soon. I was also very glad I was wearing a white shirt.

After lunch, being tired and fairly cranky, we decided to check out the Cretaceous Trail. We walked around the first corner and found a dinosaur. We walked around another corner and found another dinosaur. And that was it. Bleh, what a waste of time. At the end of the Cretaceous Trial was a small building with the intriguing name of "Dinosaur Jubilee." I’m envisioning some sort of show about dinosaurs, maybe encorporating music. Obviously, I hadn’t read the map description of it. All it was was a big room with FAKE dinosaur bones around the walls with little plaques about the dinosaur. I really felt shorted by this. I mean, come on! No real bones? I would have thought that Disney could afford to put some real bones in this exhibit. I can go ANYWHERE and look at fake dinosaur bones, but not everyone has REAL ones. I was really expecting more. In an attempt to save the day, we rode Countdown to Extinction again. Yes! I am redeemed! After our first two rides, we had figured out where the camera was that took our picture. This time we decided that we would pose for the camera, and if it came out well, we’d by a copy of it. Throughout the ride, the vehicle stopped two or three times where it hadn’t stopped before, but luckily we remembered which dino we had to pose for. We nudged for Dad to pose, but he didn’t. Afterwards, he said that the extra stops had disoriented him and he didn’t know where he was supposed to pose. We went to look at our picture...yes! Brilliant! Wonderful! I looked like I was absolutely scared out of my mind and Mom looked mildly startled. We decided that we had done a good enough job to merit buying a copy of the picture, so we both got one. Every time I looked at it, I would crack up laughing!

The only thing left that we wanted to do that didn’t have a line of an hour like the Riverboat, was the Festival of the Lion King. We started over to Camp Minnie Mickey, and realized that we would have to walk ALL THE WAY back out to the Tree of Life and then go into Camp Minnie Mickey. How out of the way is that?!?! Like they couldn’t make a little trail connecting DinoLand USA with the Oasis and another connecting the Oasis and Camp Minnie Mickey. So we made the trek over to it. One thing that struck me as odd was that all along this long pathway, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. At Disney/MGM STudios, when you are on the path from the Great Movie Ride to Start Tours, at least there is a big restaurant and a couple of shops to help fill the space. But here..NOTHING! What a waste of space.

When we finally got there, we were herded into another FULL SUN waiting area, where we stood for about ten or fifteen minutes. Then something else happened that annoyed us all. The way it’s set up, there are three waiting lines. When they started letting people in, the opened the right and middle lanes, but not the left, which was the one we were in. They let the other two lanes COMPLETELY empty before they let us go in. People were just walking right up and getting into the show before us eventhough we had already been waiting for a while. This went on for about five minutes. Pissed me off, to be honest. Then the people in my line started complaining very loudly about it to the CM letting them in, so he finally let us go in. Of course we had crappy seats, but that was to be expected. I mean, heaven forbid that I, a person who had waited in line, get a better seat that someone who just walked up. The show itself was not bad, but was not one of the best I’ve ever seen. I liked the part with the guys dressed up like monkeys who did the gymnastics routine. It was one of the only things we could see. We had to sit in the last row of unelevated seats, so the only things we could see were the stilt walkers and the things happening in the air. I also liked the ballet dancers who were supposed to be birds or whatever. Couldn’t really tell what they were. I could barely see it. As we left, Dad made it very clear that he hated the show. He especially hated the seating and the incident with not letting our group in. I liked it, but I was not compelled to see it again. We left, and made our way back towards the Tree of Life. Mom wanted to take pictures of it, so we stopped and she took a few pictures. We were all so wiped out by now because the heat and the suspicious lack of water fountains (you don’t think they’d want to make us buy BOTTLED WATER, do you?), we decided to leave. I didn’t care that I hadn’t seen the Riverboat, Gorilla Falls or Conservation Station. I wanted to leave! I wanted to go back to my nice, comfy, COOL hotel room and take a shower. Just so we could leave on a good note, we walked all the way back over to DinoLand USA and rode Countdown to Extinction one last time. What does that say about that ride? That means that we REALLY liked it if we were willing to walk all the way back over there, even as tired as we were.

