Trip Reports

Introduction:

This is a trip that evolved over several years, and met with a series of bumpy roads. If you want to skip over the long and entertaining saga of the trip planning, go ahead, but you'll miss some fun stuff. If you want to skip down, just click I want to skip down.

1997 Planning:

Planning for our 1999 trip to Walt Disney World actually began in January of 1997. My sister/roommate Lori and I were making one of our first joint trips to Disneyland. We live in Northern California, so it was a nice quick trip, and the first time I'd been to a Disney park since I was a kid.

Disneyland was, of course, wonderful. We had great weather the whole time we were there and it was just like being a kid again. There was a lot that was new and a lot of old favorites. I suspect they put something in the water, because within minutes of returning to the park I was once again hooked.

I really got caught up in the Disney spirit, and 1997 was when they still had the WDW 25th anniversary celebrations, so it was a tempting prospect to go to Florida. I suddenly decided while riding the bus back to the hotel one day that we had to go to WDW in 1997.

Unfortunately, 1997 was not a good year for us, at least from a financial standpoint. I had just started my law practice during the summer of 1995, and Lori had shifted from one job to another. Despite the rumors to the contrary, lawyers are not all rich, and we had really waited too long to plan things right, so we postponed our 1997 trip to WDW until 1998 and spent a great week at Disneyland during the 1997 Christmas season (my trip report should be on file here on Brian's site).

1998 Planning:

Our experience at Disneyland during Christmas 1997 convinced us that we had to see the World during the holidays. We purchased various planning guides (Birnbaums, Unofficial Guide, etc) and consulted the various web sites, as well as annoying certain webmasters with tons of questions (thanks Brian and Deb for your patience).

By March we had decided that despite our desire to stay at a monorail or a deluxe resort, that we needed to be a bit more sensible about things and so we booked our rooms at Dixie Landings for 10 days, starting December 2nd. We hoped for AP discount rates to show up later in the year. We had learned that the RADP newsgroup was going to be meeting in early December and were excited at the prospect of spending time with the experts.

Problems Emerge:

Things started to run into trouble over the summer. Week after week we looked for plane tickets that we could afford. Lori and a friend had already planned a WDW trip over the 4th of July, so I was reduced to web surfing while she saw the World (small violin sounds here). I'm honestly happy to say she had a great time, although it was too hot and crowded for her to get a trip report together.

As fall approached, we began to get increasingly concerned. Lori had secured really cheap tickets for her trip ($ 200 round trip from California) and we foolishly assumed a similar deal would show up in time for us to secure tickets.

Postponed Once More:

By September the bottom started to fall out again. Plane tickets were far more expensive than planned and other issues started to come up. Lori saw her hours cut back at work and I had the experience of a big case blowing up in my face. I had hoped to get a nice pile of money out of this case and ended up losing some. (one again proving that life is not like LA Law, the other side rarely has their case collapse at the last second resulting in a huge win for the good guys).

Then to top it all off, Lori began to realize her earlier trip was a bit more costly than planned. Despite our great desire to just charge it and deal with the bills later, we once again postponed our travels (darn parents and that work ethic).

Trip plans for 1999:

Entering 1999 we were determined to avoid the mistakes of the past. We set down a careful schedule of when to reserve rooms, when to buy plane tickets and so on. We also decided to carefully pay for things in advance, so finances wouldn't bite us again. We once again decided that we'd probably be best to go with a moderate resort, and my research had pegged Dixie Landings as our best bet.

A Surprise Change in Plans

As I was starting to plan things out, a bit of a surprise change started to come along. An on-line buddy (aka Brian Bennett) is a DVC member, and during our chats I had often teased him about selling me some points for our trip, offering to pay the annual maintenance fees for the points (which is a very small part of the overall cost). Not surprisingly, he declined my offer.

But then he changed his mind, sort of. He discovered he'd have some extra points and offered to sell them to me for a reasonable price. This was an intriguing development as it meant Lori and I had a chance to stay at either Old Key West or Boardwalk.

A few days later as we were discussing amounts (we settled on $150 per night) the subject of living trusts came up. In addition to my law practice, I also do living trust packages. He suggested that we use the trust work as barter for the room, which meant I could earn 5 free nights. A great deal for all involved.

After discussing things with Lori, we decided to go with Boardwalk, since it's more centrally located, and made a deal for the room.

Yet another change

Then it happened. Again. Another change in plans.

Brian had assured me that there would be no problem in making the reservations. But what none of us counted on was the fact that when people bought into DVC they got free park passes in the deal, but that the passes expired at the end of 1999. As a result, the DVC resorts were fully booked.

He was very upset, but I assured him that I understood this was just one of those things. Lori and I had hoped to take a trip in 2000, so we'll use the DVC points then. Besides Brian plans to be there in October, so we can actually meet him, his boss (wife Barbara) and their boss (son Allan)

As I've mentioned, we were determined to avoid the mistakes of the past while planning this trip. We set down a careful schedule of when to reserve rooms, when to buy plane tickets and so on. We also decided to carefully pay for things in advance, so finances wouldn't bite us again. Although the Wilderness Lodge or Polynesian resorts were tempting, we decided that we'd probably be best to go with a moderate resort. My research had pegged Dixie Landings as our best bet, although we now that we had lost Boardwalk were considering extending our stay and doing two resorts.

We had already secured rooms for 7 nights at Dixie Landings, so I called CRO and added a second week at Caribbean Beach. Both resorts are nice and we were able to get MKC discounts at both resorts. We'll pay around $ 110 a night including tax and refrigerator charges. An interesting side note to this is that back in 1997 we'd planned on about a week at the world. As we moved through 1998 and into 1999 our trip length grew, and now we were at 15 days, more than twice our original plan.

Plans as of June 1999

We still hadn't gotten plane tickets because prices remained high during the summer. I'd been told that most of the fall deals come out in July or August, so I kept checking the internet until then. Worst case is we'll use priceline.com to get as cheap as we can.

Our trip is now set for arrival in Orlando on December 1st, the time depending on when we have to fly. If a redeye would be cheaper, we might fly in the night of November 30th/early morning of December 1st. We are at the world for 2 weeks, until December 15th. In addition to WDW we plan a trip to Tampa for Busch Gardens (Lori loved it when she went in 1998) and a side trip to Cape Kennedy (I'm a space nut). We might do Universal, or we might just spend more time at the world. Right now our schedule looks like this with 15 days and 14 nights in the trip:

2 days of travel. Going east we lose a whole day, no way around that, going home we want to rest.

2 days at MK. We figure we might not need this much time, but want to relax and smell the flowers.

2 days at Epcot. This is a park we are really looking forward to, and it takes a good 2 days

1 day at Studios. This park looks nice, but it's kind of like Universal and should be a 1 day trip.

1 day at AK. We may end up coming back here, especially with Asia open, but live near a big animal park, so it's a big more flexible in terms of time

2 days off site. One day in Tampa and one at the cape.

1 day to relax. One day where we just rest and relax as we please.

1 day to resort hop. We really want to see the hotels. We might also do a water park for part of this day or for part of our relax day.

3 days open. We will use these days as needed, maybe off site, maybe revisiting a park like AK or Epcot, or maybe just really enjoying a vacation.
Some thoughts for those planning their trips.

Start early, in fact you can never start too early. Begin by getting at least one guidebook (Birnbaums is probably the best). Surf the net to the many good planning sites (including this one). This will let you decide when to go and give you an idea of where to stay

Stay on-site if you can. The pluses of being right in the middle of it all more than make up for the costs, which aren't that bad at value or moderate resorts.

Don't cut your trip too short, especially if you are travelling a long way to get there. If you sit down and add it up, it doesn't cost that much to add a few extra days. Our original plan in 1997 was for about 1 week, now we are at 2.

Use internet travel sites to get plane tickets, car quotes, etc. These places are free and offer a ton of help.
We do still have a few issues to resolve, which will likely be updated in future planning reports. Some of the issues include:

Plane tickets: We'd like to get them for less than $300 and are hopeful for a drop in prices as the fall approaches. Right now prices are over $400 per person, which is a bit too high.

Park passes: We know we want to get AP's because we will be at the world for about 3 weeks total between 1999 and 2000. What we need to decide is whether to get regular or premium AP's. It comes down to how often we will go to the water parks. More that 2 times means the premium pass is a better deal, 2 or less makes the regular a deal.

Rental car: We plan to have a car for part of the trip, but aren't sure how long. Our current plan is to use the shuttle to and from the airport and rent on site once we know what we will need.

Side trips: We know Tampa and Kennedy are a must, but are undecided on other side trips. We want at least a couple days to relax or resort hop.
Plans continue to move along- plane tickets and rental car:

As we headed into the summer, our big concern was getting plane tickets. One of the big problems we'd had in 1998 was we kept waiting for what we considered a good deal, and it never came along. We passed on what turned out to be good deals because we thought things would improve as the year went along. We didn't want to make that mistake again.

