Trip Reports

Dec. 1-6, 1999, Last Stop Before Baby

Early last fall, after nearly 6 years of marriage, my husband and I decided it's time to start a family. We hadn't started a family earlier because of graduate school, unsettled finances and job situation, etc., etc. But with those things finally out of the way, we were ready. A baby -- wow! We were coming up on our 6th anniversary (Nov. 27) and thought, what better way to celebrate our anniversary and our decision than by going to the place where we honeymooned! This trip took place Dec. 1-6, 1999.

Who we are: Alpha -- now 33, 32 at the time of the trip, a WDW fan from the age of 7, right now wondering if I'm expecting DH -- my dear husband, still 32, an enabler to my WDW cravings :-) , looking forward to being a daddy

A WDW vacation hadn't been in the financial plans, but between scaling back our plans (All Star instead of a moderate, no waiter-service meals, supplementing expensive park food with groceries, hunting down cheap air fare, etc.) and an unexpected bonus check, we managed to scrape together enough to go. Yay!

It's hard to imagine that if all goes according to our plan, we'll have our child with us next time we're at WDW. That's a total mind-blow. It's going to be so awesome! And so different. We went this time with the knowledge that this is the last time it will be all about what we want. Experience with nieces and a nephew has taught us that kids sometimes get cranky, exhausted, or fixated on something. Sometimes you have to change plans radically. And you have to spend lots more time in Toontown Fair. :-)

That's why we were looking forward to this last opportunity to visit WDW as a couple -- one last blast before we become parents.

All Star Sports

We booked our room at the All Star Sports under the "Millennium Insider" package rate (total for 5 nights, tax included: $370), and the package comes with a "free gift". The free gift was a pair of lanyards. Unfortunately, these lanyards were more or less like black string with a giant metal "2000" logo attached. We stuffed them in our bag and promptly forgot about them.

A few days before we left for WDW, we had requested a non-smoking room on the 2nd or 3rd floor of All Star Sports Surf's Up building #1. We called, we faxed, we reminded, etc., etc. Well, you can ask, but I guess you won't always receive. We got a smoking room on the 3rd floor of Hoops building #3. Well, one out of three ain't... hey, wait a sec! Only one out of three! Bummer! At least we didn't get a 1st floor room. Also, it was probably quieter than other rooms would be because we faced the woods at the edge of the hotel property.

We could both smell cigarettes when we walked through the door, though, and I thought we'd have to ask for a new room. But since neither of us felt like going through the hassle of changing rooms, we decided to wait until we got back later that night to see if the smell had cleared out. Luckily (and surprisingly), the smell had gone away by the time we got back from Epcot that night.

Okay, as for our true impressions of All-Star Sports. First, the good points. I can see where kids would go nuts for the All-Stars. Everywhere you look, everything is over-the-top and outrageous. Another good point: they left some of Florida's natural vegetation intact when they built the place, so some rooms (like ours) have pretty vistas. Another good point is that you do get all the perks of staying on-site without having to break the bank. One thing I expected to dislike that actually was okay with me was the smaller size of the room compared to the moderates. I really thought this was going to bother me, but actually, it didn't bother me in the least. We were very comfortable in the space. (When I think about the question of what-if-we-had-two-small-children-with-us, though, I do think it would get crowded in there.)

Now the bad points. Sorry to ASSpo fans, but to our eyes, the hotel's garish exterior was pretty ugly. Yeah, it has an element of whimsy, but mostly it was just kind of an assault to the eyes. And it has none of the nuances and subtleties that make other Disney areas such a thrill.

Another bad point: the food court. It was like a warehouse-sized room of tables and chairs. Here again, the colors are garish, and the lighting is beyond bright. And the food... ugh. I guess it appeals to the American palate and certainly the menu has plenty of kid-pleasers, but it isn't how we normally eat. Lots of pizza, burgers, and deep-fried stuff. I'm aware that others consider this an upside. ;-)

Yet another bad point: the room could have been in better condition -- smudges on the wall, stained upholstery on one of the chairs, and a cigarette burn on the nightstand. The place was verging toward haggard. For some reason, DH really couldn't stand the wallpaper in the bathroom. It was a blue-and-cream print that had images of various kinds of athletes, like tennis players, football players, etc. I didn't find it much more than uninspired, but he was genuinely irked by it. (Peculiar guy, if you ask me. :-) )

Interesting to note: our housekeeper did a pretty slipshod job on the first day... which coincidentally happened to be the one day we forgot to leave her a tip. All the rest of the days, we left her $2, and everything from there on out was great. She left extra soaps and drinking cups, and got very creative fashioning washcloths into toothbrush holders and nests for our other toiletries.

So all in all, my verdict is... can you guess? Thumbs down. I say this with a heavy heart, believe me. I wanted the All Stars to work for us because the price is right. I'm pretty certain that in the future, we'll postpone a WDW vacation in order to stay at a moderate.

December 1, 1999

I decided Epcot had to be our first park for three reasons: the Millennium stuff, of course; DH and I have a big soft spot for this park, thanks to many wonderful honeymoon memories; and it would be open later than the other parks, which mattered because we would be getting a late start on the day.

We arrived at All Star Sports at about 11:15 am and hustled over to Epcot, arriving by noon. This was my first in-person encounter with the Leave a Legacy monoliths. Well, now that I've seen it in person, I have to say... this is a swing-and-a-miss for Disney. I don't have any problem with Disney selling things like Leave a Legacy or Walk Around the World, and LaL doesn't even remotely remind me of a graveyard, but the metal plate idea is horrible. The etched pictures are totally unremarkable, and the fact that they're done on metal that they then tack onto the marble, instead of engraving the images into the marble, is just lame. Thumbs down. Worse, they took away the lucite sculpture-fountain in order to make way for LaL. Big bummer!

Another thing that makes LaL a bummer: the two selling stations barking out at you when you come in the park. Tacky.

We made our way around Spaceship Earth and let the feeling soak in: WE'RE HERE! Yay! Oh, that feels good, doesn't it?

We snapped some photos of the way they've transformed SE for the millennium celebration. Wow, that 2000 really glitters in the sun. Then we checked out the info kiosk and pin-trading station. We decided not to get into the pin hoopla but some of those pins were really awesome. We hardly felt bad at all about only being able to "window shop".

After taking a look at the pin trading station, we watched the Fountain of Nations (always impressive -- I love that fountain!), then headed into Ice Station Cool. Now, ISC may be a "lesser" attraction and it may just be a big fat unabashed advertisement for Coke, but I really dig this place! The silly exhibit about a frozen caveman dubbed "refreshus maximus" or something like that is fine and all, but I blip past that to get right down to the business of sampling. And yeah, I'm one of those masochists who has to have a sip of that awful Beverly. :-) DH says it tastes like a carbonated version of Vicks Formula 44.

After ISC, we decided it was time for a first: Test Track. Even though the park wasn't crowded, the stand-by wait time was an hour, and the FastPass return time was also about an hour. So, we opted for that wonderful innovation in wait times at Disney parks: the single-rider line. We waited no more than 5 minutes.

Which is a good thing, because neither one of us felt this ride was worth an hour wait. Maybe if we had been through the queue and gotten the build-up of excitement, we would have felt differently. I do like how the cars go right over the entrance, though; that's pretty cool. But if I'm not mistaken, you can see "off stage" areas when you're on the speed track. As for the thrill quotient, well, if you've ever been in a speeding convertible, you probably wouldn't consider this a thrill ride. Future World is supposed to be about "edutainment", but Test Track's lame "edu" gets in the way of the "tainment". As DH pointed out, compared to this, the Hall of Presidents is like a Graduate Seminar in American History. ;-)

From Test Track, we went right over to another first: Journey Into Your Imagination. Confession: I was never very wild about the old ride. It was kind of nifty in parts, but not a must-do for me. But I think it's a bummer that they almost entirely got rid of Figment. :-( As for JIYI. I know plenty of people have strong negative feels about it, but I can't say I absolutely hated it. I thought the visual effects were interesting, but on the whole, it's lacking charm and isn't totally coherent. DH felt that you go by the scenes too quickly to catch whatever "story" they were trying to tell.

With these two firsts under our belt, we decided to focus our attention on the live entertainment in World Showcase (WS). This is something we almost entirely missed when we visited in 1998, to our great disappointment, so we wanted to make sure we got our fill this time. Again, we used Steve Soares' awesome site before leaving home. May I just say, you're really missing some great stuff if you don't make a point to take in some of the live entertainment!

We sat down with the map and started piecing together when we would see what. Then we headed over to WS. With all intentions of seeing live performances right away, what did we do but head right for Maelstrom. It was a walk-on. DH says, "Maelstrom to me is always surprisingly short, and while it is showing its age a bit, I love a Disney ride that involves sitting in a boat and floating by mechanical puppets." :-) That's "Audio Animatronics", sweetheart. ;-)

When the ride was done, we noticed we were pretty darn hungry. We decided to head for Tangierine -- another first for us. On the way, we snapped photos of SE from a distance and stopped at Germany for a little while to watch the train set. We also looked through the stores in Germany, then were just in time for the 1:05 performance of Voices of Liberty. They sang mostly Christmas carols, plus they did the Hanukkah draedel song. They definitely can put you right in the holiday spirit! We really loved the period costumes.

Afterward, we decided to check out Nova Era in Italy, scheduled to perform at 1:30. We didn't know what to expect, but when we saw what they were wearing, we thought it might be worth staying to see. Well, when they started to play, we realized they sounded an awful lot like New Age music. Blah! We didn't stay. The best thing about them though was seeing them play electric guitars while dressed in those period costumes. Worth a look, even if we didn't feel like hearing the whole performance.

Next, we headed back to America because I remembered I wanted to check out a giant gingerbread house I heard was there. I took a photo of DH next to it, then asked to take a picture of the woman inside it who was selling cookies and hot chocolate. She was most gracious. :-)

Finally, finally, finally, many detours and sidetracks later, we made it over to Morocco for a late lunch. We split a chicken and tzatziki pita sandwich (supplemented by carrots, bananas, and Gatorade we brought with us, which is what we did nearly every day). Although I was looking forward to it, the chicken pita was a let-down. The tzatziki sauce tasted like the version meant to accommodate the American palate. We spent $7.69 here. DH says, "I always feel sort of bad for the people at the Morocco pavilion, because I feel like Americans are afraid of it, like they're going to be served a goat head or something. So I like making sure we spend a little time there and give them a chance." :-) We really enjoyed eating at Marrakesh on our honeymoon, but what we chose at Tangierine wasn't as good.