After our final ride on Countdown to Extinction, it was about 3:00 and we left. We didn’t care that we had priority seating at the Rainforest Cafe in an hour and a half. We were too disgusting to eat there anyway. I would have been so hot, so tired and so sweaty, I wouldn’t have enjoyed a bite of it. When we got to the car, I swear I heard the car say that it was sure we didn’t love it any more since we left it in the hot parking lot all day. We had to let the car air our before we were even able to get inside. I don’t know how hot it was this day, but the heat index was easily 115. I got in and checked on my bagels. They were like rocks. Oh well...did I actually expect that anything would go well this day? I’ll just use extra cream cheese...

We went back to the hotel and collapsed. I had never been so tired because of a Disney park before. We wanted Fazolis for dinner, but none of us wanted to get up and get it. We tried to get Dad to go buy it for us and bring it back, but he said that if he had to go, we had to go. So we dragged ourselves off the bed and went across the street. I got the "Three Way Pasta" which is spaghetti, ziti and ravioli in the same no-meat dish. Mom had Chicken Parmesan and Dad had a Roast Beef Submarino. We took advantage of the unlimited breadsticks.

The evening was spent in the hotel room watching TV and making plans for our next day. At about 8:00, we decided that we wanted milkshakes. We went out looking for a Sonic or Dairy Queen but didn’t find one. Finally we saw a Steak and Shake. We had eaten there on the return from our last trip and the shakes were really good, so we stopped and got one. Mmmmm...

So ended the evening. We were very glad that we had scheduled a non-park day for the next day.

Wednesday, May 13, 1998 - Day 5 (Wonderworks, Go-Carting)

Uhhhh...I don’t want to get out of bed. We woke up at about 9:30, and that was still too early. I swear, our trip to Animal Kingdom the day before had thoroughly pooped us out. This was supposed to be our rest day, "rest" meaning that we wouldn’t go to any of the Disney parks today. I had a tomato bagel and lots of cream cheese (remember how hard they were) for breakfast and Mom and Dad went downstairs and warmed up some sausage and buscuits they had bought earlier. I also had a glass of the fruit punch from the continental breakfast.

The first thing that we had been wanting to do for the last few days that we hadn’t found time to do was go to Orange World. It’s a souvenir shop housed inside the world’s largest orange. If you go down US 192, it’s pretty hard to miss. I mean, it IS a gigantic orange. I didn’t find too much that I wanted, but I did get two plastic figurines, one of Snoopy and one of Kermit dangling his feet in a pond. I also got a small palm tree. My grandpa got one in December and it was still alive, and I wanted some sort of small plant to put in my room, so I figured I would get one of these. It was only three dollars, so even if it died, I wouldn’t be out that much money. In all the brochures we’d picked up on the way to Florida, we kept seeing advertisements for something called WonderWorks. It looked like a big building that had been lifted and dropped upside down. It looked pretty cool, so we decided to make the visit there today.

We arrived at WonderWorks, after a huge turn around by the way (Kissimmee roads are marked so terribly!) only to discover that the parking was not free. So grudgingly we paid for the parking. I figured that at such a small attraction the parking would be free. Oh well. As we walked along the outside of the building, we heard it creaking. Obviously they were fake creaks, but it was cool. When we went inside, we saw that the entire room was flipped over and there were TV monitors everywhere broadcasting a news segment about how the building was picked up in the Bahamas (or Bermuda, I forget) and dropped in Orlando. Just then we saw that the admission price was $12.95. Ugh. Well, we paid it, hoping that it would be worth it. I mean, the brochures said that it had an earthquake simulator, a hurricane simulator and lots of other cool stuff.

When we went in, the first room we came to seemed like a flurry of machines sitting everywhere. No organization to it at all. The first machine we would try was the hurricane simulator. All it was was a box with a fan on the side. How lame! I experienced a really cool hurricane simulation at the Ripley’s Believe it or Not! Museum in San Antonio a couple of years ago. This was a far cry from it. Next we went to the earthquake simulator. Even by this time I wasn’t expecting much. We sat in the little box, the floor vibrated, then it was over. Oh, that was even lamer than the hurricane simulator! They have a better earthquake simulator at our local kid’s museum. Looking around and finding nothing else of interest in the room, we went upstairs. Now this was a little more like it. This room was a little bigger, but still not what I expected. There was a bubble room in one corner, so Mom and I went over there. They had four big tubs of bubble solution and four big wands, and we amused ourselves with them for about ten minutes. We left that area and noticed what appeared to be an electric chair over to the right. A young guy was in it when we walked up, and he had a look of pain on his face. Right as I began wondering why anyone would be so stupid as to willingly electricute themselves, Dad stepped up and sat down in it. He sat it on high and began to grimmace as the current went higher and higher. I was somewhat worried, but began to think that, hopefully, you wouldn’t be able to get in it if it could actually hurt you. When he was done, he came out shaking his hands out and saying that he wanted to do it again. After a few more people, he got in again, then tried to convince me to get in. So I did. Current, my behind! All it did was vibrate the handles you held on to.