In early July I was surfing the web, checking out the newsgroups when I saw a post saying that some of the airlines had some great deals on coast to coast flights, so I quickly headed over to the various travel sites (Travelocity and Expedia are two of the best). I found we could get round trip air tickets for around $ 200. I put down a reservation and made plans to head to a travel agent on Monday (this happened Friday night).

This brings me to one point of advice. When planning a trip, do your research on the net, find as many good deals as you can, but then head to a travel agent. It's free and it gives you the advantage of having someone to go to when problems crop up, it also gives you their wisdom. For example, since I live in California, I never considered the problems of flying through a northern city in December (snow,etc). So take advantage of a good travel agent when you can.

On Monday Lori and I headed to the travel agency and got the first little thrill of our trip when we bought our plane tickets. We decided to take a redeye flight on November 30th via America West. We leave Sacramento around 9 in the evening and land in Orlando at 7am on the 1st of December. Coming back we took a late flight leaving Orlando at 8pm on the 15th and arriving back in Sacramento at 2am on the 16th. It's going to be a tired couple of travelers who arrive on the 16th, but it gives us more time in the World.

We could have flown home earlier but we would have either had to leave Orlando at 7am or flown into Oakland. While Lori and I could see getting up at the crack of dawn to go to Disneyworld we couldn't see doing that to leave. Our dad rejected Oakland because he didn't want to drive there. Since he and our mom are being kind enough to shuttle us to and from the airport (it's about a 1 hour drive from home to the airport in Sacramento) we figured he had right of rejection.

We also decided to start looking into a rental car, although our planning was slower. We'd tossed around how much we needed one for some time. We knew we wanted to go off site a few days, so we planned on at least one week, but were not sure about the rest. We finally decided that the extra expense was worth the convenience. We didn't want to get into the cycle of cheaping out on a rental car and having that diminish the trip we'd spent so much on.

I started researching rental cars and companies. Based on various sources (web sites, Unofficial Guide to WDW, etc) I decided we wanted an on-site rental company. Dollar looked to be the best deal, so I headed over to their web site in early September. After a little work I was able to secure a Ford Escort type car for $ 105 a week. With fees, taxes and extra driver charges, it all comes out to around $ 400 for 15 days, which isn't too bad.

Remaining purchases:

At this point we've only got a couple of purchase issues left. We know that we want to get Annual Passes because due to the length of our stay (we also plan a comeback trip in 2000). We are still deciding between Premium AP's and Basic AP's with Pleasure Island AP's.

Although it will vary a bit depending on where WDW prices are in December, it basically comes down to $ 50 or so difference (PAP costing around $ 425 with MKC discount the Basic AP/PI AP combo costing around $ 375). The two things we get with a Premium pass are admission to World of Sports (not much of a need for us) and the water parks. The real issue is whether or not we will visit the parks more than 2 times during the year. If we will, the PAP is a better deal, if not then the basic AP. We are leaning to the PAP at this point, but will still consider it.

We also need to decide for sure what other places to go to outside of the world. We know we want to do the Kennedy Space Center and Busch Gardens, but being from California we are undecided on Universal and Seaworld since we have those here. Depending on which places we go we will either purchase individual admission to each park or possibly take advantage of a package deal (many of the Orlando/Tampa area parks have multi park admission deals).

Planning our Days:

Now that we've pretty much resolved all of the basic issues of the trip, we have moved on to planning our daily schedule. I spent a bit of time on planning and came up with what I think is a pretty decent planner (which I'd be glad to share BTW). I used Excel to create a planning sheet. Each day of our trip is divided into 4 segments: Morning (7am-11am), Mid-day (11am-3pm), Afternoon (3pm-7pm) and Evening (7pm-11pm). I then fill in each section with a basic idea of what we are doing (IE: Tour Epcot, Stay at Hotel, etc). I also list park hours for each day and the early entry park. It's not real specific, but enough to plan out the time. I think this offers a balance between overplanning and underplanning.

As far as park touring, we've decided not to follow any touring plans, but to use them as general guides. We've planned how long we want at each park (MK: 2 days, Epcot: 2 days, AK: 1 day, MGM: 1 day). When planning, we simply write: Epcot Day One or MK Day Two, etc. Again, this allows us to make our time efficient without the touring plan taking us over. Our general plan is to start at early entry parks and then move to other parks as needed.

One additional advantage of this system is it is very flexible. I've left a number of open segments in the schedule, so if something happens, like we oversleep or a park is overcrowded, we simply move the segments around. I think this should work pretty well (I'll let you know).

Our Itinerary:

Tuesday 11/30: Our plane leaves Sacramento at around 9pm. Our parents are nice enough to drive us to the airport, so we plan to take then out to dinner, head to the airport and fly to Orlando.

Wednesday 12/1: We arrive around 7am. We hope to be able to get our luggage and pick up the rental by 8 or 8:30. We figure an hour drive to WDW so we hope to be at Dixie Landings by 10am or so. We can't get into our room until 4pm, so we will head over to Magic Kingdom, process our AP's and enjoy some time at the World. By 3 or 4 we will be pretty tired, so it's back to the hotel and probably a pretty quiet night.

Thursday 12/2: This is an Epcot day, we plan to head over there around 8 or 9 and do some touring, then maybe catch Illuminations. We will eat at Epcot, maybe also spend part of the night at Pleasure Island.

Friday 12/3: This is also an Epcot day, because of Early Entry. We plan to finish up Epcot today, then go to our hotel for a rest because this is the first of our two MVMCP (Mickeys Very Merry Christmas Party) nights. We plan to eat dinner at Chef Mickeys and then head over to the MK for a fun evening with all of our RADP pals. This is also a late night, the park open to 1am.

Saturday 12/4: This is the day of the big RADP meet. RADP is the main WDW newsgroup and every year they meet at the world. We plan to sleep in a bit from MVMCP, then head over to the TTC for the big meet. Tonight we take an Illuminations cruise at Epcot.

Sunday 12/5: This is our day for MGM Studios, we may also rest up a little bit since we will have been going strong for a few days.

Monday 12/6: We have a breakfast meet at the Magic Kingdom, then we plan to head over for a day of fun at Animal Kingdom. Tonight is our second MVMCP, so we plan on alot more fun.

Tuesday 12/7: This is an open day. Considering the events of the weekend, we figure we may be tired and so we plan to just do what we want. We may tour together or we may get some all important 'private time' as we start to get on each others nerves by now.

Wednesday 12/8: Today we check out of Dixie Landings and into Caribbean Beach. We figure on checking out early, heading over to Animal Kingdom for a while, and then checking into CBR. The rest of the day is open, depending on how we feel.

Thursday 12/9: This is our first off site day, we plan to head over to Cape Kennedy and tour the space center. If we're lucky, we may have a shuttle launch during our trip, but with the problems they've had lately, I'm not holding my breath.

Friday 12/10: Today we go to Tampa for a tour of Busch Gardens.

Saturday 12/11: This is another open day. We understand they may be filming segments of the WDW Christmas parade today, if they do we will try to get involved. Otherwise, just a quiet day.

Sunday 12/12: Today we might hit a water park. We may also meet with some friends who live in Florida. A fairly open day.

Monday 12/13: Open day, we may do a lot of resort touring to see all the holiday decorations and also to do Christmas shopping.

Tuesday 12/14: Our last full day, we will probably do something special, but aren't sure what yet.

Wednesday 12/15: We check out of CBR at 11am, but our plane doesn't leave until 9pm. So we will finish up shopping, a little park touring and then head out to Orlando airport.

Thursday 12/16: Two very tired people arrive in Sacramento at 2am, probably not home until 4 or 5am, we will slowly come down from the fun of our trip.
Final Trip Preparations

As the trip drew near we began to do some fine tuning on our plans. As we thought it over we began to wonder about the wisdom of having our parents come pick us up at 2 or 3 am. Our mom works and so she'd have to be up all night and then go to work. Our dad is retired, but we didn't like the idea of anyone coming out in the dark and cold. From our perspective we wouldn't get home and into bed until 4 or 5 am and so the next day was going to be pretty much shot anyway.

Having considered all the options we started looking into a hotel in Sacramento. A quick check of the airport web site showed us that there was an on site hotel, and we could get a room for less than $ 100 per night (95.20 to be exact). We quickly booked a room and told dad to plan on picking us up late Thursday morning. Not surprisingly, he didn't object to the change.

We called WDW to confirm all of our reservations, reviewed our trip plans and began to look forward to heading down to Florida. Stockton may not be very cold in the winter compared to much of the country, but after several weeks of 40's & 50's in the day and mid 30's at night, Florida looked pretty good to us.

Another development came over Thanksgiving weekend. We didn't do Thanksgiving on Thursday because Lori (a nurse) had to work Wednesday night. We delayed our holiday dinner until Sunday and it sort of became a combination Thanksgiving/Bon Voyage meal.

As we ate, our dad mentioned that he had an old upgrade voucher for Dollar Rent a Car (the company we'd rented with). The voucher was many years old, and we doubted it was still valid. But there was no official expiration date so we decided to go ahead and take it along, figuring worst case was that it invalid. Our parents don't travel alot so they'd never use it anyway.