After eating, we took a leisurely walk toward the UK pavilion to catch the tail end of the 1:55 performance of Off Kilter. I'm aware of the minor cult following Off Kilter has behind it, so I was curious to hear their sound. They were really good! It's definitely funny to hear a band rocking, and then all the sudden there's a bagpipe wailing. Not only was the music good, but visiting their performance makes for good people watching -- lots of instances of The Funky Grandma Dance. Everyone gets into it!

So with yet another first under our belt, we headed over for the 2:15 performance of British Invasion. They were good, but I have to admit, we're probably a little spoiled -- we enjoyed listening to a Beatles tribute band that plays in Harvard Square called Not the Beatles, and they're really excellent. Anyway, British Invasion was introduced by a young girl who somehow had been picked in advance from the crowd. It seemed like a pretty special thing for her, and that was cute.

By now it was getting close to our 3:00 reservations for the ice cream social at the Garden Grill. This normally costs something like $6.50 per person, but we had a free coupon through our gold-card membership in the Magic Kingdom Club. We got to The Land pretty much at 3:00, and while we were waiting to be seated, I took a picture of the fountain down in the food court area. I've always really liked this fountain.

We were seated after a short wait, and our seats looked out over the farm scene from the ride. Fun! Our waitress brought out our sundaes very quickly, and they were awesome. I love how the waffle cone is glued to the cookie base with lots of chocolate. While enjoying our ice cream, we were greeted by Mickey and Chip & Dale. I reminded Chip of how much fun he had had with my whole family back in '98 at Chef Mickey's, how much the kids loved him, etc. Of course, Chip remembered everything! ;-) Our total cost here: the ice cream was free, but DH ordered a coffee and we left a tip equal to what we would have left if we hadn't gotten the ice cream on a freebie. Total, $3.50.

After looking at some of the things in the Land's gift shop, we headed over to the Living Seas. We enjoyed it, same as always. There's something pleasantly mesmerizing about watching fish and rays and sharks and dolphins swim around. By the time we came out, the sun was getting low in the sky and the temperature was falling. It would turn out to be a very cold evening.

I should mention here that the day was pretty chilly, despite bright sunshine. Also, I was working on a very nasty cold that made me feel pretty drained. DH was surprised how much energy I was mustering, but of course, this is WDW we're talking about!

We then headed over to World Showcase on the Mexico side and caught the very end of the 4:00 showing of Tapestry of Nations. We ended up taking a spin on El Rio del Tiempo, where I managed to bang my knee pretty good getting into the boat. D'oh! How many years have I been riding these boat-type rides? You'd think I would have mastered it by now. :-) After leaving the Mexico pavilion, we headed over to China for the 4:45 performance of the Pu Yang acrobats -- impressive. When the show was done, we headed onward along WS and noticed that they had the drawbridge up and were dragging the globe to be used later in the IllumiNations show. Cool!

After seeing that, we took stock of what we wanted to make sure we'd see today. One thing on my list was the tree lighting ceremony, which would start at 5:55. We had a little time to kill before that got started, so we decided to get a hot chocolate at the Cantina de San Angel ($1.54) to fight the increasingly cold air. We slowly made our way toward the Christmas tree, which is right where Future World and World Showcase meet, and tried to decide where to stand in order to hustle back to one of the pavilions to catch the 6:00 showing of ToN. Well, when the tree lighting ceremony got started, we realized that they were going to go through a whole long narration and lots of new-agey carillon music (which I found out I don't care much for!) before they got down to business with the tree, so we bagged it and headed over to Canada. We got there right as they were sealing off the walkway, so we actually ended up getting an awesome spot to stand -- right where everything emerges from the "backstage" area.

And lemme tell ya, I *love* this parade! What fun! Those giant puppets are enormously entertaining to watch. I love that the puppeteers pick people in the crowd to touch with the puppets or offer a puppet-hand to shake. I really enjoyed the puppets that have their own marionette. Cute! The "metal man" puppets are really neat, and the one that's kind of like a butterfly that shakes its hips -- love those! This parade is simply terrific, and the music is great. I think it has a philosophical and optimistic sound to it. Another nice thing: all the people in the parade -- CMs and guests -- look like they are REALLY having fun.

When the parade was over, we headed to Millennium Village to take our tour of the mini-pavilions inside. By now, I was getting really, really cold (it was about 40-45º that night, we found out later), I was really tired from traveling and touring, not to mention plain old exhausted from my major runny sneezy cold. Ugh! I was really glad to get inside Mill Vill, but I was totally running on fumes at that point.

We spent some time in the Saudi Arabia pavilion and had our names written for us in Arabic. We watched some people play the magic carpet game and group-participation game where you have a model of a city under glass and there's a metal ball going through the streets of the city. (Participants stand on the base of this thing and hold onto the hand rail that circles it, and they sway the whole thing around to get the ball to move where they want it to.)

We also looked through the Sweden area, but I didn't really get it. What's the deal with the 4 giant "seasons" bubbles that you walk through? I mean, how is that particularly Swedish? We watched kids play the miniature golf putting green in the Scotland area, then visited the food court, which is pretty neat. We chose a Jamaican jerk chicken sandwich and a Polynesian pork sandwich (total: $8.00), supplemented by more carrots from our stash. Afterward, DH got a slice of coconut cream pie ($2.50). That was a real head-scratcher, because he doesn't like coconut. Ha! (DH says, "Maybe it was because the people at the counter were so nice. But then again, they were all real nice.")

By now it was a little after 7:00 and we were in a quandary about what to do. It was cold out, my cold was really making me suffer, and we both were totally drained. But we wanted to make sure we saw Illuminations, scheduled for 9:30. Well, we sat around in the Mill Vill food court for awhile, didn't really make any particular plans, and then left Mill Vill to saunter through WS. We went through stores, did the American Adventure show (always makes me teary-eyed, but DH caught a few zzz's, shame, shame!), listened to some of the Candlelight Processional, and had a pretzel at Germany ($2.02, and kind of dry in an under-the-heat-lamp-all-day way).

We took a spot near China about fifteen minutes before showtime, then patiently waited in the windy cold for the show to begin. Well, we froze ourselves solid out there, but IllumiNations was great. The World Showcase Lagoon is circled with giant torches, the pavilions are lit up, there are of course plenty of fireworks and lasers, and the globe we saw being dragged under the drawbridge shows pictures and films from areas all over the world. The globe's display is pretty neat -- kind of like a TV in the shape of North America or Africa. And I love how, near the end of the show, the globe cracks open like a flower. IllumiNations is always fun to me.

After the show was done, we headed back to the Christmas tree and took a picture of it, and also snapped a couple of the Lights of Winter canopy that leads from the tree into FW. I also got a shot of the nifty light sculpture past the Lights of Winter in FW. It's like dandelions gone to seed, with a light at the end of each seed. Then, on our way out of the park, I took a picture of DH standing on the fiber optic sidewalk outside of Innoventions. Awesome! If that sidewalk isn't the coolest thing. Seen it how many times and am still amazed by it. I definitely want it!

Back in our room, I took some Nyquil, we scheduled a wake-up call for the morning, and we conked out.

December 2, 1999

When we woke up, I knew I wasn't close to being done with the cold, and I could also feel the knotted muscle in my neck/shoulder acting up -- a small annoyance that sometimes leads to migraine, so I knew I needed to get some Advil in me quick. We had our breakfast in the room, got ready, and were in the park somewhere around 9:30.

My intention all along was to do my best to be courageous and try out the Rock N' Roller Coaster. I had read plenty online about what to expect with RnRC, including Craig Wingerson's "chicken report" about his first time braving the ride. By the way he described his apprehension, I recognized all the symptoms and could tell that he was genuinely a fellow "ride chicken". So when he said that he went on it and not merely survived it but genuinely enjoyed it, I knew there was no reason for me not to at least try it once.

I strode determinedly the whole way down Sunset Blvd., and I really wasn't feeling fearful, to tell you the truth. I think I had read enough and prepared myself mentally well enough that the fear wasn't getting the better of me. I took a moment to snap a picture of the upside-down car at the entrance, then we made our way to the line. We went right ahead and walked all through the snaking, empty queue. Before we knew it, we were in the pre-show area. Finally we were in our car and Steve Tyler was screaming out a countdown. That's when I felt fear creeping in... but I was committed at that point, and there was no going back. The next thing that happens -- a really rapid, straight-track, no-altitude acceleration in the dark -- is definitely the scariest part of the trip because even if you're expecting it, like I was, it's still way faster than you think it's going to be. After that, here come the upside down loops. For this first trip, I had my eyes closed and was a little wigged out from the acceleration part, but I began to calm down when I realized that the upside down parts actually weren't bad at all. Toward the end of the ride, I got up the courage to open my eyes and saw black-light lit street signs on both sides. All throughout the ride, you hear Aerosmith songs from headsets built into each seat. LOUD.

After it was over and we were walking out, I had the biggest rush from my success and also just because it had been fun, and I knew I wanted to do it again. So we walked right back over to the line, which still only had a wait of ten minutes, and went on it again. Even though I knew from experience what the acceleration would feel like, it still gave me a little scare. Ha! I kept my eyes open the whole way this time. DH thought it was an excellent roller coaster. I didn't brief him at all; he's not a ride chicken, so the element of surprise is better for him. His only knowledge of it came from some vague descriptions from our 7 year old niece.

Once we were done with this, I knew it was time to face another fear: The Tower of Terror. Ack! If it's the drops that bother me about roller coasters, well, the *whole deal* with this ride is the dropping! But I resolved not to let fear get the better of me after having had such a success with RnRC, so we went right over and got in the queue. Like at RnRC, the posted wait time was very short. In fact, when we got to the place where you load onto the elevators, there wasn't anyone else there! I really liked how the queue takes you through the overgrown gardens of this run-down hotel. The attention to detail in the dusty old lobby and library areas are great too. I kept fear in check pretty well, but things took a turn for the worse once that door opened and I could see out over the park! I did okay on the ride, but it wasn't much fun for me because the lap bar didn't actually come anywhere near my lap and I was jostled all over the place. I wasn't terrified, but I wasn't really having fun either.