I tried out some of the balance machines and the game that shows how fast you can throw a baseball, but we soon became bored and went upstairs again. The third floor was definitely the best. Take the worst parts of Innoventions and add a bit of Velveeta and you get what we had in front of us. Among the things we did, in no specific order, were some puzzles at computer stations, some trick mirrors, a virtual horserace where you sit on a plastic horse and rock it to make it run, some optical illusions, a machine that let you see what you would look like in 30, 40 or 50 years, a room with a heat sensing camera, a static tube that shocked me when I touched it, so I didn’t mess with it any more, and two blue screen games. The blue screen games were the best part of the entire thing. One was an underwater game and another was outerspace game where you had to touch certain objects and they give you points. They were cool and I scored first place on both.

We looked for another floor, because we figured that what little we’d seen couldn’t have been all there was, but we didn’t find one. We went down another set of stairs, but the only place it led was to a restaurant and a gift shop. Oh well. I bought a magnet, a postcard and a cool keychain with lava looking stuff in it. We were hungry, so we decided to leave and go to Dynasty Super Buffet, a chinese buffet next door to our hotel. We got very lost and eventually discovered that we were about 45 minutes on the other side of our hotel. By 3:00, we were back where we should be and had a late lunch at Dynasty Super Buffet. It was very good, and a fairly good value too.

We went back to our room and rested for a little bit before we were going to go out again. After a quick rest, Dad and I decided to go Go-Cart racing. Go carting is a favorite pass-time of Dad’s even though he doesn’t get to do it much due to a surprising lack of affordable ones at home. We went to Kart World, the same track we went to last year. We found coupons that let us get one free lap, so we used them. Dad also bought seven more tickets for each of us, so we had a total of eight laps. We rode five laps in a row, then got out and went in the gameroom and popped a few dollars down the Skee-ball machines. We got enough tickets that I got a top and some vampire teeth. Ooooo. After I had claimed my booty, we went back out to the track and used our other three tickets. A few minutes after we were done, Mom showed up and we went back to the hotel. After a short rest, we went to "the big pink building" which is actually named Shalimar, I think. It’s right next door to our hotel too, and we had been in here on our first trip. It’s a lot like Orange World. Just a tacky souvenir shop although this one is considerably bigger. I found a pair of black foam soled shoes for $8, so I decided to get them because I had left my sandals at home and I hate being barefoot. We stopped for a quick dinner at Arby’s, but none of us were really hungry. I got the two chicken strips kids meal and Mom and Dad both got an order of Cinni-minis. The toy in my kids meal was a cute little stuffed fish that came with crayons that would let you color on it. The only downside was that the person at Arby’s put my hot fries right on top of my crayons and they melted. Oh well, the fish is cute white. The rest of the day was spent watching TV, planning for our day at Magic Kingdom the next day, showering and hitting the sack early.

Thursday, May 14, 1998 - Day 6 (Magic Kingdom)

Magic Kingdom day! I can’t believe that it took four whole days to get back to Magic Kingdom! For the first day of our trip, I woke up fairly easily. I’d gotten a really nice night’s sleep, so I was fully refreshed and ready to make another pass at the Magic Kingdom. I got up at what had become our usual time, about 7:15, and had more hard bagels loaded with cream cheese for breakfast. Even though they were fairly hard, they were really good. I like Einstein Brothers Bagels! I also had a nice big glass of fruit punch from the lobby. Mom and Dad had sausage and buscuits and fruit punch as well.

We got to the Magic Kingdom a little after 9:00 and parked in Pluto 20. We decided that the line was not to big for the monorail, so we took the express monorail over to the Magic Kingdom. I love the part of the ride where you go through the Contemporary. We were going to ask to ride up front, but we were hearded in the other direction, so we figured that we would ask later. When we got to the Magic Kingdom, once again, the first stop was Space Mountain. Well, ok, the very first stop was at the change machine and quarter press under the Main Street train station so Mom and I could change some dollars so we could get more pennies.