Tuesday, November 30: Trip Day #1 (Finish Packing, Clear up Work, Drive to Mom & Dad's, Fly out of Sacramento)

Finally after many months of waiting the big day arrived. It didn't have a particularly celebratory start though. As I've mentioned, I run my own law practice, and while I'd done my best to make sure that things would be quiet while I was gone, I still had to finalize things. I spent the night before in a client meeting and got up at 7/8am like normal and spent a good part of the day working. Besides impressing you with my work ethic, I mention this for reasons that will become clear later.

Lori had been feeling sick, so she hadn't gotten a chance to do a lot of trip preparation over the weekend. This meant she got to spend her last day in town doing the things she'd hoped to do earlier, and as a result she was up early as well. She also got to spend the day being depressed by radio commercials.

We are both fans of the music group N'Sync (hold the groans, they are really quite good). I'd gotten her tickets for a concert in Sacramento in September (right around her birthday). But due to schedule conflicts, the concert was postponed to today, which meant she got to listen to ads for the show all day and we got to drive past (and fly over) the venue during the concert. Admittedly a trip to WDW is quite a make up for missing the show, but she was still sad. On the bright side, the Sacramento Kings beat Orlando tonight, and I suspect the N'Sync guys are Orlando fans, so we got some justice .

About 3 or 4pm, I shut down my office for the trip. It was a real treat being able to set my answering machine message to inform people I'd be 'out of the office' for about 3 weeks. Lori finished up her errands and we started to shut up our condo/apartment, turning off water, barring the sliding glass door, etc. We went through the usual paranoia of overpreparing the apartment, but got things done pretty quickly.

We also finished packing. We knew we'd be overpacking this time, since we didn't want to miss anything. But by the time we finished packing our clothes, jackets, travel guides, cameras, etc we had a total of six bags between the two of us. A certain amount of this was due to things like our Dad's video camera, which he kindly leant us, and a desire to have plenty of snacks with us on the plane (Lori had experienced a very food free flight during her prior trip). The biggest problem we foresaw was fitting it all into the car along with the four of us (Mom/Dad/Lori/Pat.)

We drove over to Mom and Dads, stopping on the way to grab a pizza for dinner. We figured the least we could do was to provide our driver with dinner <G>. We ate dinner and said goodbye to the family pet, an adorable golden retriever named Ginger. Although she saw no bags, and our coming to dinner was hardly uncommon, she still sensed something was up. As we ate, we carefully watched the TV weather as it was raining out. From the looks of it, we figured the rain would stop before we were scheduled to leave.

We drove up to Sacramento, with bags filling the trunk and much of the back seat of Dad's car, with Lori and I squeezed in among the bags. We arrived at the Sacramento airport around 8 and checked our bags, then said a sad goodbye to Mom and Dad.

Our plane left Sacramento right on time, and after an hour flight we landed in Las Vegas around 10:15pm. We called Mom and Dad to check in with them, and then waited for our flight to Orlando, which of course left late. We lost a roll of quarters in the machines in the airport and then waited for our flight to be ready to go. A note here for anyone flying with America West. They are a good airline, but they route all flights through either Vegas or Phoenix and the result is delays at these hubs.

Our plane finally left just after midnight and we settled in for a quiet flight. We tried to sleep as best we could, but mostly listened to tapes of holiday music we'd brought along with our Walkmans. I think we both sort of dozed, but neither of us really slept at all during the flight, which seemed to go on forever (WDW anxiety, I suspect).

Wednesday December 1 : Trip Day #2 (Arrive in Orlando, Check into Dixie Landings, Visit Magic Kingdom and monorail hotels, Collapse in our room).

Around 8am we finally heard the words we'd waited for: Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Orlando International Airport. We were about an hour late, but we'd expected that based on the past performance of the flight.

We got our luggage with little problem and headed over to the Dollar counter. As I'd mentioned, we had an upgrade coupon from our Dad, but weren't sure if it would work. We also had a Fastlane membership (we got it free through an internet promotion), so we got to bypass the line of people and walk right up to the desk. We handed over the coupon and waited. Our check in clerk spent several minutes examining it and chatting with her supervisor, so we assumed they were going to tell us it was expired. To our utter shock, she not only honored it but gave us a five glass upgrade, from a Ford Escort to a 2000 Chevy mini van ! Needless to say, we were pleased.

We made our way to the car lot (right next to the counter area) and got our car. We loaded up and I very carefully made my way out of the airport (not being used to such a large vehicle, I drove slow and I'm sure upset many drivers, to whom I offer apologies. )

We got a tad lost on our way to WDW, which brings up a pet peeve of mine regarding Florida roads. (start of diatribe) Lori had warned me that roads in Florida were a real mess, but I never imagined the way things were. I can't speak for the rest of the world, but in my part of California the roads are fairly well marked. On highways they put signs every 1/2 mile or so that tells you what road you are on and what direction you are going. There are also signs telling you how far the next few cities are and what the next few exits are. If you are looking for a specific exit or road, all you have to do is look for the signs to guide you.

This does not seem to be the case in Florida, or at least not in the Orlando area. The roads there seem to be a sort of guessing game. There are a few signs telling you what road you are on, but not what direction you are going. Signs do inform you of exits, but only moments before you hit them. I'm sure that some of the roads by me are just as bad, but I simply know where to go. However you would think that a tourist mecca like Orlando would be very careful in marking roads. (end of diatribe).

After a little while we made our way back on to I-4 and headed for WDW. We had planned to take the Epcot exit, but as we got close realized we needed to pull off the road for a moment. We collect plush and both Lori and I wanted to have a plush with us as we drove into WDW for the first time. We had them in one of our bags, so we pulled off one exit early and got into a parking lot. We got Pooh out and prepared to rejoin I-4 when Lori noticed what turned out to be the Hotel Plaza entrance, so we headed there. Time of first arrival on WDW property (for me at least) was 9:30 am.

For those who haven't been to WDW, I'll give you a rough layout of the complex. If you picture the property as a map, Magic Kingdom is located at the top, with several hotels nearby (including Wilderness Lodge, where we stayed). Just below MK is Seven Seas Lagoon, and at the bottom edge of that is the TTC, which is the transportation hub of the whole property.

Roughly south and a bit to the right of the MK section of the park, with plenty of room in between, is Epcot, with another series of hotels nearby. To the right of Epcot is the Downtown Disney complex, along with the area hotels (including Dixie Landings, where we stayed). Also nearby, to the right edge of the developed part of the property is the Hotel Plaza area, which is a series of quasi-official hotels, owned by other companies.

To the south of Epcot is MGM Studios, and a distance south of MGM is the Wild World of Sports Complex. To the left of MGM studios, and more directly south of MK are the All Star hotels and to the left of them is Animal Kingdom. I hope this gives you a rough idea of where everything is, but remember when I say Epcot is south of MK, there are several miles in between the two.

We made our way to Dixie Landings. By this time we were starting to show the strain of being up for 24 hrs and without food for close to 14. Our room wouldn't be ready till 3, but we tried to get in early or at least get a free upgrade to a water view, but failed. However I guess we did look pretty pitiful because we did get a great courtyard view in Paterre Place. After charging a good $ 650 for the rest of our room we were set.

However with no room at the hotel until 3-4pm we decided to head over to the Magic Kingdom. We walked down to the bus stop and the first bus to arrive was for Epcot, so we decided to ride it to Epcot and then take the monorail to the TTC. I suppose this technically makes Epcot the first park I visited at WDW but we didn't end up going inside.

We made our way over to the TTC and got our park passes. We'd decided that based on the fact that it was pretty cool out (about the same weather we'd been having in California, 50's-low 60's) that we'd go with a Basic AP instead of a Premium. $ 650 later we had 2 AP's and headed down to the boat dock. It was pretty cold for a boat ride, but we felt this was our first ride to the MK and the boat was the way to go.

After a VERY cold ride we arrive at MK and headed to the gates, entering the park around 11am. We were very hungry by now so we went down to the Crystal Palace and made 1pm reservations for lunch. We then headed to our first ride. For those who have never been, I'll give a brief overview of the park.

The park entrance leads to Main Street, which is a movie version of a typical 1900's main street in a small town, complete with stores, brass bands and the like. At the end of Main Street is the central hub, which is located on an island. If you walk straight into the hub, you face Cinderella Castle, which towers over the whole park and leads to Fantasyland. It also provides a nice frame of reference should you get lost inside the park.

To your left are two bridges, the first (closest to the castle) leads to Liberty Square, and then to Frontierland, the second (closest to Main Street) leads to Adventureland. A bridge on your right (closest to the castle offers a second route to Fantasyland which the next bridge (nearest Main Street) leads to Tomorrowland. Between Fantasyland and Tomorrowland is Mickey's Toontown Fair.