With my neck/shoulder acting up, my cold still getting the better of me, and already three big thrills behind me, I decided it was a good time for a bench and a cup of coffee. We headed over to Min & Bill's Dockside Diner and got 2 coffees ($2.92). And what delicious coffee! We couldn't get over how satisfying it was.

After having taken it down a notch, we decided to head over to the Great Movie Ride. I've been to this park at crowded times, and when you're there during the slow season, it's always amusing how you just walk right in the front door without going through any snaking queue outside. Always enjoyable, and the montage of great films at the end of the ride really makes you want to visit the video store.

When this one was done, we decided to do the Backlot Tour, which I don't think we had done since our honeymoon back in '93. It was enjoyable enough, and pretty much as I remembered it, except the part where they show you how filmmakers reproduce a naval battle with scale models. I had forgotten about that. It's fun to be in the Catastrophe Canyon portion with people who haven't "been there done that" and are all nervous about whether they're going to get soaked. :-) We stopped for awhile at the part after the tram tour where there's a neat display of stuff from movies, including some of the puppets and sets from Nightmare Before Christmas. We took a good look at those because DH happens to dig that movie.

By now it was getting close to 12:00, so we sauntered over to the ABC Commissary for lunch. We split a roast beef sandwich ($7.69) and supplemented, as always, with carrots, bananas, and Gatorade we had with us. By now we were really in the mood to take it easy. I didn't want to go full-tilt today, and we had covered most of this park pretty well the last time we came to WDW, so we didn't feel a strong need to see every last thing. After we ate, we did a little shopping and more gratuitous hanging-out, just watching people go by. Around 1:45, we split a chocolate shake ($2.71) and plopped down on the same bench we had been sitting on when we had our coffee in the morning.

When we were done with the shake, we noticed one of the "Streetmosphere" scenes going on near where we were sitting, so we got up and checked it out. It was kind of like 3 Stooges schtick, involving three publics works guys -- two dumb guys and their smart-guy boss. The best fun about the Streetmosphere is when people in the audience get involved a little, and one fun moment was when a little British girl yelled at the boss, "You better be nice!" Cute.

Another neat thing about the Streetmosphere characters is that they roam the park without necessarily being part of any particular scene, and they're open to interaction from whomever happens to be around. At one point in the day we happened to be following an obvious Streetmosphere woman who looked to be from the 1940's. She was heavy and loudly huffing and puffing as she walked along, making groans and sighs as she went. I wanted to "play" with her but I couldn't think of anything to say and basically chickened out. Ha! But if there are any Streetmosphere CMs reading, let me just say: you guys are a heck of a lot of fun even just to look at!

After more shopping around and so forth, we found ourselves near the route of the Mulan parade only about 15 minutes from its start time, so we decided what the heck. We had each gotten another cup of coffee ($3.20; I was really needing the caffeine to stave off the exhaustion from my cold), so we took them over to the parade route and sat down. It started at 3:30. Neither of us are usually very big on the parades, so for us to take a spot on the parade route with the intention of watching the whole thing is pretty unusual.

When the parade was done, we headed right over to see the 4:05 performance of the Hunchback of Notre Dame live show. Some folks here on radp had said they thought that this is probably the best live show at WDW, and I had never seen it before, so it was high on our list of things to see at D-MGM. The last time we were there, we saw the live stage show of Beauty and the Beast, which we thought was great -- all those great songs, lots of dancing, just really good. But I agree with those who think the Hunchback show is even better. IMO, the Hunchback story has worse villains and greater heroes, so the acting really needs to be effective for this story to fly onstage. And it was! The guy who played Quasimodo was especially good. The whole thing was very entertaining. Oh, and I shouldn't fail to mention the pre-show entertainment, Matt the Juggler, who was great fun. I'd heard quite a bit about him on radp and was glad to finally get to see him! Yet another first for me.

When Hunchback let out, we walked over to Pizza Planet and split an individual-sized pizza ($5.25). This is where the Toy Story characters come out for pictures and autographs, and we were there a week after Toy Story 2 came out, so the kids were even more hyped up. So even on a fairly slow day in the park, this area was bustling. One cute thing we saw: one of the Green Army Men characters was alone playing one of the pinball games. I wonder how long it took some kid to discover him there. :-)

It was now about 4:45, and the only other things on our agenda started at 6:00 and 7:00. So, with time to kill, we poked around some of the stores there, then got in line for Star Tours. We didn't really intend to do this ride this time, but why not. It's kind of showing its age, but we like it. Looking forward to the new version I keep hearing about, though. Once upon a time, this ride was a big deal, the kind of ride that people would run to as soon as the park opens. Not anymore, what with ToT and RnRC next door to each other at the other end of the park.

After riding, we found an ice cream cart and I got a Mickey ice cream bar ($2.25). We just sat on bench while I ate it, and watched the people go by. Eventually we got ourselves over to the NY Street area, where the entrance to the Osborne Family Spectacle of Lights is. A few minutes before 6:00, it started to "snow", and the "oooh!" that came from the crowd was terrific. I just love those group experiences. :-) The special viewing glasses they handed out put a snowflake around every light we looked at.

Finally, 6:00 arrived and we were let in. So amazing! Something like, what, 5 or 6 million lights? Incredible. It really is a sight. The whole crowd was sort of awed. I'm so glad I managed to see it finally! I didn't realize they also had character meet-n-greets at Osborne. Nice.

The bummer: I only took one photo because I didn't think my camera would do a good job of capturing it, but that one photo turned out great. Well, all I have to do is imagine this picture times about 50, and that will remind me of what Osborne is like. :-)

The crowd was thicker than we had thought it would be, and we had wanted to get over to the other side of the park to get a seat for Fantasmic. As a result, we didn't really hang out for very long at Osborne. We pretty much did a walk-through, although that was still time-consuming because the crowd was thick.

When we got out, we hustled over to the Fantasmic area and were lucky to get seats. We probably got there at somewhere around 6:40 for the 7:00 show, and I think we were among the last 50-100 people to get in that night. We hardly saw any pre-show, but the most memorable one for me was the "camera flash wave". Seeing the flashes sweep across the semi-circular stands -- very cool!

We had seen Fantasmic! once before, about a week or so after its debut in D-MGM. We enjoyed the show then, and we enjoyed it this time too. We had a seat right by the water and towards the middle the first time around, and that was far better than our seats this time. We sat on the *far* left about 2/3rds the way up.

Anyway, when the show was over, we let the crowd disperse so that we could walk Sunset Blvd. without many others there. I well remember how nice that was back in '98. We browsed the stores and just took in the sights. Very romantic!

It looks to me that they put some sort of reflective paint on the undersides of the palm fronds along Sunset Blvd., so that at night they faintly glow green. At first DH disputed that the effect was anything but natural, but after getting a look at several palm trees, he started to agree. It shows up in our photos as well. If anyone can confirm or deny this, I'd appreciate it.

When we got back to ASSpo, we decided to check out the food court and have our dinner there. Well, let's just say, I was underwhelmed. We each finally chose the grilled chicken sandwich ($10.26 total), the most appetizing thing we could find. Unfortunately, the chicken was already cooked and just sitting there being kept warm, not freshly cooked to order. After we ate, we visited the gift shop, which is huge and fun to look through, and also looked at the wall of photos they have of famous athletes.

Then we headed back to the room, I took some Nyquil, and we were glad to hit the sack a little early.

December 3, 1999

On Day 2, we discussed what would be the best park to visit next -- the new park we'd never seen, or the tried-and-true Magic Kingdom? After having experienced so many new things at Epcot, and having exhausted myself the first two days with my cold, we decided we needed some of the good old comfort of MK. We reasoned that we always knew exactly what we wanted to see at MK, and this park especially lends itself to lots of leisurely touring if you've been here plenty before. The attention to detail, the colors, the landscaping, the sounds and sights all give plenty of entertainment to those who are simply too exhausted to walk anywhere to be entertained. :-) Well, we thought our day would be leisurely, but somehow it didn't turn out that way.

We were out the door early and drove over to the Magic Kingdom. I've read here that even if you rent a car and prefer to drive to the parks, the one park that you should consider using transportation to is the Magic Kingdom. Why? Because the Disney buses let you bypass the tram, the TTC, and the monorail. Nonetheless, we drove. DH simply prefers the freedom of driving, and I have to say, I do too; but with MK in particular, taking the car brings back memories from childhood, driving that well-maintained road into MK, parking so neatly and orderly, waiting for the tram, and of course, boarding the sleek monorail, which always felt like the first ride of the day.

Our transfer from parking lot to tram to monorail to turnstile went very smoothly, and we decided that Space Mountain would be the first ride of the day. When we got there, we picked the track on the right. Our wait was no longer than a minute or so, and we decided right there that we would ride once more, taking the left track next time to compare the two experiences. But when we got in line for our second ride, they had closed the left track! Bummer! So we just decided to ride the right track again.

Next, we went on the Buzz Lightyear ride, which is a complete and total thumbs-up. I loved the old If You Had Wings, but this is a very worthy replacement! One thing I appreciate about it is that the idea isn't complicated at all. Just give guests a laser gun and targets, and see how many points they can rack up. This is old midway carny stuff but darn if it doesn't work! We had gone on it twice, I think, back in '98, and our scores then were less than spectacular. So we both decided this time, we're going to put major effort into scoring big. Well, it didn't turn out that way, but it was still fun. :-)

Buzz had been a detour in our plan to hit Big Thunder after Space Mountain, but how can you resist Buzz? We thought for half a moment about going on it again, but then we decided no, let's get ourselves across the park. We walked across the hub and took the bridge that leads into Liberty Square, then made our way straight to Big Thunder. It's hard to pick just one favorite ride at MK, but this one is definitely in my top five. Love it! It's chock-full of theme and fun while being pretty low on the scary factor (no big drops). Plus the queue is fun. You get views of the "mountain" and all its little theming touches, and they play Old West buffalo-gal sort of music that gets you right in the mood. Another fun thing -- when you're seated in the train, a voice that sounds like the very embodiment of Frontierland tells you to hold on because "this here's the wildest ride in the wilderness". :-) How can you not love that??

