Trip Reports

TRIP REPORT- PREVIEW

THE PLAYERS:

Kim- WDW Veteran, 21-year-old College Senior (hopefully graduating in May)

Melanie- Hasn't been to WDW in 17 years; 22-year-old college Senior

We decided to take this trip because we are both approaching graduation with unsure futures- me not knowing what to do with my life, Mel preparing to be engaged. About a year ago, we decided to take this trip and have been planning ever since. Since we were limited on time and money, we only went for three nights- March 1-4, and stayed at the All Star Music Resort. What follows is not an exact play by play but moreso a crystallizaton of our wonderful trip. I hope you find it enjoyable and useful.

The books we used for our trip are the following:

Rita Aero's WDW FOR ADULTS
WDW for Couples (by the Perlmutters)
Birnbaum's Official Guide
I have read many WDW Guide Books and these are by far the best; Aero’s has great coupons; Couples has the best information and detail by far, and the official guide is good because you know the information has the best chance of being accurate. The problems with many of the other guides is that they go outsidethe realm of WDW, and don’t pay enough attention to WDW itself. Bob Sehlinger’s Unnofficial Guide is useless. He tears apart everything Disney, and much of his information is outdated and wrong.

Sunday, March 1st

We decided to take an early flight so that we could be in WDW as early as possible. Our flight left at 6:50 am. We touched down a little after 9. We had no problms with MEARS transportation; no need to make a ressie here, just walk up and buy a ticket. There happened to be a bus going straight to our hotel, so we had no waiting time! The trip to ASM was about half an hour, including stops at CBR and ***. We got our bags, tipped the woman a dollar per bag, and stood in line for about ten minutes to check in.

Check in was easy; the woman we made our reservations with had actually quoted us a price for four nights instead of three, so we wound up paying less than we thought! Our room was not ready, but it would be in the Rock Inn, which was not too far a walk. They stowed our luggage and we went off to EPCOT. NOTE: IF YOUR ROOM ISN’T READY, THEY WON’T EVEN ASK IF YOU WANT CHARGING PRIVELEGES ON YOUR RESORT ID. MAKE SURE YOU ASK IF YOU WANT THIS!!

Our luck continued as there was an Epcot bus pulling up as soon as we walked outside. We were in Epcot by 11:30 am. Upon getting to Epcot, I learned that my park hopper had been demagnetized (it’s been on my refrigerator for months) and so had to wait about five minutes to get a new one. NOTE: BUY YOUR TICKETS BEFORE YOUR TRIP. THERE IS NO REASON TO WASTE TIME WAITING IN LINE FOR TICKETS.

We rode Spaceship Earth, Body Wars, Ellen’s Energy Crisis, and Horizons with no lines. We went over to The Land and ate at the Sunshine SEason Food Fair, which has the greatest fast food in WDW! We both had Mickey’s Value meal at the Potato Stand, which was a cheese and bacon potato and a drink for about $5. It was delicious. We then saw Food Rocks, admitted to ourselves that the boat ride did not interest us, and headed to HISTA and Journey Through Imagination with no lines. Since we had 6:00 pm ressies at Palio, we kind of rushed through World Showcase, but got to see the Norway ride, walked through some other countries, and did the wine tasting at Germany. This is great! For $2.25, you get a cute shot glass to keep, filled with one of four wines. Wonderful! We then headed out the International Walkway and took the boat to the Swan.

We arrived at Palio with $50 coupon in hand. No problems with it at all- the lady happily took it. We decided to order three appetizers and a pizza to share. This was great! We got the garlic toast with tomatoes and buffalo mozzerella, the eggplant roll ups, and some sort of stuffed mushrooms. All terrific, especially the eggplant. We got the cheese pizza with tomatoes, which was also great. Mel got a fruit torte for dessert; I had the cheesecake, which was good but not the best I’ve had. Bill was $46.25. We left a $10 tip and happily went off to the Boardwalk.