The line for Space Mountain was fairly short again and I made two quick passes, first at the right side, then at the left (seems like everything has had short waits on this trip. The longest we’ve had to wait for anything was about 7 or 8 minutes for Maelstrom). I’d tried to get Dad to ride with me, but he didn’t want to, so he waited in the Tommorrowland Arcade. When I came out from my second ride, I saw Dad playing an "Independance Day" pinball game, so I left him alone to play. I was looking at the alien claw machine when I noticed that my neckwas hurting. I was sort of concerned, but I just tried to stretch it out and massage it. I saw Mom come in the door (she had ridden the Tommorrowland Transit Authority while I rode Space Mountain) and she began looking at the claw machines as well.

Now...I’m fairly good at winning stuffed animals out of claw machines. I’ve won more than my share, and I figured that I should try out some of these machines since I never had before. As I was trying to decide which one to play, I saw a woman and a boy playing the dollar claw machines right inside the door. She played two or three dollars and won an animal on every try. This, I thought, must be a good machine. When they left, I popped a dollar worth of quarters into the machine and won a stuffed dog. Alright! I put another dollar in and won a frog. Yes! I played eight more times and ended up with a total of seven stuffed animals; two dogs, three frogs, a panda and a purple bear. This was a GOOD claw machine. Once, I even got two prizes on one try. Alright, double prizes! I sort of felt like Sid, only not quite so maniacal. I stuffed all our stuffed animals in my backpack (they filled it so full that I could barely close it, much less find anything in it), and we rode the Skyway over to Fantasyland.

As we left the skyway, we saw a beautiful butterfly and stopped for a second to look at it. Then we went to It’s a Small World and rode it. No wait of course. It’s a nice ride, but having ridden it so many times, I’m getting a little tired of it. Once was enough during this trip. Next we stopped to see the Legend of the Lion King show. We didn’t have to stay in the waiting area very long and were admitted almost immediately to the preshow. I love this show. It’s so unique. Plus, unlike the Voyage of the Little Mermaid, this show tells the entire story from beginning to end. Little Mermaid sort of skips around and leaves out the whole part where Ariel becomes one of Ursula’s people. But Legend of the Lion King tells the entire story in such a way that even if you had never seen the movie, you could probably follow what was going on.

After leaving Legend of the Lion King, we rode Peter Pan’s Flight. I absolutely love the music they play! This was another ride that I’d seen the movie to since my last trip. This one was much more coherent as well. It’s amazing how much more I understood in this and Snow White’s Adventures after seeing the movie. Speaking of Snow White, it was next on the list. These lines were tolerable, but all in all, longer that any others we’d encountered, including Space Mountain.

We were getting pretty hungry by this point, so we made our customary stop at Pinocchio’s Village Haus for burgers. Mmmmm...the best burgers in the World! I think it’s the buns. They’re not regular hamburger buns. They’re more like potato buns. Mmmmm...just thinking about them makes me want one. The fries were actually better than I had remembered them, but they still weren’t phenomenal. I also like getting a cup of saurkraut from the topping bar. Mmmmm..... We always like sitting in the room that overlooks It’s a Small World, although we’ve never sat at one of the tables at the windows. I tried to get a seat at the table with Monstro painted above it, but it was already occupied. We ended up sitting in a table right across from the windows.

After finishing lunch, we made a run for Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. We rode both sides and acted terrified when we got hit by the train. Hehehe. I LOVE MR. TOAD!!!!!!

After our Toad fix (gotta have the little green guy before we do too much), we went to the Haunted Masion. We stepped to the "dead center of the room" and enjoyed the ride. Afterwards, we stopped to get Mickey ice cream bars. Dad and I got the premium chocolate covered mickey bars and Mom got a strawberry bar. As we ate them, we saw that the Riverboat was loading. We got on and stood on the second deck and ate our ice cream. Mom didn’t like that they now put a waxy covering on the strawberry bars, so she threw a big hunk of it into the Rivers of America. I promptly scolded her and we enjoyed the rest of the cruise. We bypassed the Diamond Horseshoe Saloon Review and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and went over the to the recently renovated Tiki Room. None of us had ever seen the original one, so we didn’t know what to expect going into the new one. As the show began, I thought it was really cute. But then I heard the screech of Gilbert Gotfreid. Ugh. Other than his annoying voice, I thought the show was really cute. I loved the Tiki goddess that comes out of the flower arrangement in the center of the room. I don’t know why everyone is so upset about it. I mean, I’m sure it’s drastically different from the first one, but on it’s own, it was cute.