After Big Thunder, we considered going on Splash Mountain but quickly ruled it out. It was chilly that morning and we didn't feel like walking around in wet clothes. Instead, DH decided he needed some caffeine, so we got a couple of coffees from a cart in Frontierland, then headed over to two solitary rocking chairs in front of a Frontierland store. That was a really good idea -- one of those special, peaceful, quiet moments at WDW that you remember. It was early enough that the park was still fairly empty, but enough people walking by to look at. And, the coffee was good. Ahhh...

While Big Thunder is high on my list, the Haunted Mansion is at the top of DH's, so that's where we headed next. With the crowds still thin, we got into a "stretch room" right away. We used the time-saving radp tip in here, choosing the right portrait to stand underneath in order to be first out of the stretch room. :-)

Next, we decided to head for Fantasyland. I think in our original imaginations of what this day would be like, we didn't think we'd include much Fantasyland time... but with the park still so quiet, we figured why not. So we went on Peter Pan, followed by a spin through Snow White. The lines for both were very manageable. I don't think I had been on Snow White since they changed the ride a little to actually include Snow White in the ride. I know the idea in the ride's earlier incarnation had been that the guest assumed the role of Snow White, but when I was a kid, that angle entirely escaped me. Well, I guess it's a little better now, but I won't go out of my way for it in the future. ;-)

One Fantasyland ride that was definitely on the agenda was the new Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. I never really was into Winnie the Pooh as a kid, so I don't feel any special connection to those characters now. But, for the sake of experiencing something new, I made it a point to try out this ride. The verdict: this cute little ride was well done. There are a lot of visuals, and the "hunny pots" you ride in move around in ways that the cars in these kinds of rides never do. The line for this ride was longer than for the similar rides in Fantasyland, but that's to be expected; everyone wants to check out the new kid on the block.

Afterward, we did something entirely unexpected. We went on Goofy's Barnstormer. Our intention was to catch the train in Toontown Fair, then take it a full circuit around the park. But on the way, we passed the Barnstormer and DH asked what it was. I told him, "It's a very small, very tame coaster mostly for the kiddies." There was absolutely no line, so we figured, well, why not try it? We walked through the seemingly endless snaking queue and went right up to the front of the ride, then got in our little "plane". OUCH! These things were obviously meant for one adult and one child, because our two adult-sized butts got very uncomfortably wedged in there. Oh, the agony! Ha! And then, just as we had figured out a way to un-wedge our butts, the ride was almost over! I mean, we were hardly on the thing before it was time to get off. We thought about all that winding queue and had deep pity for the parents who visit the park in summer, having to stand in that long, long line in the hot, hot sun for such a short, short ride.

After Barnstormer, we went to the train station as planned. We had just missed a train. D'oh! So we waited 6 minutes for another to show up, then took it for its full circuit around the park -- something DH had never done, and something I hadn't done in years. I kind of forgot that you get glimpses of "backstage" areas, which isn't so great. (Although I remember when I was a kid, I thought it was pretty neat to see "secret" areas.) And you can see the backs of buildings inside the park through vegetation that isn't quite dense enough to hide them. But, on the plus side, you hear the chugging of the engine and the toot of the steam whistle, which is probably most of the fun right there. Little kids really respond to the thrill of the train, which is simply great fun to watch. :-)

After disembarking back in Toontown Fair, we took the "secret" path to Tomorrowland. It's a "secret" because very few people seem to be aware of it, but it's clearly marked on the park map. I had never taken it myself, and honestly I have no idea when they put it in, but it was on my list of things to do at MK simply because I never had before. There are a few benches along the path, and it occurred to me that this would probably be a great place to get away from the hustle and bustle of the crowds during the busy times of the year. It takes you by the train tracks, so a train occasionally comes by; and also, you can see the Gran Prix Raceway (um, that is to say, Tomorrowland Speedway) from the path as well.

By now, it was probably around 12:30 and we were pretty hungry. When we were planning our trip, we had decided to go only to counter-service places that offered quite a bit in the way of theming -- a compromise for the fact that we couldn't afford any restaurant meals. So in the MK, the choice was either Pecos Bill's in Frontierland or the Columbia Harbour House in Liberty Square. Even though we were in Tomorrowland, we decided it was worth the extra effort to get to one of those places, and we chose Columbia Harbour House because fellow radpers said it had some good healthy options. We split a garden galley salad and a chicken fingers and fries basket (total, $12.08). The chicken fingers were kind of disappointing -- too much breading. But the salad was good, and so were the fries. And of course, we had our carrots, bananas, and Gatorade with us to round out the meal.

After lunch, we decided to head over to Adventureland to experience one of my other favorites at MK, the Pirates of the Caribbean. I wish they'd do more rides like this. I love the way you're floating through this ransacked town, totally immersed in the story. It isn't big on thrill but the attention to detail is astounding.

When we got out of Pirates, we weren't really sure what we wanted to do. The natural for most people would probably be to go on Jungle Cruise, but DH had gone on it once back in 1988 when the ride still had caricatures of Africans, which he found very offensive. We didn't ride Jungle Cruise on our honeymoon for this reason. But I had heard that they made some changes to the ride, so we decided, okay, we'll give it a try. The queue wasn't long at all, but as I'm sure everyone here is well aware, the line for this ride is always very, very deceptive. So even though the wait wasn't very long, it was still longer than we thought it would be when we first looked at it. And this is even with me being fully aware that the line is deceptive! As for ride, there were no African "savages" or "headhunters" or whatever they were called (which made DH happy), and DH had totally forgotten the cave part of the ride, which he thought was pretty cool.

Another of my must-do's on this trip was to have a Dole Whip. Lauded among Disneyphiles as being handed down from the gods, a nirvana for the tastebuds, I had to try it. We plunked down our $2.50 and got our hands on our first-ever vanilla-and-pineapple swirled frozen yogurt. And we did enjoy it very much; in fact, I could go for one right now!

We ate our Dole Whip while taking in the beauty of Adventureland. Peaceful, relaxing, lush... another romantic moment. :-)

When we were in line for the Dole Whip, some older German ladies had seen some Americans with a Dole Whip float and wanted to try it but didn't know what it was called. They asked the Americans, but the Americans were very rude to them. Good old DH jumped in to help them get what they wanted.

Next, I decided I really wanted another spin on Big Thunder. When we got there, the posted wait time was something like 25 minutes. Speaking of which, we found the posted wait times to be accurate or sometimes maybe a little over what they actually turned out to be. Nice that they were pretty much trustworthy.

When we got out of the ride, we decided what the heck, let's go next door to Splash Mountain. Splash Mountain has a very nice queue. I'm happy to say, though, that I've never had to wait in it. :-) I often think what a shame it is that you can't bail out before the final drop, because I know there are tons of "ride chickens" who would *love* this ride if it didn't have that drop. But as for me, I've come to the conclusion that I can live without going on this ride. I'm no fan of the drop either, although I'll do it; but the cute stuff that comes before the drop isn't good enough to warrant tolerating the drop and dealing with being wet afterward.

Well, we did get a little wet this time around, but not too bad. When we got out, the 3:00 Magical Moments parade was on. Though we did pause for a few moments to watch, we weren't really into it. So we skirted the crowd and headed back to Fantasyland. We didn't really have any plan at this point; we had pretty much seen all the things I had in mind that I wanted to make sure to see. DH decided that a visit to MK isn't complete without a spin through It's a Small World, so we went on that. I got some great photos. The design and use of color in this ride are fantastic.

After disembarking, we drifted over toward the carousel with only the intention of watching, but it quickly became clear that the carousel would spin with empty horses, so we decided to ride. What the heck? It's a simple pleasure.

Then we took a look through the shop in the castle, taking a moment to check out the $5,000 suit of armor and wonder if they ever actually sell suits of armor or whether this is the exact same one we've been looking at for years. After our brief spin through the store, we took advantage of the relatively few people passing through the castle and had a good long look at the mosaics. I went through a little phase of being very interested in mosaics, and still think about possibly doing some mosaic work at some point. The ones here, of course, are simply magnificent. With so few people passing by, I was able to get three good photos of them.

We then took a stroll down Main Street, shopping a little here and there. It's wonderful to see Main Street decked out in Christmas decorations. We made our way to the photo exhibition hall down by Tony's Town Square restaurant, and DH volunteered to be the subject in the "Steamboat Mickey" movie set photo area. He's every inch of 6'3", so he had to kneel. :-) The Exhibition Hall was a ghost town -- besides us, just a dad and his child.

Now we decided to head back to Tomorrowland, to ride Buzz once more and to see if we could take a spin on the left track of Space Mountain. This time the queue for Space was a little longer, and there were a few people walking right by us with Fast Passes for the ride, gloating all the way. Some of those in line with us didn't realize that the people walking by had Fast Passes, and they just assumed they could walk right up too. Nope. Most of them were sent back to the end of the line. But I don't think all of them were, which may be a problem with this Fast Pass deal during slower times of the year. Anyway, they did have the left track open, so we went on it and rendered our verdict: the left track is just a little wilder than the right one.

Having had enough of Space, we headed over to Buzz. This ride is really popular, but thankfully, the line moves pretty quickly. We didn't score very high this time through, just as we hadn't earlier in the day. Bummer!

Afterward, we were kind of in "drift mode", so we decided to go on the WEDway PeopleMover, which will always be its name to me. :-) The speakers no longer educate you about the linear induction system; they more or less just narrate the sights as you pass by them. :-( DH absent-mindedly stuck his hand out of the car and was reprimanded over the loudspeaker. Oops!

Before we went to WDW, I had heard a rumor that WDW might be in the beginning stages of shutting down the Carousel of Progress. With that in mind, DH decided it would be a good idea to take one more look at it, because who knows, it might be gone next time we come. So we waited for the next showing (which would be the last showing of the day, at 5:00). While we were waiting, some kid threw up. I think we saw that happen a few times on this vacation. (DH says, "I counted four.") Sorry to be gross, but it looked like he had thrown up something like Kool-Aid. I wonder if families just run themselves ragged with their touring, and the kids are eating junk food all day long, and finally it catches up with them. That poor kid. It must feel awful to have to barf at Disney World!