As it was Christmas, the park was decked out for the holidays. At one end of Main Street was a huge tree all trimmed nicely. Up and down Main Street were garlands, lights, wreaths and so on. Each store had it's own touch, as if the owner had decorated according to their own style. The same was true for each of the lands, from techno decor in Tomorrowland to an island flavor in Adventureland. As always, the Disney folk know how to decorate.

As some may know, I gave a lot of consideration to what would be my first ever ride at WDW. As we approached the park I was still undecided. But as the boat docked at the MK, my answer came. Just as we walked down the stairs to leave the boat, the Winnie the Pooh song started to play over the loudspeaker. This event, along with the fact we had been told by the desk clerk at Dixie to do lunch at Crystal Palace (a pooh character meal) seemed to make it clear that Pooh was to be our first ride.

After picking up a set of Pooh and Tigger ears, we headed over to the ride. It was about a 20 minute wait (one of our longest on the trip), but just about 12 noon we were riding in hunny pots. I must say that this ride is a lot of fun, and while being a Pooh fan helps, anyone will enjoy it. During part of the ride, just as you see Tigger for the first time, the pots bounce up and down. We rode this ride several times and never failed to see everyone laugh in delight at this surprise.

After the ride we looked around Fantasyland a bit and I was not real impressed. The WDW Fantasyland seems to lack some of the magic of the Disneyland version. I'm surprised at this since they had more room and more money for WDW yet seemed to do a cheap copy of Disneyland.

We then headed over to a wonderful lunch at Crystal Palace. The beef was some of the best I've ever had and the rest of the meal was also wonderful. All of the Pooh characters (Pooh, Tigger, Piglet and Eeyore) stopped by for a picture and handshake. Lori had mentioned to our waitress that we had been through a long night and I suspect that she told the Pooh gang as they seemed to be quite empathetic and attentive to our table.

In addition, the decor of the building is a treat in itself, a huge glass dome towers overhead and there are many great architectural details along with lots of spectacular topiary work. The food was served buffet style with several types of meat (the beef was superb), vegetables, salads, breads, etc. Drinks were served at the table. The meal ran $ 35 with tax and tip, which I thought was a great deal for such a nice meal.

After lunch we headed over the bridge into Liberty Square and looked around. I'm a history nut and involved in politics, so I was eager to see how they did with Liberty Square. I thought they did a very nice job, although perhaps New Orleans Square in Disneyland does a slightly better job at copying the original. We rode on Haunted Mansion and Pirates before heading out for the day. It was around 2pm by now and we decided to ride through the monorail hotels before going home.

Contemporary was nice, and certainly riding through the lobby was an event, but overall I was not very impressed. It struck me as being simply a Hyatt hotel, with little of the Disney magic. Even the theme deprived Disneyland Hotel did a better job than this.

The Grand Floridian was quite impressive. Lori checked into doing a spa day and the staff was very friendly. The grounds were well appointed and the lobby was magnificently decorated for the holiday. But there was still a feeling in both of us that we were somehow out of place. The hotel staff was very friendly, but I guess we are just to middle class to feel ok in a hotel that nice.

The Polynesian was our last stop. This was the one hotel we had hoped to try, and our tour did little to reduce the desire to stay. It is very well themed and you really do feel like you are in a tropical island of some sort. The lobby area isn't quite as spectacular as the other two monorail hotels, but it's still a real sight to see. We still hope to spend some time staying here, but the price for a night is still out of our range.

By now it was getting to be mid afternoon so we headed over to the bus stop and rode our way back to Dixie Landings. We got our room number and drove over to the right building. We grabbed part of our luggage and made our way to our room. As we got closer we were amazed to find our room looked out on a wonderful courtyard and fountain.

To give you an idea of where we were, our building was roughly U shaped, with a courtyard inside the U (most of the other mansion buildings are H shaped, with 2 courtyards and more rooms). The courtyard looks out onto the river. Parking lot rooms are on the outside of the U and look onto parking areas and some landscaping. Water view rooms look out (big surprise) onto water. Our room was on the inside of the U facing the fountains. I actually liked this better because across the river you can see the busses going to and fro, which sort of takes away from the image. A courtyard view shows nothing but pretty grounds and building (see diagram below).

Parking lot side

_________________________________ W R B

| X (our room) A I U Main buildings and bus stop

| Courtyard area L V S located on this side of river

| Fountain in center K E R

_________________________________ W R O

Other mansion buildings A A

located here w/bridge across river Y D

We got most of our luggage over, but as we carried our last bags we found the room key no longer worked. It seems that these keys are VERY sensitive to magnets and I'd put it in the same pants pocket that held my money slip so the key got zapped. By this time we were quite tired and the going back and forth to the front desk was frustrating.

Making matters worse was the need to move our luggage back to the car then heading in the opposite direction to the front desk area. If we'd had functioning brains, one of us would have stayed with the luggage while the other took care of the key. But jet lag can really mess with your minds.

We finished with the bags and rested for a while. Then we headed to the snack bar for dinner. We both had some burgers and also got refillable mugs. This is one of the best deals at WDW. For $ 9 each we got some nice commuter type mugs with a Dixie Landings decor. The mugs would be nice as a souvenir on their own, but you also get to refill them for free during your whole stay. I can't tell you how much we saved on drinks thanks to this deal, although I do wish the drink bar had milk as an option, but I guess you can't have it all.

We then returned to our rooms and collapsed. Soon we were both feeling rather sick with bellyaches and fatigue. We both were soundly asleep by 10pm.

Thursday December 2 : Trip Day #3 (Sleep in, Drive around WDW, Visit Universal Studios, Shopping, Downtown Disney)

This was our first full day on site and yet we didn't head into any of the parks, but instead took this day to recover from our long day(s) getting to Florida and to do a little exploring around Orlando. We both slept quite soundly and neither of us woke up until past 9. It was close to 10am by the time we actually got ourselves out of bed. I think part of this was due to being up so much the previous days and part of it was jet lag. After all, 10am in Orlando is only 7am at home.

This brings me to our touring plan. Before we left I had taken considerable time putting together a touring plan that I thought would work for us. I wanted to achieve a balance between the non-planners and the obsessive planners. I discuss my system in the pre-trip section, but to briefly summarize my system involved dividing each day into 4 segments (7am-11am, 11am-3pm, 3pm-7pm and 7pm-11pm). I then planned what park or location we would be at for each segment, but didn't plan beyond that. In this way I hoped to keep us organized but also still able to adapt.

As it turns out, sleeping in on our first day and deciding to avoid the parks pretty much resulted in our dropping the plan altogether in favor of planning from day to day what we wanted to do. I still did use the segments of time to plan things out, and did use some blank copies of the schedule to plan some of our days, but we still pretty much went on the spur of the moment.

So what does this mean as far as touring plans ? Well, I think that a plan would be very useful if time is an issue. If we had only been on site for a week or so, and thus needed to carefully budget our time, I think my tour plan would have worked very well. But with the amount of time we had (two weeks), it was not much of an issue. We didn't need to worry about getting to a particular park or ride because we had so much time. In addition, not being on a schedule allowed us to relax and really enjoy ourselves.

I still think it is very important to plan ahead and review touring guides like Birnbaums as well as web sites like Brian's. I can't tell you how many people I saw showing up at the gates not knowing where to go or what to do. They just looked like lost sheep. So definitely don't just 'show up' and plan to go with the flow. But don't overplan either. Unless time is a serious restriction, enjoy yourselves.

Anyway, back to the trip. We got out of our room by around 11 or so and decided we would head for Walmart. We got into the van and drove up to the entrance of Dixie Landings to ask for directions. Either the directions weren't very good or we didn't listen well enough, because this began a long saga which took us all over WDW and Orlando.

Our first mistake was to turn the wrong direction on Buena Vista Drive (one of the main roads in WDW). Turning one way takes us along the Hotel Plaza area (where we'd entered WDW, but the way we turned takes you all the way to the other edge of the property. We didn't mind though because it gave us a tour of much of the property.

We ended up out by the All Star resorts and were able to drive around the resorts and see what they looked like. For bargain resorts they actually looked pretty good, and while I would pay the extra $$ to stay at Dixie Landings, I wouldn't mind the All Star's either.

We then did a little more driving around before we got ourselves oriented. WDW is actually fairly well marked, they let you know where you are and where you are headed. The one criticism I might offer is that they don't always warn you ahead of time. You'll see a sign saying 'turn for Magic Kingdom ahead' and then 5 seconds later, there it is. However for the most part the property is well marked and if you do get lost it's pretty easy to get back on track. We only got really lost one other time, which I'll discuss later.

Once we got off property however, the bad or misheard directions kicked in. We once again became hostages of the Orlando area road system. I suspect that part of the game is for them to get people lost on the toll roads so that they have to keep paying the tolls over and over. I've spoken with a number of people at WDW and they tended to agree. People from all over said they got lost and felt it might be a con to get more money. But once you learn the tricks of where to turn, you are usually ok.