Next was the Jungle Cruise. The first time I rode it last May, there was over a thirty minute wait. This time, they had all the ropes down and were barely getting enough people to fill a boat by the time it needed to leave. Our skipper was ok, but not the greatest. Like It’s a Small World, I’m getting tired of the Jungle Cruise.

On to Pirates of the Caribbean. I really like Pirates of the Caribbean. The first time we rode it, my Mom didn’t know that it had the tiny dip at the beginning. She hates, I mean HATES drops like that, so when I said "Oh here comes the drop" she started whimpering and said that she nearly passed out because she didn’t know it was there. She’s over it now, but I can tell that she doesn’t like because she still holds on for dear life when she sees it coming. When we went inside the waiting area, I noticed a CM named Joe that was dressed as a pirate was staring at me. I thought it might just be my imagination, so I tried to ignore him. As I got closer to him, it was very obvious that he WAS staring at me, so I smiled and acknowledged that I saw him. Well, he just kept on staring and staring and staring. Not smiling, just looking at me stone faced. Then I saw him start to walk closer to me, still staring. By now, I knew that he was playing some sort of game, so I started walking closer to him, staring with my most ferocious stare. After a second, I started laughing because he had such an odd expression on his face. Then I said, "I’m gonna ride now!" smiled and stomped off. Right as I went through the turnstyle, he came up next to me and stared at me again. This time, I stood there and stared at him without laughing. After what seemed like a few minutes he kicked the trash can we were standing next to and said "Arrgh matey! Ye better go and ride the Pirates of the Caribbean!" I started laughing hysterically and headed off in the direction of the ride. How odd! Afterwards, we checked our pressed penny list and saw that there were a few pennies in the Splash Mountain courtyard that we hadn’t gotten yet, so we decided to get those. I’d never been in that area before, so I had no idea where anything was. When we got back there, it was like a whole little attraction in itsself. I saw Brer Bear signing autographs, so I had to get one. I only had room for 13 more pages for signatures in my little Mickey/Minnie book, and I was hoping to fill them all on this trip. I got his autograph and seven new pennies. While we were in the area, Mom and I decided to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Dad held our bags while we rode. On any of our subsequent trips, we had never made it over to Tom Sawyer Island, so that was one thing we really wanted to do on this trip. We found the dock for the raft that takes you over to the island and went across the river. We walked around the islands for a little while, didn’t really find too much interesting stuff, and left. It was a really nice place, but I would think that it’s mainly for kids. It would also be nice if you wanted to get away from the big crowds for a little while.

On our way out of Fronteirland, we passed a churro cart. Mmmm...churros! I LOVE churros! The churros at Cantina de San Angel are the best in the World, but these are really good as well. We each got one and Mom and I shared a tub of chocolate. As I ate, I decided to stop in Ye Olde Chirstmas Shop and get my customary chirstmas ornament. They had so many cute ones I just couldn’t decided. I really loved the one of Cinderella Castle, but decided not to get it because there were so many others to choose from. I saw lots of Mickeys, Minnies, Goofys and Plutos, but none of them really struck my fancy. Then I saw the boxed sets of ornaments from the animated movies. Then I saw it...the Snow White and the Seven Dwarves boxed set. I absolutely love that movie now and thought that it would be the perfect addition to my Disney ornament collection. It had one of Snow White and one of each of the Dwarves, and was absolutely beautiful. The price was more than I had planned on spending, but not as exorbitant as it could have been, so I got it. I also, for the first time, sent it to package pickup. We then proceeded onward to Tomorrowland via the central hub. Our next stop was going to be the Carousel of Progress, one of my personal favorites in the Magic Kingdom. We just missed one showing, so we had to wait for the building to revolve around to the next room. I love this show/ride. My grandparents loved it too when they went with us. My grandma particularly loved the scene where the daughter is using the vibrating exercise machine. After Carousel of Progress, we rode the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. I was hoping that I would be able to catch a glimpse of the renovations of Take Flight, but they had blocked the window. So instead of seeing anything, we were just taken on a long ride through a spooky dark tunnel. Oh well, the rest of it was good. I especially like the part of seeing the inside of Space Mountain.