We arrived at Jellyrolls around 7:15 and were told that the show did not start until 8. We left to walk around the BoardWalk. NOTE: AS LONG AS YOU SHOW UP BEFORE 8, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PAY A COVER CHARGE. OTHERWISE, IT IS $3 ON WEEKDAYS AND $5 ON WEEKENDS. So, we walked around for a while ,then came back and ordered drinks. This place is fantastic! The show started out slow, but then it was a full fledged sing-along! The piano players take requests, and played everything from Sweet Caroline to Margaritaville! We bought t-shirts ($18) and left early only because we were tired and still had not been to our hotel.

Leaving the BoardWalk was a mess. Two cms told us that there was bus service to each hotel, but we still have not seen that. There were three ladies at the BoardWalk bus stop more concerned about taking surveys than helping anyone. I asked one of them if a bus would come for ASM, and she told us that there would be. We waited fifteen minutes and the only bus that came was to Downtown Disney and MK. I spoke to another CM, one who was not taking surveys, and she told me that she did not know what busses came there (which was weird, because she should know her job.) The same CM who I had spoken to before came up to me and told me that she was wrong, that she had just asked a bus driver and I actually had to go to Downtown Disney and take a bus from there.UGH! CMs will often tell you the wrong thing other than admit that they don't know. Anyway, an hour

later, we were back at the hotel for some much needed sleep.

Monday, March 2nd

We wake up EARLY on Monday morning and are at the bus stop by 7am. We are at the park in time for the Early Opening and ride Space Mountain twice in a row, once with no line, once with a less than five minute line. We then ride Snow White, Peter Pan, T Cups, the Carousel, and Astro Orbitor with 0 line. By this time, it was 8:45. We went and stood among the droves of people waiting for the rope drop. At 9, we walked briskly instead of ran and still walked right onto Splash Mountain with a less than 5 minute wait. We then waited about ten minutes for BTMR, no wait for the Haunted Mansion, ten minutes for Pirates (which I thought was kind of long, considering I almost never wait.)

By now it was almost time for our cb at cp. They had no record of my priority seating, but promised to get me in anyway. We waited about fifteen minutes. I liked this place, but probably will not go back. It was too impersonal. Tigger and Eyore was going around to the tables, and we were told it could take up to an hour and a half for the characters to come! Pooh just stands in the center. We were lucky with the characters; we saw them all within half an hour. I became a huge Eeyore fan at this breakfast, and even got myself a beanie! The food was great- the breakfast lasagna was WONDERFUL!!!! An overall good experience.

After breakfast, we rode Alien Encounter, the Timekeeper, the Carousel of Progress, and TTA with no lines. TTA was awesome because Space Mountain was broken, and we got to see it with the lights on! We took pictures, of course, and headed back to the hotel for a nice 3 hour nap!

At 4:30, we were back in the park, refreshed. We went on IASW, because you just have to, and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, both with no wait.

We then headed to the Poly via monorail for our ps at ‘Ohana. We were seated within five minutes and this was the best meal I have ever had in WDW!! I had heard mixed reviews, but what it comes down to is that if you like new things, you’ll like ‘Ohana. It is also loud- a ukelele playing host who plays games with the kids (and on occassion the adults) and who insists that we all scream out "ALOHA" every ten minutes or so. The food was great, and plenty of it- go hungry! Spring rolls, mixed greens, and dumplings to start; turkey, beef, chicken, shrimp, and WONDERFUL salmon. We each got a drink, which was expensive but came with a cute glass stirrer (mine had a bird on top, Mel’s had a tree). We got our picture taken with the ukelele player. $59 and well worth it!!!!!!!!!!

We hit Downtown Disney next, did some shopping, and went back to the hotel for more zzzzzzzz’s. One problem: the cms at the Poly told us we had to take the monorail to the TTC for a bus to DD, which we later found out was wrong.

Apparently they were new. Oh, well, we got to ride the monorail again!

Tuesday, March 3rd

We headed to MGM. It wasn’t an early morning but TOT, Star Tours, and Movie Ride open at 8:30. We got there at 8:45 and waited twenty minutes for TOT.