We drove around for some time and got to see quite a bit of the area, which proved to us that most of Florida is, as they say, flat and empty. Eventually we saw a cluster of hotels ahead and thought perhaps we were back on track. In any case we figured that the hotel complex would at least orient us as to where we were. We got to the hotels and found we'd made our way to Universal Studios, so we were quite lost. I commented to Lori that we never were in any trouble because if you drive long enough in any direction in Orlando you'll eventually hit a theme park.

We decided to head into Universal and check out the Citywalk area and have lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. We were also considering spending a day at Universal, so we figured if we did a little investigation that it might help us to decide whether or not to spend the time at Universal.

Our first stop was the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch. I must say the weather today was a major improvement over Wednesday. By noon the sun was shining brightly and the temps were approaching the 70's. For the month of December, that's pretty good weather in my view.

The Hard Rock Cafe is one of the places we usually try and go to when we are on vacation. It's a fun place to eat, they play great music and the decorations are fun to look at. I chose to have the burger & fries while Lori ate a French Drip sandwich, we both drank Coke. The burger was very good and perfectly prepared and Lori said her sandwich was wonderful. She had been raving about how good the food was in the Orlando location, and she was right. We decided to pass on desert in favor of a treat later in the day. Lunch cost $ 22 with tax and tip.

We then spent an hour or so exploring Citywalk. Having been to the California version several times I must say I was not real impressed with Orlando. There didn't seem to be as many shops and restaurants and the quality didn't seem to be as high. It was nice, but compared to other citywalks I've seen it wasn't that great. We were impressed with the views we got of the Universal parks, but decided that we'd probably save Universal for a future trip, since we have many of the rides we wanted to go on in California.

Once we left Universal, we made it (finally) to Wal Mart. For those trying to get to Wal Mart from WDW, I offer the following suggestion. Take I-4 north out of the property, headed towards downtown Orlando. Take the John Young Parkway exit. You'll drive for quite a while on the Parkway, but eventually you will hit a shopping complex, Wal Mart will be on your right.

It's a huge Wal Mart with everything you could need from food to clothes to medicines. We got some snack foods at Wal Mart and also some trash bags and other sundries, which cost $ 15. We then headed back to WDW and made it back on property and to our hotel about 6 hours after we had left, but we were getting into the vacation mode, so we didn't really care about the lost time.

We rested in the room and then a little after 7 decided to head for Downtown Disney. They have a boat which runs from Dixie Landings to Port Orleans and then Downtown Disney. It was a cool night by Florida standards and so we did change into sweatshirts.

One funny thing happened at the boat docks waiting to ride to Downtown Disney. While we were waiting at the airport in Las Vegas we had chatted with a couple from Sacramento. They were wearing Sacramento Kings shirts, and we are both big fans, so we talked about the fact that the Kings had just beaten Orlando the evening of the 30th. When we got to the boat dock, who should be standing there but our fellow Kings fans.

Downtown Disney is divided into 3 sections: Downtown Disney West Side, Pleasure Island and Downtown Disney Marketplace. Pleasure Island is mostly clubs and requires a ticket at night while Marketplace and West Side are shopping and eating areas which are open to the public. We spent several hours touring Downtown Disney and were far more impressed with this complex than we were at Universal. We also took time to call home to Mom and Dad to see how they were. We are lucky to live a few minutes from our parents and really missed having them around.

Downtown Disney is divided into 3 sections: Downtown Disney West Side, Pleasure Island and Downtown Disney Marketplace. Pleasure Island is mostly clubs and requires a ticket at night while Marketplace and West Side are shopping and eating areas which are open to the public. This isn't an area which will suck up hours of your time, because it is mostly shopping, but it is a great place to get souvenirs and to look at a lot of amazing things (the Lego store and the World of Disney are shows onto themselves).

Around 10 we decided it was time to head back, so we boarded the boats and headed home. We enjoyed some nice long baths and then got to bed early (around 11) and prepared for our next day at Animal Kingdom.

Friday December 3 : Trip Day #4 (Animal Kingdom, Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party #1)

We decided to actually get up early today, so we set the alarm for around 6, knowing that we'd push that back some when the morning came. By 7 we were up, and after quick shower we were dressed and headed out the door by 8. We decided that we'd try driving to AK this time just to see how easy it was compared to the WDW system.

One comment here for anyone who stays at Dixie Landings, be sure to get up early a few days. In the early morning the place is amazingly lovely, with the scent of flowers in the air, rabbits and chipmunks running around, etc. It's something to experience. The hotel was also decorated for the holidays, with a large tree in the lobby. One nice touch was that the decorations were southern/cajun themed and provided just the right flavor for the environment.

We drove out to AK and found ourselves among the first there. We drove along and found ourselves in the handicapped parking area. Many drivers were making the same mistake and were heading out of the area to another parking lot. We were about to do the same when we realized that only a portion of the lot was handicapped, the rest was regular parking. We zipped over and got a spot only a short walk from the gate. This was the second park we'd visited, although it was really the first we'd been to fully awake.

For those who haven't been to AK, I'll give you an idea of how the park is laid out. You enter Animal Kingdom though the Oasis. This is an area of winding trails through a jungle like environment. You have all kinds of routes to take and get to see various animals at home. This is a really nice way to transition from the outside world to the Animal themed areas. The park decorations were a bit less obvious, but still nice. A tree is outside the front gate, with animal and dinosaur themed decorations, along with wreathes and holly on the ticket booths. Inside the decor is more subtle, such as a Santa hat on some of the dinosaur skeletons in Dinoland.

Once inside you are facing the Tree of Life, which is located in the center of Safari Village, a rough equivalent of the hub area at the Magic Kingdom. The tree serves the same orienting purpose as the MK castle or the Epcot Spaceship Earth.

To your left are bridges to Camp Minnie Mickey, the site of character greetings and shows. To your right is the bridge to Dinoland, an area including the thrill ride of the park, Countdown to Extinction. Behind the Tree of Life are two more bridges leading to the themed lands of Africa and Asia.

We were pretty hungry and Lori is a huge (make that HUGE) Donald Duck fan, so we headed over to Dinoland to see about making reservations for the character meal: Donald's Breakfastosaurus. We found there was only a short wait, so we signed up. While you are waiting, they run you through a line to get your picture taken next to some boxes, the idea being you are headed off on your 'dig' and this is the last photo before you leave. During the meal, they come by with proofs for you to examine, and you can buy 8 x 10 photos or (as we did) smaller photos inside refrigerator magnets.

We sat out on the deck area in front of the restaurant for a while, but soon were called in to eat. They call each of us by saying your 'expedition' is ready to depart. We headed inside and were promptly seated. As with Crystal Palace, the service is buffet style except for your drinks, which are served by the staff. I'm not sure if this is simply to give them more to do or if it's a way to control how much you drink.

In any case, it sometimes can be a problem when your server gets busy, as we experienced this morning. We only got a couple of refills and at one point gave up on the milk she was supposed to bring and just used a couple of the cartons they had set out for cereal. To her credit, our server apologized for the mistake and brought us some sodas to take with us. This does show the Disney touch, as most places wouldn't have taken then extra step.

The meal was ok, with basic breakfast items like eggs, bacon, toast, cereal, waffles, pancakes, and so on. But the quality didn't seem to hold up to that at the Crystal Palace nor did the service. This is not to say that it isn't a fun meal, but it really works best if you are a big fan of Donald. The characters are all dressed in costumes themed to dig sites and archeologists. If you want to see Donald, come here. If you want a great meal, Crystal Palace is better, in my opinion.

After breakfast we decided to go on Countdown to Extinction, since we were in the right area of the park. We did a little looking around Dinoland, and I will say that it is nicely themed, it really does give you the feel of dig sites and paleontology. We then headed over to Countdown. There was a fairly short wait and we were soon on the ride. The idea of this ride is you are going back in time to save the last dino from the asteroid that destroyed them all. It's supposed to be a match for Indiana Jones and Disneyland, but I think that it really pales in comparison. It is a fun ride and is worth a short wait, but Disneyland veterans will be disappointed compared to Indy.

After Countdown we decided to head over to Africa and check out the rides there. On the way we found ourselves near the Tree of Life so we thought it might be fun to look around and see the show: It's Tough to Be a Bug. One of the nicest things about Africa is all of the little nooks and crannies they have around the park. You can walk all around Safari Village and the Tree of Life and there are animal habitats of all kinds, as well as some amazing carvings on the tree of life.

We then made our way into the tree of life for the show. This is a 3-D program loosely based on the movie A Bug's Life. Both Lori and I think the show is much better than the movie. It's a funny and entertaining program, and even Lori (our resident bug hater) had a fun time. Some kids or more bug-sensitive folks may not care for the show, but for most part it's a lot of fun. One criticism I have is that the exit to the show is near both the bridge to Africa and the bridge to Asia which does result in a bit of a clog up when shows let out.

After doing the Tree of Life we continued into Africa. By this time it was late morning, around 11 or so, and we hoped that folks who got there really early would be moving out of Africa, and we were right. When you first enter Africa you face the village or Harambe, which is supposed to be a typical African trading village. I've not been to Africa, so I can't say for sure, but it looked pretty realistic to me, right down to the faded paint (a deliberate touch by Disney since African villages usually aren't picture perfect).