Anyway, with the thought in mind that CoP's days might be numbered, I took a picture of each tableau. I'm among those who wish they could re-do the tableaux to make them more evenly spaced, but I'm not sure Disney has the commitment to this ride to spend the money on that kind of change. DH's overall impression this time on CoP? "It looked sort of dusty to me." :-)

By now, it was about 5:30, and the park was scheduled to close at 6:00 with a day-ending Fantasy in the Sky fireworks display. We had seen and done plenty this day, including many firsts for both of us, and now we were ready to spend the rest of the time we had in the park just enjoying the sights. We headed back to Main Street and took pictures of the changing colors of the castle. Then we decided to pick a spot fairly close to the exit to watch the fireworks. As so often happens at Disney, as soon as the fireworks started, some family walked up near us, then stood directly in front of us -- like, almost touching. Odd! Even worse, they then put their kids on their shoulders. Well, why not just erect an 8 foot wall in front of us? Grrrr! And it seemed like no amount of shifting around on our part did any good. It was like they had eyes in the back of their heads and could tell when we shifted around, because they would shift exactly as we did. Finally, tired and not particularly enjoying the fireworks, we decided to leave before they were done. We figured, eh, we've seen fireworks before and we'll see them again.

So we left the park and tried to decide where to have dinner. We monorailed and trammed back to the car, then sat there pondering our options. We could visit Epcot and eat at one of the counter-service places in World Showcase; we could go to an off-site restaurant like Cracker Barrel or Denny's; we could have fast food; we could visit a food court at one of the moderates; we could eat at the All Star food court. Lots of options. Then DH suggested it would be a good idea to head over to Port Orleans and have dinner at Bonfamille's for old time's sake, as a remembrance of our honeymoon. We hadn't budgeted a sit-down meal in our plans, but so far we had spent quite a bit less than we had budgeted for meals, so it would be okay.

We headed out for Port Orleans. The Disney property is huge and the signs aren't always as clear as they could be, but we eventually got to Port Orleans and walked into the lobby, where we hadn't been in six years. The place looked great, and I had a little pang of wishing we were staying here rather than ASSpo.

We put our names in at Bonfamille's and were told it would be about 20 or 30 minutes, so we picked up a menu and sat down. Then I started to notice that the prices were quite a bit higher than they had been back in '93. Most items were about $18-20, but I kind of expected the prices to be more like $13-15. Finally, with reluctance, I told DH I wasn't sure if I was comfortable paying this much. I felt awful saying it because this spur-of-the-moment idea was meant to be romantic, a treat, something special to bring back memories of our honeymoon. But to my relief, I could see that DH was a little sticker-shocked by the prices too, so we decided to think about another plan.

We talked about going over to the Dixie Landings food court and just hanging around there, but then DH asked about what Coronado Springs had. I told him what I knew: that their food court is called the Pepper Market, but it's a little different than most food courts because you pay a 10% gratuity. Drinks are brought to you and you don't clear your own table. Well, we had wanted to take a look at Coronado Springs, and this food court sounded interesting, so we made up our minds to head over there. And another plus was that Coronado is in the direction of the All Stars, so it would be a quick drive back to the hotel when we were done.

Coronado Springs is tremendous, in terms of land and number of rooms. It's also quite pretty. It was nighttime when we visited, so we couldn't see much of the landscaping, but the resort is situated around a lake. People were gathered around the lake outside the lobby, seated in groups, chatting and having coffee. I really liked what I saw, with one exception. This hotel has a convention facility, so it has more "corporate" guests -- conventioneers walking around with name tags. I know to some this is a very small point, hardly worth noticing, but I think part of the appeal of the moderates we've stayed at has been that you get to have a total immersion in the Disney spirit, which creates a certain camaraderie with your fellow vacationers. For me, the conventioneers are a reminder of the "real world", I guess you could say. And they constitute a distinct and separate group from regular vacationing families, which, to me, takes away from the camaraderie a bit. But other than that, Coronado is as pretty and well-thought-out, theme-wise, as the other moderates. Certainly a very beautiful hotel.

It was about 7:30 when we had our dinner at the Pepper Market. We split a rotisserie chicken platter and a burrito (total with tax and 10% gratuity, $18.89). The food was just okay. Better than what we had had at the All Star Sports food court, but not a meal that stands out in our memory. There was some live mariachi music, which was nice.

We decided to have dessert back at our hotel, so after browsing through the common areas at Coronado, we headed back to ASSpo. We put our stuff in our room, then took a walk over to the main building. We settled on the day's special, a hot fudge sundae served with two small Mickey-shaped waffles. We waited quite a while for someone to take our order at the counter, then waited while the waffles cooked, then waited in line to pay (while the hot waffles and hot fudge melted the soft serve). It cost $3.75. By the time we sat down to eat it, it was verging on being a soggy mess.

On our way back to the room, we stopped at "Mount Mickey" and had a photo op. :-) That was pretty much the end of our day. We turned in early because tomorrow would be our first visit ever to Animal Kingdom.

December 4, 1999

I remember the first time I visited Disney-MGM, I was a little... anxious, I guess you could say. Not exactly, but somewhere mixed in the excitement of experiencing something brand new was the slight discomfort of, well, experiencing something brand new. I knew the Magic Kingdom like the back of my hand, and even when Epcot was brand new, it didn't pose any significant issues with finding your way around. But D-MGM had been different -- a whole new park not arranged in the familiar hub-and-spoke fashion of the Magic Kingdom, nor in a straightforward layout like Epcot. It was somewhat more haphazard, and it would take a little time before I would know my way around. Now I would have a new park to learn.

With this in mind, I spent some time before vacation getting to know the park as well as I could. I looked at the park map, checked out some web sites, and thought about how I wanted to approach this new park. By the time I walked through the turnstiles at Animal Kingdom, I had a good idea of where all the major and minor attractions were located in the park. I had no idea what the landmarks would look like, but I knew where to find them!

The park opened that day at 8:00, so we got up earlier this day than the others. We showered and dressed, had the last of our cereal, and headed out. I can't say we were there at 8:00, but close. The All Stars are the closest hotels to the park, so we were there very quickly.

We pulled into the vast parking lot, waited for the tram, and eventually found ourselves facing the park entrance. An immediately noticeable contrast is that between the barrenness of the concrete parking lot versus the lush greenery of the park. The entrance is shaped sort of like a V, with the Rainforest Café at the left and dense vegetation on the right, and palms and other trees here and there in the area leading to the ticket booths.

Once you pass through, you're in another world entirely. The Oasis is a thousand shades of green with bright reds and yellows thrown in here and there. The beauty everywhere is eye-popping. I had made a plan to hit the biggest attractions first thing in the morning, then slow down and enjoy the park's visual treats later. To that end, we took the left-hand path into the Oasis, which I had read was the more direct route to the bridge leading to the main park area.

We emerged out of the dense Oasis and before us stood the Tree of Life, quite a sight to behold. We paused a moment to take it in, and to look at the waterway that flowed underneath the bridge we were on. Very pretty. The feeling of being in this new Disney creation was awesome and wonderful. Most of your anticipation is excitement, but maybe a little corner of it is fear that you won't like what they've done; but standing there among unbelievable lushness, I felt a certain giddiness and was more than ready to see it all.

Once across the bridge, we headed for our first adventure of the day, Countdown to Extinction. At least, that's what it was called then. ;-) We walked right on. In fact, we went through the queue so quickly that I think we probably missed some of the theming. DH says, "Not to be a spoiler, but you just know the big dinosaur is going to pop out and roar at you. Even though I knew that, it really made me cringe when it did. It may have been the scariest Disney ride thing I had been through." It's true, he really jumped!

The next stop was It's Tough to Be a Bug. The queue for this ride is great! You wind your way through a path that takes you through the roots of the tree, and this was our introduction to the sport of "Tree of Life Animal Spotting". After walking through this queue, we were hooked.

You end up in what looks to be an underground space, like an ant's cave. The walls where you wait to enter the movie have funny movie posters that are bug-related parodies of real movies, like "My Fair Ladybug". (btw, can anyone give me a list of the others?) This movie gets a big thumbs up from us!

Next, we managed to catch the 9:15 showing of the Festival of the Lion King. Naturally, they do most of the songs from the Lion King, there's audience participation, they have acrobats doing wild stunts, and the whole thing is very upbeat and fun. I know that many Disney fans regard this show as the best theater show at any park. I'm not sure I consider it the best live show -- I think probably Hunchback of Notre Dame in D-MGM is better -- but this was great fun. One thing DH really liked about it was how the crowd surrounded the show on all sides.

Well, by now it was about 9:45 and we had gotten three of the major attractions under our belt. Our next stop was the Africa section of the park for the Kilimanjaro Safari. When we got there, it would be a 20 minute wait in line, or we could pick up a Fast Pass for a no-wait ride 25 minutes later. We decided to get the Fast Pass and use the time to have a cup of coffee at the Tusker House (~$2.50; can't quite remember). Tusker House is beautifully themed, and we enjoyed relaxing here. Nice architecture inside and nice furniture, too. The woman at the counter was named Chipo (pronounced like Chip-oh), and she was from Zimbabwe. I asked her if she missed it, and she said yes, she really did, although she was enjoying her time there at Disney World. That morning was a little on the cool side, and she said it never got anywhere near this cool in her country.

We watched the people go by, noticed the decorations around the room we were in, and then headed back over to the Kilimanjaro Safari queue. We Fast Passed to the front of the line, boarded our safari truck, and almost immediately began seeing animals. Okapi, hippos (and a baby hippo!), crocs, gazelles, elephants, giraffes -- our heads were turning left to right, right to left, snapping pictures like mad. Loved how the lion and lioness were perched above, as if taught by Disney to mimic the Lion King characters. :-) We enjoyed this ride thoroughly. The habitat design is wonderful. As for the poacher story line... with all the animals everywhere, we hardly even noticed it. It seemed pretty superfluous.