We were all ready for dinner by this time, so we stopped in Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe. We all got the chicken breast/wing plate with mashed potatoes and a cornbread muffin. The chicken was good, but the potatoes were just like the ones at Garden Grill, and I wasn’t that fond of them this time either. Also, the cornbread muffin was sweet! Bleh! Yuck! I can’t stand sweet cornbread. I took one bit and without even chewing it, it spit it back out into my napkin. Absolutely disgusting! For what we paid for it, I don’t think I will be returning. I wanted to go back to the claw machine I had popped so much money into this morning and try my hand again. We went back over to the arcade and threw six more dollars into it. We won three more toys; two alligators and a pink bear. I wanted a toucan, but none of them were on the top, so I didn’t even try for them. The day was ending by this time, so we decided to catch a few more things we hadn’t done then leave. Mom and I went to see The Timekeeper, but Dad said he had a headache and thought that the circlevision might make him sick. So he sat outside and waited for us. Once again, we just barely missed one show so we had to wait about 15 minutes until the next show. This is a nice show, but not all that compelling. I’m sure I’ll watch it again, but probably not on every trip. That was everything we wanted to do in Tomorrowland (none of us chickens were up for Alien Encounter either), so we went back to Fantasyland for a few minutes. We rode the left side of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride again and decide to call it a night. We didn’t care to see SpectroMagic since we had seen it last year, so we headed for the front of the park. I almost forgot to get my ornament set from package pickup, but I remembered just in time, right as we got to the town square. It was a very prompt service (sure beat carrying that big box around all day!) and I was done in about a minute or two. We went back out and took the momorail to the Transportation and Ticket Center and then the tram to the car.

After returning to the hotel, we all took showers, had a few snacks, fussed over my palm tree and went to bed.

Friday, May 15, 1998 - Day 7 (all the parks and Downtown Disney)

Boohoohoo!!!! Our last full day in Disney World :*( This has been such a great trip, I didn’t want it to end. But I guess all good things have to come to an end, right?

The morning started as normal; We woke up at 7:30. I had a bagel and lots of cream cheese and a glass of fruit punch for breakfast, and Mom and Dad had sausage and buscuits. In a desperate attempt to find something on TV, Dad stopped at The Facts of Life. I didn’t even know it was on in reruns anymore. Today, we were going to start the day at the Magic Kingdom and end the day at Epcot. Dad also wanted to go over to the Walt Disney World Speedway and watch some of the drivers. That was all we had planned, but the day was basically open to change.

We went to the Transportation and Ticket Center, which was where we decided to split up and do our own things. Mom and I wanted to go to the Magic Kingdom, and Dad wanted to go to the Speedway, so he caught the shuttle over there, and we rode the monorail to the Magic Kingdom. We asked if we could sit up front, but a woman and her son had already asked, so we were going to wait on the next one. Then the lady motioned for us to get in with them, so we did. Mom video taped the trip, but the wrong soundtrack was running. It was odd because we were going through the Contemporary while hearing about the buildings of the Polynesian.

When we got to the Magic Kingdom, our first stop, once again was under the Main Street train station to change dollars into quarters for our penny collection. We were determined to finish up getting all the pressed pennies to be had in this park, so we stopped by Town Hall and asked to see the pressed penny list. We discovered that there were only three or four machines worth that we had missed and most of those were on Main street. One was the machine in Tinkerbell’s Treasures with the Bashful penny. It was out of order one of the other days we were there, but it was working this time.

Since we were already in Fantasyland, we decided to go ahead and ride Snow White’s Adventures again. I really like this ride. I like it so much more now that I’ve seen the movie! Next stop was Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride again. We rode the right side, then the left side, then the right side again, because the flash hadn’t gone off on one of the pictures I really wanted to take on the first trip through. I realized by this time that I had only gotten one character signature on this trip. All the characters I’d seen, except for Brer Bear, I already had autographs of, so we decided to stop in the Fantasyland Character Festival.