You walk down the main street of the village to the Kilamanjaro Safari ride. This has to be one of the best jobs Disney has done to date. You ride in open cars through about 120 acres of wildlife preserve (an area as big as the whole Magic Kingdom). All through the preserve are animals of every type. We saw everything from lions to elephants to a few I've never heard of. A couple sitting next to us commented that they'd been on the ride with a couple from South Africa who were amazed that Disney had done such a good job.

After the Safari ride we headed to the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. This is a walk through area which features hippos, birds and gorillas in a lush jungle like setting. Again, it's amazing to just stand there and look at all of these majestic animals seemingly right in front of you. They could do a bit better job with traffic control here as well, as people tend to bottle up from time to time, even when the crowds are small.

After leaving the trail we made a brief pit stop at the 'rest area' before boarding the train to Conservation Station. This is a short train ride that gives you a view of the back areas, including many of the living quarters (you should see the giraffe buildings). At Conservation station you can look at animals at the vet as well as visit a petting area. It's a lot of fun, but considering the time involved in getting there it's not worth a lot of repeat visits. Most of the stuff here can be seen at most local zoos.

We returned to Africa on the train and then headed towards Asia. On the way we came to the Flights of Wonder show, just inside Asia. This was a slow day at the park as they had cast members out trolling for people to come in and watch the show, so we decided to stop and rest our feet. It's a pretty standard bird show, although they do have a wide variety of species. Again, you might see something pretty similar at any other wildlife park, but it's a humorous show and well worth the time.

We moved from the show down to the Maharaja Jungle Trek. Like Pangani, this is a self guided walking tour through a series of animal habitats, this time with some Asian theming to the buildings. You see tigers and various other animals out in the open.

One of the more unique habitats is the bat cage. Inside you can see fruit bats in an enclosed cage, but with nothing between you and them. For those who react with fear to this prospect, my sister wasn't thrilled with it either, but once she got inside I couldn't drag her away. For those who think of bats as the monsters from the Dracula movies, this is a must see. For one thing, the bats are all vegetarian, so they don't care much about you. More importantly, they are very beautiful creatures. Seeing one of them show off his eight foot wingspan is amazing.

We left the Jungle Trek and headed to Kali River Rapids, which is a white water rapids ride, similar to many at other parks, with one exception. This ride gets you very, very, very wet ! I have never been this wet in my life, it was like riding through a shower. The ride is fun, and the scenery (including a set of burning logs) is fun to see. But dress for it with lots of rain gear. One other problem is that there doesn't seem to be much of a story, other than just touring through a rain forest. A bit more of a plot line might help make things more interesting.

The worst part of the ride is towards the end, where you go sliding down a hill into a pool of water. If you are lucky enough to be on the proper side of the boat, all is well and you get splashed a little. If, however, you are like we were, and are on the wrong side, watch out. I can't really describe just how wet you get. I've heard it described as driving through a tidal wave, getting soaked with 50 gallon drums of water, and so on. Another person told me she went white water riding and didn't get as wet.

All of these descriptions are good, but I think the best one is this. Walk out to the nearest swimming pool during a monsoon. Jump in with all of your clothes on. Stay there for a couple of days until every fiber of your being is drenched. That's about how wet it gets. Lori and I didn't and we were soaked to the skin for the rest of the day. My wallet got so we that I had to set things out overnight to dry. Just a word to the wise.

By now we were #1 Soaked and #2 Hungry, so we headed to the Rainforest Cafe. Being a responsible type, I took time to check my messages at work and returned a few calls while Lori looked around the gift shop. We soon had our seats. We both decided to go with burgers and fries, plus we'd been given a coupon for a free appetizer of cheese bread. The meal was very good, and quite filling. We both ended up with leftovers to return to the room. Total cost for the meal with drinks, tax and tip was $ 29, which seemed quite reasonable. If you go, be sure and order the waffle fries, they are superb.

At this point it was getting to be late afternoon and we were both still cold and wet, so we decided to return to the room. At this point we were very glad that we had driven to the park, since we didn't relish waiting for the bus. We drove back, took some hot showers and rested for a while before our first Mickey's Christmas Party.

Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party (MVMCP) is a hard ticket event held in December. For about $ 30 per adult you get admission. They close the park to everyone else, so you have light crowds. There are shows and a special fireworks show, along with free cookies and hot chocolate. We got there around 7pm and were able to ride most of the rides in Tomorrowland and Fantasyland with little wait. In fact the waits were so short and the rides so empty that in most cases they didn't even bother with the standard 'move to the end of the row' speech, they just told us to sit where we wanted to.

I really enjoyed Carousel of Progress, and I'm sorry to hear that it may be closing down pretty soon. I hope the rumors are wrong, or that at least they replace it with something good. Lori didn't care much for Alien Encounter (I liked it) but we both loved Timekeeper. At 9pm we headed over to Liberty Square to watch the fireworks with some fellow RADP folks.

The fireworks show was superb. They do the regular show, then some special holiday fireworks timed to Christmas music. At the climax of the show they do a 360 surround burst of bright white fireworks which caused the whole group to gasp in amazement. Quite a good show. We also watched the Christmas Parade, which was as good as always. I don't know what it is about Disney but every time I watch the holiday parade it just makes me feel Christmasy.

The park was open until 1am but we decided to head home around 11pm. We caught a bus to Dixie Landings with little trouble and were in our room by midnight. We had the big RADP meet the next day, plus our first day at Epcot.

Saturday December 4 : Trip Day #5 (RADP meet, Epcot & Illuminations 2000 cruise)

Having gotten home late the night/morning before we decided to rest a bit this morning. Since it was Saturday we just relaxed in bed and watched some Disney cartoons on TV. Around 10am we figured we ought to get things moving since we had the big RADP meet this afternoon. RADP (rec.arts.disney.parks) is the main WDW newsgroup and they have a big group meet every year in December. We'd timed our trip to match this years meet.

We weren't sure what we wanted to do for lunch so we decided to walk over to the nearby Port Orleans resort. We'd considered staying here but had settled on Dixie Landings, and for us the choice was a good one. Port Orleans is a smaller resort than Dixie, with the rooms in a series of buildings set along narrow streets, in the style of New Orleans.

It is a pretty good look, although not as well executed as Dixie Landings is. I would suggest that those people who want a smaller hotel or who have mobility problems consider Port Orleans, as it is ideal for them. We were getting hungry so we stopped in the Port Orleans snack bar and picked up some beignets and filled up our drink mugs (those staying at Dixie can use the Port Orleans snack bar). For those who don't know beignets are wonderful treats consisting of 'fried dough' and powdered sugar. Quite evil and quite good.

We returned to our rooms and ate our leftovers from Rainforest cafe along with some of the beignets. By now it was getting close to time for the meet so we caught a bus to the Magic Kingdom, then took the monorail to the TTC. The group was meeting in a covered area and by the time we arrived there were well over 100 people present. It was fun meeting some of the RADP folk, like Deb Wills and Jay Robinson, but I thought the meet could have been improved.

Many of the people there have been going to meets for several years, so they know people pretty well, and as is natural, tend to group together. This left many of us 'new folk' feeling a tad on the outs. I saw several people like Lori and I, making efforts to meet people but remaining a bit isolated. A similar thing happened at the MVMCP the night before. It's not that RADP people aren't nice, just that people are naturally bound to group with people they know.

After a while at the meet we decided to head over to Epcot. We caught the monorail and arrived at Epcot around 2pm. I had been really looking forward to seeing Epcot, and was not at all disappointed. I'm sure many of you have seen Spaceship Earth with the 2000 icon on TV. But nothing can prepare you for actually seeing it up close. We looked around the Leave a Legacy section and were not real impressed. I suppose it can be fun for some, but I just don't see the point, especially when you consider how small the pictures are.

For those who have never been, I'll offer a brief overview. You enter Epcot in Future World, which occupies the 'bottom' half of the park (if you are looking at a map with the entrance at the bottom). Right in front of you is Spaceship Earth, a huge geodesic sphere which serves as the icon of the park. Behind Spaceship earth is a courtyard like area which is currently Millenium Central, sort of a gathering place for Millenium events. You must walk into this area to enter the park.

On either side of the central courtyard are two semi curved buildings which house Innoventions, with walkways through the center of each building leading to the left and right sides of the park (again looking at a map with the entrance at the bottom). On the left side of the park are the following pavilions: Universe of Energy, Wonders of Life, Horizons (currently closed) and Test Track. On the left side of the park are The Living Seas, The Land and The Imagination Institute.

Directly in front of Future World is the World Showcase Lagoon, which occupies a good portion of the top half of the park (about the area of 85 football fields). Around the lagoon is the World Showcase, which consists of pavilions from nations all over the world. Starting on the left hand side you encounter them in the following order: Mexico, Norway, China, Germany, Italy, United States, Japan, Morocco, France, England and Canada.

Between Canada and England is the Millenium Village, which features a couple dozen more countries and between England and France is the International Gateway, which is a second entrance leading to the Epcot area Resorts.