Next, we took the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail -- totally loved it! I really appreciated having the identification charts, as well as the experts hanging around to answer questions. The trail is peaceful and simply beautiful. We could have hung out here for much longer than we did. I think if you run through this trail, you aren't "getting" AK.

The big stars of the trail, of course, are the gorillas. They're irresistible to stare at, and startling in the way that you sense that they must feel in ways similar to humans. They sit placidly, almost looking like they're wondering what we're all looking at; but they don't get too bothered by it and just sort of go about their ruminations and occasional scratching.

One big gripe: people who try to goad the animals by making loud or sharp noises. Isn't it enough just to watch?

After Pangani, we shopped around in the stores of Harambe Village. We eyed some carved giraffe statues here, which we thought might be a nice gift for our cat sitter. I really liked these stores and probably could have dumped some serious money here.

After browsing for awhile, we decided we needed some lunch. We headed back to Tusker House, and this time took an outdoor table in back. It gave us a nice view of the waterway and all the lush vegetation. One thing in general that really stands out about AK is that all the plants look like they've been there for ages, even when you know that the place was created from scratch just a couple of years ago. Many of them are exotic, so the effect is quite wild. Anyway, we split a chicken sandwich and a veggie sandwich (total, $15.14). The veggie sandwich was basically eggplant and tabbouleh, and neither of us cared much for it. Just too much eggplant. But, the chicken sandwich was good.

With lunch finished, we stopped for a moment to take some pictures of the Tree and spot more animal carvings. Then we left Africa for Asia. I loved the stone marker at the entrance of Anandapur! It's neat how it appears to be so old.

Our first stop in Asia was the Maharaja Jungle Trek. First creature spotted: a komodo dragon. Wild! Then, of course, it was on to the tigers. The living space Disney created for the tigers -- awesome. I love how the place looks ancient, and I love how they roam freely about. They're so incredibly beautiful to watch.

We skipped Kali River Rapids because I had heard here that it isn't really a must-do, and we weren't into getting all wet (once again, it was a chilly day). But, we did take a moment to watch the rafts coming in. Then we decided to share a soft-serve ice cream ($2.25) and have a seat. That was about it for Asia. We took a look at the interesting monkey island "ruin", then headed toward the Tree.

We decided to follow some of the many paths snaking through the vegetation that surrounds the Tree. I got a perfect photo of a passion flower there. We watched the river for awhile and enjoyed the quiet solitude. We also looked for more animals on the Tree, and enjoyed happening upon the various birds and animals that are here and there around the Tree. That's one of the neat things about this park: how little surprises are tucked away everywhere.

Then we worked our way over to the front of the Tree and visited the shops there. Finally, we headed back in the direction of Africa to continue our "window shopping", when all the sudden I was hit by a ball. I looked around and noticed a cart with all sorts of bright, bouncy balls for sale, and a vendor trying to look innocently off into the distance. So I approached him, saw his name tag said Chock, said, "Alright, Chock, did you throw a ball at me?" And of course he said something like, "Who, me?" So I shook my finger at him and warned him not to try it again, and walked off fully expecting another ball to come in my direction. And sure enough, it did! So I gave him another piece of my mind, then backed away facing him, then turned tail and darted away. :-)

While in Africa, we saw that Kilimanjaro Safari had very little wait, so we decided to go on it again. This time we gave the camera a rest and just kept our eyes peeled for animals. The fun thing about this ride is that it really is different from one time to the next. You might only get a brief glimpse of the cheetahs one time, but then next time, see them clearly striding around out in the open. Same with all the other animals. I know some people have complained that they hardly saw any animals at all, but that wasn't our experience. I would say try to get at least two trips on Kilimanjaro Safari if you can, at different times of the day.

After KS, we hung out in Africa for a little bit, and then we were going to leave the park -- which meant we'd pass by Chock's cart again. This time, he was busy doing something, so I sneaked up on him and gave him a little tap on the top of his head. He protested, "Hey, what was that for?" and stuff like that, all in fun. I winked and said "Just saying hi!", but he was still protesting. I went into a nearby store, figuring he wouldn't dare throw a ball into the store -- but I was wrong! I glowered at him from a distance, and when I was done in the shop, I stopped by his cart and asked for his photo, which he happily agreed to. By now I had learned my lesson about Chock, so after we thanked him for the photo, I backed away from him for quite a distance. :-)

By now it was about 3:30. We had seen just about everything we wanted to see and also spent a good amount of time pursuing the roads less traveled that are sprinkled here and there in the park. On our way out of the park, we took the more circuitous route through the Oasis, which takes you under a waterfall and by several birds.

Our final verdict on Animal Kingdom is a BIG thumbs up. It's a *very* pretty park. Our advice would be to make sure to spend lots of time on the details, and also talk with some of the people who work there. It really adds something nice to the whole experience.

For the rest of the day, we decided we would head over to Magic Kingdom, which was open until 11:00 that night. But first, we went back to the room to have a little nap and change into warmer clothes.

We drove over to MK somewhere around 5:30. We had seen so much the other day that we had only vague plans for this visit. I wanted to take one more ride on Big Thunder, partly because I really like the ride and partly because the experience is just a little different at night than it is during the day. So we headed over in that direction, and I got my ride. Next, we decided to hit the Haunted Mansion again -- also just a little different at night than in the day. You kind of get more in the swing of the spookiness if you're waiting in the queue at night than in the bright Florida sun. This is for sure DH's favorite ride. He says it's the one ride where he actually likes it when you get stuck, because then you can really get a good gander at everything! :-)

By now, we were pretty hungry and had no idea where we felt like eating. We headed toward the hub and were starting to feel sort of directionless. Finally DH decided he wanted to take a look at the Crystal Palace. I mentioned that it was no longer a cafeteria but an all-you-can-eat character meal, which cost more than we wanted to spend and was probably booked solid in any event. But he really just wanted to see what it looked like with its Christmas decorations, so we walked by it and took a look at its sparkling prettiness. Afterward, we spent a little time watching the castle change colors. Nice!

Then we said, Okay, we really have to eat. So I suggested we take a look at Pecos Bill's. We walked through Adventureland, around the back side by Pirates of the Caribbean, and through to the edge of Frontierland where Pecos Bill's is. Neither of us was very interested in the burger thing. I considered it for a second because we had been successful up to that point in avoiding burgers, but DH still felt pretty adamant about continuing to avoid burgers, so I suggested we hike over to the Plaza Pavilion. It isn't big on theme, but we were willing to give it a chance.

When we got there, we liked the choices. We ordered a large Coke, an individual cheese pizza with breadsticks, and a chicken salad (total, $15.27) and split everything. We were definitely satisfied with our choices. While we were eating, the 8:00 Main Street Electrical Parade started, so we watched some of that from afar. The thing I liked about Plaza Pavilion's look is that it's pretty much the same as it had been years ago when I was a kid visiting with my 5th grade class. It wasn't changed to the "retro-future" look that the rest of Tomorrowland underwent, so it's still got some of that cheesy 1970's-style futuristic look. Hey, what can I say. I like it!

After our meal, we decided to give Buzz one more spin. Our scores the previous two times around were pitiful, and we were looking to redeem ourselves with one more try. When we got to the queue, it was a posted 25-minute wait, and the line was snaked outside the building. What the heck, we thought. So we got in line and waited. I remember that in the If You Had Wings days, this ride was a perpetual walk-on no matter how crowded the park was. The only thing that would ever make you wait was if the ride temporarily broke down. Times change! The park in general was more crowded than we had seen earlier in the week, I guess because it was Saturday. The people in line ahead of us looked like they were probably locals on a date.

Well, anyway, as soon as we got into the first room of targets, I hit one worth 100,000 points, then I found another one worth 5,000 points, which I hit repeatedly. Woo hoo! I pointed out the target to DH and he started racking up the points as well. I think by the time I was done with the ride, I had somewhere around 400,000 points, which is a record for me. Yay! Mission accomplished!

When we finished there, we headed toward the hub and joined a crowd waiting for the 9:00 Fantasy in the Sky fireworks display. The show starts with Tinkerbell "flying" down from the castle, and she went pretty much over our heads. Cool! Pretty gutsy too. Our view of the fireworks was a little blocked, but we were okay with that. When it was done, we let the crowd thin out a little and then decided to head into Fantasyland to look at the carousel with all its lights on. We wanted to go through the castle, but there was a big bottleneck of people there, so we backtracked to the hub and went around the castle on the left side. That path isn't very well known, so we got through pretty quickly. It probably took a little longer than if we had just waited for the crowd to push through, but it was much less irritating.

We came upon the Legend of the Lion King theater, where the old Mickey Mouse Revue used to be. I first visited the park in 1974, but I don't think I ever saw that oldie. Well, neither of us had ever seen Legend of the Lion King, so we decided to catch the last show of the night at 9:20. It was pretty chilly outside, so why not. Besides, it would be another "first" we could add to the list for this trip. The show was pretty good, although I have to admit, between Festival of the Lion King at Animal Kingdom, this show, and the Magical Moments parade at MK, I had heard enough of the Lion King songs for one vacation.

The show lasted about 25 minutes, so it was about 9:45 when we got out -- just 15 minutes until the 10:00 Electrical Parade. We took a moment to watch the carousel go around, then headed for Liberty Square to find a good place to stand, which turned out not to be very difficult. We picked up a couple of Mickey bars ($4.50) and waited for the parade to begin.

I took plenty of photos of the parade because I'm always hearing rumors that it's going to vanish. Actually, we're not normally parade-watchers, but somehow this trip we caught a bunch of them -- part of the Magical Moments parade, the Main Street Electrical Parade, the Mulan Parade at D-MGM, and of course Tapestry of Nations at Epcot.

After the parade was over, we walked to the bridge that connects Liberty Square with the hub and watched the castle. By now, the park was nearing its 11:00 closing time and people were clearing out in droves. We headed toward Main Street too, but decided to take a seat outside the ice cream parlor and watch the people stream by. Lots and lots of kids sleeping in their strollers, lots of tired-looking parents, but there were also some kids who looked like they could go another 12 hours. The line in the ice cream parlor was long and people were coming out with all sorts of delicious-looking things. Finally we got up and let others have our seats, and we took a look through the Emporium and a few other stores, but didn't end up buying anything.