This place is always pretty crowded. I guess it’s because people can just walk in at will instead of waiting in line and being let in at intervals like in the County Fair. As I walked in, I saw two characters that I hadn’t seen before, Robin Hood and Foulfellow. I got their autographs, and the both made a big deal about my baseball bat shaped pen. The characters really seem to love it. In December, Dopey pretended to hit a home run with it and ran all the way around the room, and numerous characters would run off with it and pretend to be clubbing another character over the head with it. As I approached Robin Hood, the Sherrif of Nottingham came up to him and began wrestling with him. It was fun to watch the faces of the people that just walked in watching the characters rolling around on top of each other. Most people laughed, but some looked horrified. Hehehe. After leaving the Fantasyland Character Festival, we walked over to Mickey’s ToonTown Fair and went in the County Fair. I asked who was in each line, and the only character available that I hadn’t met was Peter Pan. I got in fairly quickly, got his autograph and headed off in the direction of Tomorrowland. Knowing that we didn’t have too much time, we went to one of our favorite things, the Carousel of Progress. Afterwards, I knew that we had very little time left, but I couldn’t resist trying that claw machine again. I went back over to the arcade and popped four more dollars into the machine. After the first two dollars, I realized that they must have readjusted the machine overnight because I wasn’t even coming close to winning anything. How uderhanded! First they make the machine cost a dollar to play, then they make it extremely hard to win. I resent that. You know that the animals they put in those machines probably don’t cost a dollar a piece, yet they probably get at least five bucks for each animal someone wins.

After leaving the arcade disappointed, we rushed back out of the park and onto a monorail to the Transportation and Ticket Center. We got to ride in the front again. How neat. When we got there, Dad was already waiting and we got in the car and headed out for lunch. Since we didn’t get to eat at Rainforest cafe on our Animal Kingdom day, we decided to go over to Downtown Disney and eat at the one there. We were going to eat at Planet Hollywood, but we’ve got one of those in Nashville, and we don’t have a Rainforest Cafe yet (but they’re building one where Opryland used to be), so we wanted to go there. We parked at Pleasure Island and walked over to the restaurant so we could see all the sights of Downtown Disney.

When we got to Rainforest Cafe, we didn’t have reservations or Priority Seating, but our wait was only about ten minutes. We were seated on the back wall of the restaurant underneath a den of leopards or something. This is one awesome restaurant! Elephants, gorillas and fish tanks everywhere. We were near a den of leopards as I said and were across from a fish tank and next to a bat cave. Occasionally the bats would begin flying around the cave and chirping. So cool.

When our waitress came around, she was obviously exasperated. She looked like she had been run ragged all day. She took our orders and Mom and I didn’t even have to look at our menus. We’d eaten here last July and thought the food was wonderful. I ordered the Maya Pastalaya, a pasta dish with chicken, shrimp, sausage, onions, tomatoes and green peppers all covered in this spicy cajun seasoning. Mmmmm...So that was what I ordered, minus the sausage and onions, and Mom and Dad both got the Mojo Bones, which are pork ribs with waffle fries and french fried onions. Our waitress was very efficient and very nice. By the end of the meal, I felt so sorry for her, because she looked like she was about to collapse. Every time our glasses were empty, a full one would be there within a minute or so. At the end of the meal, she explained why she looked so tired. She said that normally they would seat most of her tables at one time, then give her a break before they seated more people, but this day, they had seated her tables one at a time, so she had been going constantly without a break. We gave her an extra large tip because she was so nice and efficient. As we left, we went in the World of Disney and shopped for a bit. Next on our run-around day agenda was a stop at the Studios to pick up some of the pennies we missed earlier in the week. I stopped by Guest services and asked to look at the list of pennies in the Studios, and the woman told me that she would print me one out listing all the pennies in the parks and the resorts. Cool. The only ones we had missed were in the Soundstage Restaurant. We went to get them only to find that the Hunchback of Notre Dame penny press wasn’t working. Dangit! And those were the ones I wanted the most! We went over to Star Tours to ride it one last time before leaving. Next, we ran over to Animal Kingdom because I hadn’t picked up any extra maps from there. I was going to bring back a few big piles of maps from each park to give away to customers at the Disney Store and I had forgotten to pick any up from Animal Kingdom. We just stopped really quickly and I jumped out, ran in and grabbed the maps. Next, we were on our way to Epcot to end up the evening.

When we went inside, we saw that Spaceship Earth didn’t have much of a line, so we went ahead and rode it. Lots of people complain about long lines for Spaceship Earth, but the longest wait we’ve ever had was about five minutes last May. This time, it was a walk on. Next, we went over to the Land and rested for a while. I bought another Jiminy Cricket and Mom and Dad went on Living with the Land while I drank it. As I got done, we went to see Food Rocks again.