Epcot has two types of decorations for the holidays. On the Future World side of the park are more subtle decorations, with the exception of a large tree along the World Showcase Lagoon. A walkway between World Showcase and Future World is decorated with thousands of lights that blink in time to holiday music (the same is true of the fountain in Future World). On the World Showcase side, the various pavilions decorate according to local custom, and each pavilion also offers holiday shows which feature holiday traditions including a variety of Santa's.

We decided to do Spaceship Earth first. You ride in an open car through a series of scenes which depict the evolution of communications (not surprisingly this is sponsored by AT&T). It is some of the best audio animatronic work I've seen at a Disney park, and one of the best rides. We left SE and did a little looking around Innoventions (East), which is much better at WDW than it is at Disneyland. I hope they either improve the California version or replace it with something better.

After a little while in Innoventions we moved over to the right side of Future World and walked to the Living Seas attraction. We were thinking about dinner, so we made priority reservations at Coral Reef, which is a restaurant surrounded by a huge aquarium. We then went to the Living Seas attraction. It's pretty impressive, with the hundreds of varieties of fish that you can see, although I wasn't overly impressed with the other presentations. They didn't seem to be much more than you'd see at the average local aquarium, but the real show was the huge tank (big enough to take in Spaceship Earth) and the amazing show inside. You could watch this stuff for hours.

We then went over to the Land. The Land consists of 3 main attractions. First we went and saw Food Rocks, which is an audio animatronic music show designed to promote good eating habits and good exercise. Many big stars have recorded new versions of their hits for this show and it was fun to watch, even as we realized we did need to eat better.

The second show was The Circle of Life, which promotes an environmental message with the Lion King gang via a short movie. It was a fun show, and the message was good, but what really caught my eye was a series of shots of the African plain which started the movie. It was exactly what we'd seen the day before at Animal Kingdom, just showing how good of a job they did with the Africa land.

The last attraction is a boat ride promoting agriculture and technology. You first ride through a series of scenes which show you how the land should be used and how it can be abused. Then you ride through the gardens and greenhouses of Epcot, which have some unbelievable ways of growing food. Much of the food is used in the restaurants and so it was interesting from then on to wonder what food we'd seen growing was now on our plates.

We were getting close to dinner, so we headed over to the Coral Reef and were quickly seated. We got a nice table right next to the window, so we could see all of the fish swimming by. I do wonder a bit about having a seafood place right next to an aquarium, but it is great entertainment. We both ordered grilled salmon and cokes.

We were pleased with the food, it was nicely prepared and of good quality, but perhaps a bit too 'fancy'. Lori and I are pretty plain folk, eating at Red Lobster is a big deal for us, so we're not as impressed as some with 'presentation'. The food was artistic looking, but I'd have been just as happy with the fish and some regular potatoes. We did do better than the people at the table next to us, however. They ordered the lobster and were not at all impressed, as the 'presentation' again overcame the food, in this case there was little lobster and lots of show. We did get the chocolate paradise for desert and it was quite good (a dark chocolate shell with white chocolate interior dusted with spices). Our meal cost $ 70 with tax & tips.

After dinner we resumed our Epcot tour. We knew we needed to go to the Yacht Club resort around 7, so we decided to head towards the International Gateway exit. This took us into the World Showcase area. We first stopped at Canada. Visually this is very impressive at night, with the simulated mountains and resort hotel all lit up against the night sky. The Canada pavilion also features a 360 circlevision movie which shows off all of the variety of people and places in Canada. Obviously the show is intended to impress, but it was very well done and visually impressive.

We then stopped at the Millenium Village. This is a new building which features small exhibits from a number of countries. It wasn't very impressive, IMHO, and could have been better done. We did show up at night, however, so some areas were closed for the day. We then stopped in England, which doesn't have any shows or rides, but is a nice series of shops which do have an old English feel. We also were able to see a bagpipe player perform with a variety of music and humor.

It was now time to head down to the Yacht Club. They offer boat cruises which give you a close up view of the Illuminations show, and the RADP folk had organized a series of boats. We walked along the Boardwalk down to the Yacht Club dock. Boardwalk does have a real authentic look, much like the Santa Cruz Boardwalk near where I live. We may stay at the Boardwalk hotel on our next trip.

We got to the boat dock, met our group and were soon on our way. Our boat guide was very nice, and took us down to MGM studios first, showing us some of the hotels along the way and offering us commentary on the various hotels and how they came to be. At MGM we caught a bit of the Fantasmic show before heading back to Epcot for Illuminations. They had a few more boats than usual running, so we had to crowd in a bit, which was fine with us because our boat ended up closer to the show than anyone else.

I didn't see Illuminations, so I can't compare it to Illuminations 2000, but this show is absolutely amazing. It's a combination of fireworks, lasers, video, sounds, etc. Every time you think that they have hit the peak of the fireworks, or that the show has topped out, they do themselves one better. At one point the fireworks are so spectacular that they light the whole lagoon up as if it were daytime, and the finale features more fireworks than I thought could possibly fill the sky.

I'd been a little concerned about the music because the old show used the 1812 overture, while this one had new music. I wondered if they could do as good a job in matching music to show, but my fears were unfounded as they did it very well. It is by far the best fireworks show I have ever seen, and if anyone is going to WDW, be sure and see this show. One comparison I can offer is for those who saw the New Years fireworks displays they did around the world this year. As spectacular as all of those were, none were as good as this show.

I'd also suggest looking into the Illuminations cruise, which doesn't cost that much (we paid $ 15, although it may be more without a large group). We were so close to the show we actually got ash from the fireworks landing on our laps, which in the Disney spirit, was actually fun rather than annoying .

After the boat returned us to the docks we did some looking around the Yacht and Beach Clubs and the Boardwalk hotel area. Then we took the bus to Downtown Disney and looked around for a while, did a little shopping.

We headed back to Dixie Landings around midnight and ended another great day. One fun thing we did was to actually watch Saturday Night Live be on live. Living on the west coast we get everything on delay, so it was nice to actually get a live show.

Sunday December 5 : Trip Day #6 (Disney-MGM Studios)

Today was our MGM studios day, since we'd done MK, Epcot and AK already. We got up around 8 and walked around the grounds for a while. The place really looks nice, and I think you could spend a whole trip just relaxing here. We then finished up the treats from Port Orleans for breakfast and got ready to go.

By 9:30 we were ready to head out and caught the next bus to MGM studios, arriving around 10am. As with the other parks, I'll offer a brief overview, although MGM is the worst designed of the parks, so bear with me here.

You enter down Hollywood Boulevard, which is like Main Street at MK (with shops and stores), at the end of the street is a replica of Grauman's Chinese Theater, which is supposed to be the park icon, but is too short for the purpose. Just prior to reaching the courtyard of the theater there is a street which heads off to the right, and then back towards the front of the park. This is Sunset Boulevard and features Tower of Terror, Rock N Roller Coaster, Beauty and the Beast and Fantasmic shows.

Inside the courtyard there is a gate to your right which leads to Animation courtyard, which runs along and behind the Chinese theater, it features a couple of stage shows and the two park tours (animation tour and backstage tour). This back route also eventually leads to New York Street. To the right of the courtyard is Commissary Lane, which offers some shops and restaurants. Also to the right is Echo Lake, past which are Star Tours and Indiana Jones. Towards the back of the park, the Echo Lake area is New York Street, which features the rest of the park attractions.

As I said, this park isn't nearly as well laid out as the other parks, so describing it is not nearly as easy nor is touring as smooth. MGM is decorated much like the Magic Kingdom, with lots of displays up and down the main street (Hollywood Boulevard) and many more subtle decorations in shops and rides.

We first walked down Hollywood Boulevard and headed to Sunset Boulevard so we could ride the Tower of Terror. This is the ride for MGM studios and is very impressive. You get great views from the top, and at this point a series of stomach churning drops. If you are able to keep from grabbing on to things, you get a great zero gravity feeling. We considered doing the new Rock n Roller coaster, but we aren't big on upside down turns and so we passed.

We took time to walk through the Animation Tour, which offers you an inside look at how animation is done. First you get to see a film starring Robin Williams and Walter Cronkite (what a combo) and then you walk through actual animation studios. Since it was Sunday we didn't see anyone at work, but it's still a fun tour. After the Animation Tour we did the Backstage Tour, which is much like most of the studio tour, featuring special effects, a look at studio facilities and a very surprises (if I told you about them they wouldn't be surprises, eh ?).

Our last stop for the morning was the Great Movie Ride, which is an audio animatronic ride which shows you epic scenes from great movies (hence the name) along with some live action actors in the guise of ride drivers. It's also fun and worth your time.

By now we were getting hungry so we headed towards the New York section of the park, where several good restaurants were. We ended up eating at the Pizza Planet, themed after Buzz Lightyear. We both had pizzas & salads with our usual sodas. The meal cost $ 17 with tax & tip.