We dragged ourselves out of the park very late and probably didn't get back to the room until midnight. Tired but satisfied, we had really made the most of this day. We knew tomorrow would be another busy day, since it would be our last day in the parks. Sigh!

December 5, 1999

We knew today would be a park-hopping day for sure. The only park we knew we wouldn't see again was MK. We decided our first stop would be Disney-MGM, which was operating on "surprise morning" that day. So we got an early wake-up call, even though we had had a late night.

We got into D-MGM at maybe 8:25 or so and headed right for RnRC. I was still too groggy to go on the ride, but DH wanted one final spin before the vacation was over.

Then we headed over to the ABC Commissary for breakfast. We had had good luck with this place in the past, so why not. We each ordered a coffee (my salvation - ha!). I had the french toast sticks and sausage, while he had pancakes and bacon (total, $12.19). I didn't eat all of mine because they deep-fry those things and it was kind of greasy. We ate at about 8:50.

We thought about it for a moment and realized we were pretty much done with this park, that there were other things we wanted to do elsewhere. First on the list was picking up the carving of the giraffe we had seen in AK, so we left D-MGM (the tram operator assumed we had left something in the car, we were leaving so early) and drove over to AK.

When we walked into AK, we thought, Yeah, this park really is beautiful. We headed right for Africa and decided first to take one more ride on Kilimanjaro Safari. This time around, the neatest thing happened: a rhino just ambled out onto the road right in front of our truck! That was certainly the closest I've ever come to a rhino, and it was amazing. We had to wait for it to decide to finish crossing the road. So cool.

Let me see if I can remember the animals we saw on KS: elephants, hippos, rhinos, crocodiles, giraffes, flamingos, crowned cranes (and probably lots of other birds that I don't know the names of), cheetahs, lions, warthogs, baboons, okapis, gazelles, antelopes, and related sorts of hoofed animals.

Then we stopped back at the Mombasa Marketplace and got the 12" carved giraffe for our cat sitter ($10.00) and the 8" one for ourselves ($8.00). I really think I could have spent more money in this store. Purchases in hand, we left Africa and headed back towards the Camp Minnie Mickey area. I took some photos of neat details, like the ladybug light posts and the giraffe and bug heads that decorate one of the stores. Then we saw ITtBaB one more time, and afterward headed back over to Asia just to take a final look. Unfortunately, it was getting a little drizzly and dismal out. :-( While we were in Asia, we heard this unusual noise -- very hard to explain, sort of like a combination of a hoot and a drum. Then we figured out it was the monkey-type animal out on the island (embarrassed to say I can't think of what the animal's real name is!). It was swinging all over the island and making this incredible noise.

Now we were ready to leave AK behind and make our way back to Epcot, which we hadn't been to since our first day. On the way out, I took a picture of the Rainforest Café because I love how there's a waterfall going over the roof of the building. Pretty neat!

Then we headed out for Epcot. It was just about noon and we were ready for lunch, so we stopped in at The Land and split the barbecue chicken & rib combo platter, a barbecue pork sandwich, and a large Coke. I should mention that this is kind of a "tribute" to a nice memory we have from a previous trip. Since that trip, we've been buying Kraft's honey barbecue sauce (which is what they used in the park) at the grocery store and we actually call it "Epcot sauce". Weird, I know. :-) But I guess now Nestle is sponsoring the pavilion, and no more Kraft honey barbecue sauce. :-( Well, Epcot sauce lives on in our household, anyway. ;-)

Anyway, they messed up our order somehow and ended up undercharging us by a little bit; the total came to $16.49. The food was okay; not delicious, but good enough. After our meal, we took a look through the Land's store. DH spotted some mini palm and orange trees that you could take home and grow in your house, but we didn't buy anything.

After the Land, we went over to Innoventions out of a sense of... maybe obligation? We always skip it, so this time, in the spirit of seeing everything, we took a look around. Not much caught our eyes, except an exhibit of electronic paper by Xerox. They had a prototype there. DH grilled the poor guy pretty prodigiously -- he seemed to be all of about 22 years old, and he had his little script well memorized. Ha! Anyway, we've been hearing about electronic paper for awhile now -- it will be interesting to see how long it takes to come to market.

We then walked over to Spaceship Earth, again in the spirit of seeing everything. We've gotten into the habit of skipping SE just because the darn things you ride in are so, so uncomfortable. But it was a walk-on, so why not? Although the cars are uncomfortable, the ride was good.

By now it was getting close to 2:00, and whereas it had been drizzly and dismal before, the sky was now bright blue. We decided to leave FW and head over to WS to pick up some of the live entertainment we had missed from the other day, and also to have whatever snacks caught our eye in the various pavilions. First stop this time around: the Canada pavilion. There was a Canadian Christmas storyteller out front, but we skipped that and headed for the stores. This little area of the Canada pavilion is very cute, and every time I see it, I feel as though I haven't gotten a good enough look at it in the past. The stores themselves, though, are kind of boring. Mostly just stuff like maple candy and wool sweaters. So we moved on to the movie area. We had just missed a showing, so it would be about a 15 minute wait. At first we were going to ditch it, but then we decided what the heck. ;-) We watched the waterfall for a little bit, then waited in the dark, cavernous waiting area. By the time the movie started, a pretty good-sized crowd had gathered.

The movie hasn't changed in all these years. Maybe because of where we decided to stand, I actually started getting motion-sickness. Agghh! Finally I had to mostly look down at the floor. I was pretty glad to get out of there. Ha!

When the movie was over, we decided to spend some time in France. More to the point, we decided to spend some time in the Boulangerie Patisserie. Oh, what heaven! It was so, so hard to make up our minds which pastry to try. Finally we decided on a classic -- the wonderful, flaky, sweet Napoleon ($3.10). Oh my goodness, what a magnificent thing true French pastry is. When we were eating it, it occurred to me that I haven't had something that delicious in a long, long time. It's a world apart from the normal sweet treats we enjoy. When we got back home, I asked everyone whether they knew of a true French bakery in town, but no one did! We were living in the Boston area at the time, and most of the bakeries we knew of were Italian or even Portuguese, but no French. Waah! DH says, "I find myself fantasizing about that Napoleon frequently even all these months later." Me too! We would really have made piggies of ourselves at Boulangerie Patisserie if we knew how much we would miss it once we were home!

We tried to make it last as long as we could, but it doesn't take very long for two people to devour one Napoleon, so we relinquished our table and headed into the shops. We didn't end up spending much time in there though; mostly, it's perfume, and we know what perfume smells like. :-)

Then we headed over to Japan. I'd been hearing raves about the kaki goris, which I had never had before. A simple treat, shaved ice with sweet syrup poured over it, that sounds like a sno-cone but is emphatically *not* like a sno-cone! We split a rainbow kaki gori (honeydew, tangerine, and strawberry) for $2.25. Awesome!

We drifted over to Italy, looked briefly in their shops, then took a seat outside. There were lots of people around us dressed nearly identically, with black pants or skirts and cream-colored shirts. They might have been part of the Candlelight Processional choir. We never found out, because there were so many of them crowding around that we decided to move on.

It was just about 4:00, so we stopped between Italy and Germany to catch the Tapestry of Nations parade. This is certainly a nice thing about visiting this time of year: you can stroll up just about when the parade is going to start and be able to get a good spot to watch from. No need to stake out your territory well in advance. There were a couple of kids near us who got a lot of attention from the puppeteers. At first they were a little shy, but eventually one of them even danced in the parade.

When the parade was done, we watched the drawbridge go up for IllumiNations globe, then headed over for a ride on Maelstrom. This time, we actually watched the film about Norway afterward.

When we got out, we started thinking about dinner. DH thought it would be nice to see about having dinner at Mexico -- we had a very nice dinner here during our honeymoon, so why not at least check if they have any availability. I knew that it was a long shot, even during the slow time of the year, just because Mexican food is so popular. Unfortunately, nothing was available.

We hadn't decided what to do about dinner, but on coming out of the pavilion (just after 5:00), we noticed we were just in time for Huitzilin, the Aztec dancers. We decided to stay and watch. They pulled kids out of the audience to participate, which was cute. I remember one girl in particular -- she and her mother were dressed nearly identically in calico-print dresses, kind of old-timey, like what Laura Ingalls might have worn to church or something. They also both had long, long straight brown hair, gathered in a clip just below the shoulder. The little girl seemed very shy to participate, but we could see her look up at her mom every once in a while and smile.

When the dancing was done, we put our minds once again to dinner. Then we decided, well, we had been willing to spend the money to eat at the Mexico restaurant; why not see what's available elsewhere? So we went to the information kiosk in FW where you can make dinner reservations and asked about the Moroccan restaurant. They had something available at 6:00, and we put our names down, but somehow after we walked away, we knew we wouldn't show. We just weren't in the mood all the sudden. So I suggested that we just snack our way around WS, and we decided to go with it.

We headed right back to Mexico and got an order of chicken tacos from the counter-service place, to split ($6.36). It was getting towards 6:00 by now, and the sun was beginning to set. We watched the sky change colors over the World Showcase Lagoon.

We made our way around WS, then stopped at Germany to try Sommerfest. DH's mom is from Germany, and despite or because of that, he has no interest the stereotypical German fare of various kinds of wurst. But, I went ahead and got a bratwurst with sauerkraut ($5.29). I gave him the dinner roll that came with it, and also let him have a bite of the bratwurst. It wasn't very impressive, let me tell you. Neither was the sauerkraut, and I really like sauerkraut. The funny thing is, there was a German family there having beer and wurstscheins, and they got to talking with the German cashier in their native tongue. Eventually we heard the German cashier say to them "forschbah", which DH told me is like German slang for "blecch". Ha! (He says, "I noticed this family while we were at The Land eating lunch -- there they looked harried and confused, but in their 'home' pavilion, they looked relaxed and jolly.") While we sat there, the 6:00 Tapestry of Nations parade was going on.

Next, we stopped at Japan for some yakitori ($4.88). (By now it was about a quarter of seven.) DH isn't wild about Asian food, but we both enjoyed the yakitori. Tasty. And afterward... well, since we were in Japan, why not have another go-'round with the kaki gori? This time, we didn't even think of sharing. We each chose strawberry (total, $4.50) and sat down on the steps of the pagoda, watching people go by. They seemed to be heading mostly for the Candlelight Processional, over by the American pavilion.