After Food Rocks, we went to the Living Seas. I absolutely love the preshow movie to the Living Seas. It’s so beautifully done. We walked around the tanks for a little while and I tried out the Jim Suit game where you have to solve all the little puzzles in under 45 seconds. Afterwards, we went over to the Imagination pavilion and rode Journey into Imagination again. As we left, Illuminations had just begun, so we stopped to watch a few minutes of the lazer/fireworks show. Then we went into the Centorium, bought a few last-minute impulse buys, including a porcelain Snow White and Bashful, and stood outside watching all the thousands of people file out of World Showcase. We slowly began to leave Epcot, but we didn’t want to. I could stay forever. We went back out to our car and paid a sad farewell to our favorite park. As we made our last trip out of Disney World, my mind shifted to our next trip. See ya in November Epcot!

At the hotel, we packed up our stuff and gathered all of our new souvenirs into piles so they would be easily packed into the van the next morning. We showered and went to bed, all a little bit wiser for the wear.

Saturday, May 16, 1998 - Day 8 (Travel Home and Summary Comments)

I feel as though I should make a few comments on our trip home from the World. As we left Magic Castle Inn and Suites room 208 for the last time, Dad carried my big stuffed Mickey out to the car as we passed a man and a little girl. He looked at us and said, "I see you guys have already been to Disney." My Dad said that we had and the man pointed towards the little girl and said "Yeah, that’s what we’re here for." I wanted to cry. The little girl looked SO happy. I had made it through leaving Epcot, my last monorail ride and even passing the "See you soon" sign at the Disney exit, but that moment was the first moment where I actually wanted to cry. If it had just been me, I probably would have cried, but my Dad kept talking to me and asking me stuff, so I squelched it. I’d had a great trip, and I really, honestly did not want it to end. But it had to, I guess.

We had breakast at the Akbar Palace, which dealt another trip down memory lane. This is where we had breakfast almost every morning during our first trip last May. I even remembered the guys that were the waiters and the cashier. I had an omlette (which wasn’t that good, but was decent) and a glass of chocolate milk, and Mom and Dad had the breakfast special, which is two bacon strips or sausage links, home fries, two scrambled eggs, and two pieces of toast and jelly. It was no IHOP, but it was fairly good for what it was.

I slept for the majority of the trip home, much like I did on the way there. We stopped briefly at Magnolia Plantation and bought some pecan logs and were on our way again. We stopped at Taco Bell for dinner, bought some Gorditas and ended up winning a soft taco. We stopped at the Tennessee Welcome center and bought more Mayfield Chocolate milk and drank it on our way back into Tennessee. We arrived at home fairly uneventfully. I didn’t really want to be back home, but I did like the look of my own bed and my own shower. I unpacked everything, and I found places for all my new things. My Little Mermaid waterglobe went on top of my TV. My Countdown to Extinction picture went on top of a pile of boxes in my room and my porcelain Snow White and Bashful went right in front of my picture.

What a great trip I had. Here’s my overall summary of this trip:

My favorite part: Dad and I getting to do the water effects show and Mom getting interviewed by Johnny Carson at SuperStar Television.
Favorite new experience: Seeing Animal Kingdom right after it opened and seeing the new Tiki show.
Favorite meal: Hard to say. I liked Garden Grill, 50’s Prime Time and Rainforest Cafe all equally.
Favorite ride: Countdown to Extinction
Favorite show: The Hunchback of Notre Dame and, of course, Food Rocks
Favorite Souvenir: My Little Mermaid Waterglobe
Favorite tradition: Jiminy Crickets!
Thing I wish I had done: Had breakfast at the Main Street bakery
Favorite touring day: MGM studios day
Favorite CM encounter: Brother Lerroy at 50’s Prime Time Cafe and Joe at Pirates of the Caribbean.
Think I have a better appreciation for now: Snow White’s Adventures Attraction
I wish I had seen: Cranium Command Attraction
I wish was open: Test Track Think
I can’t wait to see: The "five times it’s normal size" Herbie the Love Bug in the new All Star Movies resort.
That’s about it. I hope you’ve enjoyed my trip report. I’ve had a great time writing it and can’t wait for my next trip. I think my chicken had a good time too.

Julie Williams

ImKiwi10@aol.com

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