NOTE: BECAUSE ONE SIDE OF TOT IS STILL NOT WORKING, GO EARLY FOR THIS. BY THE TIME WE GOT OFF OF THE RIDE, THERE WAS A 45 MINUTE WAIT. BY MID MORNING IT WAS 75 MINUTES! We then rode the Great Movie Ride, Muppets, and Star Tours with no lines. Breakfast was at Ellen’s Buy the Book (lowfat milk and wonderful high fat cookies). Check this place out- it’s great for a quiet snack and has a nice sitting area.The cookies are wonderful and are well worth the $2. They’re huge! We did the Backstage Tour with little line, walked onto Hunchback, and walked around until the 1:30 ps at Prime Time. Prime Time was quite disappointing. We were rushed, we couldn’t hear the television at all, and the chicken was dry. Our server did a very good job, though. She was our "big sister" and told us that mom would get mad if we didn’t set the table, clean our plates, etc. At first I was upset that we didn’t get a "mom", but she was quite good. Her name was Jenn, which was funny because Mel and I both have older sisters named Jenn! After lunch, we headed back to Epcot where we checked out Innoventions (not much there right now), rode Horizons again, saw Cranium Command (I had never seen it, and it was pretty funny), and headed over to WS. Let me just say that I absolutely hate the American Adventure. It is biased, skips right over the parts of American History where we messed up, and just really bothers me.

Other than that, I love WS. We got a beaver tail at Canada, which is a delicious pastry that comes in a variety of flavors ranging from $2.50-$3.50. We got an apple cinammon one, which was wonderful. We decided to skip IllumiNations and headed back to ASM for some zzzs.

Wednesday, March 4th

We didn’t have any charges on our bill, so we did not have to really do anything to check out. We arranged to have our bags taken from our room and put into storage and headed to MK. We waited for the rope drop at 9am and headed to SM with a 10 minute wait. We intended to head to all the thrill rides first, but got sidetracked constantly.We wound up going on tea cups and the race cars (which is no fun once you have a license, but hey, there was no line!) with 0 wait, waiting 15 minutes for Dumbo, went on Mr. Toad’s again, hit Peter Pan (both with almost no wait), Columbia Harbour House for some grub, Haunted Mansion, and a store in Frontierland before we got to Splash Mountain, where we surprisingly had no wait! We then did BTMR with a ten minute wait (first row- yeah!), took the train from Frontierland to Toontown Fair, walked around there, went back to Alien Encounter with no wait (first row- yeah!), rode TTA (of course, no wait), saw that SM didn’t have too long a wait, went on that again, got an egg roll at the egg roll cart (the best $1.90 you can spend!) had a sudden urge to do Jungle Cruise (15 minute wait), Pirates (5 minute wait), took the skyway from Fantasyland to Tomorrowland, rode the Astro Orbiter (I love that ride) and left. All before 4pm! We walked around Main Street, picked up my packages at package pick up (a great service) and left the kingdom for the last time this trip :-( We headed back to the resort, had dinner at the food court, played a little in

the arcade, and were picked up by Mears. See you soon, WDW!!!!!

Hints

The most important thing when you don’t have much time is to get up early. We saw everything we wanted to by getting in the parks when other people were sleeping or eating breakfast. Bring something to fill your stomach (pop tarts, cereal bars, etc.) and get thee to the parks. You can always come back and take a nap later on in the day when the crowds are bad.
Make ps arrangements. Yes, it is a little more expensive, but it’s wonderful to get away from the crowds and have a nice meal. If you make arrangements for buffets, or pre-plated meals, you will know how much you are paying ahead of time, which is nice.
Cast Members seem to be more likely to make something up or guess rather than admit that they don’t know something. If a cast member seems to be guessing, ask someone else.
There are a lot of new CMs in the parks right now. I am assuming they are replacements for CMs who were transferred to the Animal Kingdom. Bear with them while they train. CMs can also have bad days. If they are rude to you, don’t let it ruin your trip. Just shake it off and realize that most of them are very cool.
Take some time to smell the roses. So many people, for example, rush from place to place and don’t seem to be enjoying themselves. One of our most special moments was watching the birds on the lagoon in Epcot and thinking about how lucky they were.
Set your schedule wisely- we were only there for three nights, decided to focus on the three parks, and saw everything we wanted to see.
HAVE FUN! YOU'RE PAYING FOR IT!!!!!!
Kim Lucas

KLucas992@yahoo.com

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