When we finished the kaki gori, we walked over to the Moroccan gift shop that sits at the edge of the lagoon. They had things I remember from the last time we were there in '98 -- a treasure chest full of plastic "gems" ($5.95/bag, you pick 'em), a wooden snake toy that undulates just the way a snake does, fezzes, various Aladdin-themed things. They also had little finger cymbals, like what a belly dancer uses. Well, this was just too neat to pass up. I don't think I've ever seen these in a store before, and they were only $1.50 each. I got a pair for myself and a pair as a gift for our cat sitter (total, $6.36), who makes puppets. I thought she might be able to use them for a puppet. Oh, and while I was at this store, I got confirmation that "I've still got it" -- the clerk was flirting with me. Ha! For some reason, Middle Eastern men have always found me appealing.

From here, we went over to the British pavilion and looked through all the stores. We explored every square inch, looking at the Wimbledon stuff, various tartans (including an official tartan created in honor of Princess Di; it was light gray and pale blue. They also had this in the Millennium Village shop.), clotted cream, English bone china, and Winnie the Pooh things.

By now it was about 7:45 and I was getting very worn out. When we got out of the stores, we stopped very briefly to listen again to Off Kilter, then made another trip through Millennium Village. This time, we went on the Israel flight simulator ride. What a bore! The flight-simulator part was entirely superfluous and it offered nothing that a fan of flight-simulator rides might enjoy.

The other notable happening this time through Mill Vill was that DH got to use a real loom. He had an interest in weaving when he was a kid, so when we saw the loom, I nudged him and suggested he ask the people if they would teach him how to use it. They obliged! So he got his first experience with real-live weaving. He was nervous, and smashed his knee climbing up on the loom, but the artisans didn't get that annoyed when he very clumsily added a few rows to the cloth that definitely had to be redone. :-) They also showed us how wood inlay is done. They bundle long colored sticks and put them together into whatever pattern they want to inlay, then they poke the bundle into a pre-cut area in the wood with a little glue in it and cut it flush. A resin glaze keeps the inlay in place. They had all sorts of pretty textiles and inlay boxes. I think this was in the Thailand area (although DH is thinking it might have been in the Lebanon area).

Finally, done with World Showcase but still quite some time before the 9:30 showing of IllumiNations, we thought about what to see next. We decided to take one more spin on Test Track. On the way over there, we found out that Enrique Iglesias would be giving a performance right there by the fountain after the park closed, that it would be filmed, and that it would eventually be aired on Japanese television. They were inviting up to 500 people to stay in the park after closing to see the performance and enjoy some refreshments, with the only conditions being that (a) you had to be ready to party to Enrique Iglesias's music, and (b) you had to have your own car with you because there would be no transportation back to the hotels. I really thought about it for a second. I don't listen to Enrique Iglesias's music, but it would be something special to do. Finally, though, I decided it would involve our being out really, really late, and we had plenty to do the next day.

So we headed over to Test Track and once again used the single rider line to bypass a very long regular line. My original conclusion was confirmed this second time: the ride is not exceptional, except the part where you go fast, which doesn't last very long. This is really a bummer to me. Maybe I'm just being overly harsh on it, or maybe the ride seems better if you wait in the regular line. It's just that after demolishing one of the original rides in the park, and delaying the new ride's opening for about two years, I think I was expecting something better.

After the ride, we took a look through the massive Centorium. We get the 10% discount on purchases at Downtown Disney through our Magic Kingdom Club membership, so we only wanted to buy stuff at the parks that we were certain we couldn't find at Downtown Disney. We didn't buy anything at Centorium, but it gave us a good look at what we might find on our shopping excursion.

Then we headed over to Wonders of Life, home to the thrill ride of yesteryear, Body Wars. This whole pavilion was a ghost town. I remember how the Unofficial Guide used to tell you to run, don't walk, first thing in the morning to avoid long lines. Oh how the mighty have fallen! We don't bother with this ride anymore because it seems the most prone of the simulator rides to give you motion sickness. Not fun. Maybe this is why this ride isn't as popular as it once had been. The rest of our walk through Wonders of Life involved a mere cursory glance at things. We stopped for a moment to watch kids take batting practice in a technology-enhanced batting cage. The CM there was an older guy who looked like he really enjoys his job -- kind of a nice image. We imagined that maybe he misses his grandkids.

After exiting Wonders of Life, we passed by Horizons and paid our final respects. They had the walkway up to the building blocked off by a "wall" of potted bushes. We both agreed that leaving it looking that way was a big problem for this side of the park.

By this point, I was very tired. It still was about 45 minutes until IllumiNations, and now we had a choice to make: stay or go. Normally I would want to stay, but I was tired, and all I could think about was our shopping trip and the traveling we'd have to do the next day. So we pretty quickly made the decision to leave before the show started. But on our way out, DH remembered those mini palms we had seen at The Land, and he knew they would make great gifts for his co-workers. So, we trudged back to The Land. I stayed on the upper level while he hurried downstairs to the store. Like the Wonders of Life pavilion, the place was nearly deserted by this hour.

So at about 9:20, DH made his purchase of 6 mini palms (total, $30.21) -- 5 for co-workers, and one for us. :-) It was so close to the start of IllumiNations that we halfway considered sticking around, but then I thought, no, leaving is the smart thing to do. It would be maybe 15-20 minutes of show and then 30 minutes of trying to get out of the park. We did see some of the show from the parking lot, though.

December 6, 1999

Well, our last day. Sigh! Our bill was on the door handle -- the inevitable horrible reminder that it's time to hit the road. Waah! We got all our stuff together, got showered and dressed, and started shuffling out to the car. I took some photos of ASSpo, then we set out.

We stopped first at the McDonald's and had some breakfast (~$8.00). Then it was on to the shopping! We actually didn't have much time, so we had to get right down to business. We made World of Disney our main priority. Now here's something interesting: as I was entering the store, I noticed that a woman ahead of me looked just like pictures of Ronnie I had seen on her website. Ronnie, if you're reading this... were you at World of Disney on Dec. 6? :-)

We bought Christmas ornaments for ourselves -- a set of two little Tinkerbells and two little Cinderella's castles, an Epcot 2000 ornament, and a 1999 ornament with Sleeping Beauty on it (total, $33.39). We always like to get an ornament with the year on it. I also got myself an Epcot millennium t-shirt ($18.13). We picked up some chocolate fudge and mint meltaways for ourselves ($12.40) and found a spectacular pink feather fan and pink princess gloves -- a Christmas gift for one of our nieces. In a break from shopping, we had a pizza at Wolfgang Puck Express ($10.49).

It was a whirlwind shopping trip, but productive. And so at about 1:00 or maybe 1:30, we pulled out of the parking lot at Downtown Disney and headed toward the airport. Our Disney vacation was done. :-(

And only after having posted this report did I realize how LONG it turned out to be! If you've read every word, I'll bet your eyeballs are about to fall out. Terribly sorry! I can get very long-winded when it comes to WDW. ;-)

Well, I hope you enjoyed the report anyway!

Cost summary

I include this cost summary because when we were planning our trip budget, it was very helpful to read in other people's trip reports how much things cost.

Total expense for room, airfare, rental car, admission, and food for our 5-night, 6-day vacation: $1,376.15

ROOM

5 nights at ASSpo, including tax: $370.00
AIRFARE

2 round-trip plane tickets on Delta, $337.00
RENTAL CAR

Avis, one week, $210.00
Gas, $8.85
ADMISSION

One 5-day passport: $200.34 (with the Magic Kingdom Club discount) We only needed one passport because we had an odd assortment of leftover admissions from previous trips.
FOOD

Total, $249.96
Groceries, ~$40
Our idea was to eat breakfast in the room and supplement lunches with baby carrots (no need to pare them) and bananas. We bought a cheap Styrofoam cooler, a 2-liter of Coke, a box of cereal, baby carrots, bananas and citrus fruits, chocolate, plastic bowls (got utensils at the food court), plenty of Gatorade, and a half gallon of milk.
Breakfasts, $20.19
Day 5: 12.19 (french toast sticks and sausage, pancakes and bacon, and coffee at ABC Commissary)
Day 6: 8.00 (McDonald's)
Lunches, $69.58
Day 1: 7.69 (chicken pita at Tangierine)
Day 2: 7.69 (roast beef sandwich at ABC Commissary)
Day 3: 12.08 (chicken fingers and fries basket and a garden galley salad at Columbia Harbour House)
Day 4: 15.14 (chicken sandwich and a veggie sandwich at Tusker House)
Day 5: 16.49 (barbecue chicken & rib combo platter, a barbecue pork sandwich, and a large Coke at the Land pavilion)
Day 6: 10.49 (pizza at Wolfgang Puck Express)
Snacks/Drinks, $48.74
Day 1: 3.50 (coffee and tip at Ice Cream Social) + 1.54 (hot chocolate) + 2.02 (pretzel) =
Day 2: 2.92 (coffee) + 2.71 (milkshake) + 3.20 (coffee) + 5.25 (pizza) + 2.25 (ice cream bar)
Day 3: 2.50 (Dole Whip) + 3.75 (hot fudge sundae)
Day 4: 2.50 (coffee) + 2.25 (soft-serve ice cream) + 4.50 (Mickey bars)
Day 5: 3.10 (Napoleon) + 2.25 (kaki gori) + 4.50 (kaki gori)
Dinners, $71.45
Day 1: 10.50 (Jamaican jerk chicken sandwich, Polynesian pork sandwich, and coconut cream pie at Millennium Village)
Day 2: 10.26 (2 grilled chicken sandwiches at ASSpo food court)
Day 3: 18.89 (rotisserie chicken platter and a burrito at Pepper Market)
Day 4: 15.27 (individual cheese pizza with breadsticks, a chicken salad, and a large Coke at Plaza Pavilion)
Day 5: 6.36 (chicken tacos at Mexico) + 5.29 (bratwurst with sauerkraut at Germany) + 4.88 (yakitori at Japan)
Alpha

alphawoman@aol.com

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