Since we were on the left side of the park now, we decided to take in some of the attractions. We went to see Muppetvision 3-D, which is a combination 3-D movie and live stage show. It's lots of fun, especially if you are a fan of the Muppets, though some of the show could upset younger kids (lots of noise and some dark sections). After the Muppets we headed over to Star Tours, which is pretty much the same as Disneyland, although I think the interior theme is better at Disneyland.

After Star Tours we watched a bit of the Mulan parade, which was pretty good, but we were starting to get a bit hot (it was rather muggy this day) so we headed to the Indiana Jones show, which is under shelter. This is one of the best stunt shows I've seen in any theme park and is well worth your time, although I wish that WDW would also get a good Indiana Jones type ride. We also watched the Hunchback show, which is a well done musical revue based on the movie. It's very entertaining and fun to watch.

We now headed back across the park and did a little souvenir shopping. We stopped and saw the Drew Carey show, and were really pleased with it. It does offer problems for people who are scared of the dark, but otherwise it was a very well done movie presentation.

It was nearing 5:30 pm so we headed over to the Hollywood Hills Amphitheater for the 6:15 Fantasmic show. The theater was already full, so we had to go to the standing room only area, but that actually offered us a pretty good view. The show was good as always, but I'd have preferred to sit down as I was getting tired on my feet.

We finished up our day by touring the Osborne light show. This is an absolutely amazing holiday light show which decorates much of the back lot area of the studios. Over 1 million lights along with Disney snow helped to put us in the holiday mood.

We headed back to the hotel, grabbed some snacks in the snack bar, and spent the rest of the evening at our hotel. We knew our next day was going to be a big one, so we wanted to get plenty of rest.

Monday December 6 : Trip Day #7 (Magic Kingdom and MVMCP #2)

Today we were starting out with another RADP event. Bruce Metcalf, an avid RADP'er and WDW cast member had organized a breakfast event at the Magic Kingdom. We decided to drive today, since we didn't get up until 7 and needed to be at the TTC by 8. We started out ok, but ran into a little trouble getting to the TTC.

The first problem was that technically there is no TTC parking lot. There is a huge lot by the TTC but they call it the Magic Kingdom parking lot even though it's across the lake from the MK. As a result we drove past the MK parking lot signs and headed away from the MK direction signs.

After a little while we found out our mistake, but then ran into a signage problem. As you drive away from the MK (which we were doing as we discovered our error) there is a sign that says "Magic Kingdom Parking next turn". The problem is that the turn is 10 feet later, so you always miss the turn. In time we straightened things out and got parked.

By now it was past 8, so we headed over to the MK to see if anyone was waiting for us, but we'd managed to miss not only the main meet but also the late meet. We knew the meet was in Adventureland, so we went into the MK (it was an early entry day) and headed over to Adventureland. At this point something happened to make getting lost worth it.

As we walked up to the bridge to Adventureland we saw a Cast Member standing there with a rope blocking the way, since Adventureland isn't open for EE. We went up to her and explained who we were and why we were there. She knew just what we were talking about, and lifted the rope for us to enter, then escorted us to the event, much to the envy of the crowd waiting to get in. After being part of the envious crowd so often, it was really cool to be a quasi VIP and get escorted in.

We met in the Adventureland Veranda, which I think used to be a regular restaurant, but has since closed except for private parties. It's located around the corner from Tiki room towards the bridge. We had a great brunch of eggs, tonga toast, fruit, breads, juices, etc. We were also treated to a nice show on the history of the Tiki Room along with some really bad jokes (sorry Bruce).

After the show we decided to spend the day at the MK. We passed on doing Tiki Room for the moment, and instead headed over to Pirates. Pirates was a bit disappointing for me because I'm so used to the California version, which is much longer and better themed. The entry area here was pretty well done, maybe even better done, but the ride wasn't as good. I've noticed this on several rides at MK, they do a better job with the outside, and the queue areas, but then seem to run out of gas for the ride. Ah well.

After Pirates we headed into Frontierland and rode Splash Mountain. Now this is one ride they REALLY got right in Florida. Far better than the California version from start to finish, and we didn't get 1/10 as wet as we had on Kali. Moving right along we headed towards Liberty Square. On the way we noticed some rafts headed over to Tom Sawyer Island, so we hopped on and rode over. We spent a little time looking around and were impressed with the details.

But then something happened to show just how relaxed we were. Just past the boat docks, across from Thunder Mountain is a little dock with some rocking chairs. We decided to sit and wait for the next raft to head over. We started rocking and relaxing in the sun and darn near fell asleep. It was one of the best moments of the trip because we were just so totally relaxed and content with ourselves.

I think that this is one of the best thing about Disney trips, just sitting back and soaking it all in. I also think that this is one area that Disney excels in. At most theme parks you can enjoy the decor but you always feel like you are in a park. At Disney you can just totally lose yourself in the experience and really think you are on some quiet island somewhere.

Eventually we made ourselves get up and headed over to the 'mainland'. We first stopped at Hall Of Presidents in Liberty Square. I'm a real history nut and enjoyed the show, even though one of the speakers could have been left out (end of political commentary). After Presidents we rode Haunted Mansion, and again I thought they did better with the queue area than the ride. It was still a great show, but not as good as California. We finished up with lunch at the Diamond Horseshoe and watched the show. This show is lots of fun, but if you don't want to be in the show, sit upstairs.

We headed back to the hotel around 2 because we had a long night ahead of us and wanted to relax. We went over to the pool and swam for a while, then we sat poolside and relaxed. It was overcast but still plenty warm. In fact, we enjoyed watching the lifeguards wearing jackets because it was so 'cold' (around 65-70). After a while we returned to the room to shower and change for dinner at California Grill and another MVMCP.

We had another RADP meet for dinner at the California Grill, which is the premium restaurant atop the Contemporary resort. Our host was Judimouse, one of the neatest people we met on the whole trip. We waited for a while with a few of the RADP'ers and chatted with Bruce Metcalf. He tells me (hope I'm not spilling beans here) that WDW is having real trouble on the transportation issue. They can't expand the monorail due to construction difficulties and they are out of places to expand the roads. It now seems they may do light rail of some sort, but I can see that it's a problem, especially as they add new hotels.

We ordered dinner, once again taking the option of salmon (although the pork tenderloin was tempting). As with Coral Reef, we could have done without the fancy touches, but the food was good and the calamari was superb as an appetizer (thanks to those who bought the group these treats). Dinner and drinks ran $ 60 for the two of us with tax and tip.

Before we ate we went out and watched the fireworks at the MK from a rooftop veranda, it was interesting to see it from this perspective. During dinner we looked out and could see Fantasmic going over at MGM. I jokingly asking if we wanted to hum the music. People laughed, but pretty soon our whole table was humming it's way through the show, much to the amusement of tables nearby (some of whom also quietly hummed along).

Once the meal was done, we headed over to the MK. I was pleased that Judimouse was joining us but was sad to learn than Deb Wills had taken ill and was forced to go home. I'm happy to report she's better, but I'm sorry I missed out on meeting with her.

Judi asked if Lori and I wanted to tour the park with her, and of course we said yes. We were joined by Andy (from England) and a few others as we headed into the park. As I've mentioned, Lori and I are big Pooh fans, so we forced Judi and Andy to ride Pooh, and even Judi was forced to admit it was fun. She then took us over to Buzz Lightyear, and this is one addictive ride. It's a ride through sort of arcade game based on the Toy Story movies and it is a ton of fun (Maybe Cynthia Harris can get one for DL ??).

We rode Buzz a several times. The first ride through I had beaten Lori, so she insisted on a rematch. Somehow on this ride through she had managed to hit a super high scoring target and got the top score possible, making her a Galactic Hero. Of course I now demanded a rematch, and we ended up trading off wins for a few rides, although nobody did as well as Lori did the second time through.

We then rode Space Mountain (wimpy compared to California, and this from a coaster wimp), Timekeeper, and another run on Buzz. We then shifted over to Fantasyland and rode Peter Pan, Snow White and Small World before stopping for a snack (cookies & hot chocolate). This brought us to the Liberty Square section of the park in time for the fireworks, which were once again impressive. Wish I'd thought to bring my video camera, ah well.

We headed into Frontierland and rode Splash Mountain and Big Thunder. Both rides were fun, though all of us thought we'd left our stomachs back on one of the turns of Big Thunder. It's not that its a real rocky run, but it does have some surprise dips. We finished up with runs on Pirates and Haunted Mansion. It's really amazing how much you can get done when the park isn't crowded. We also saw the parade again and a series of shows around the park.

By now it was past midnight and we knew we were tired, so we decided to head home, not wanting to be on the last bus. We made tentative plans to meet Judi the next day at Epcot for lunch and returned to our hotel. Bed came by 1am or so, but we'd had a great run at MVMCP.

I'd strongly suggest people take advantage of this, or in the non-holiday season, e-nights. You just can't improve on a non crowded park with all the good rides open. We plan to return to WDW in October 2000 and hope to try out Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party.

Tuesday December 7 : Trip Day #8 (Epcot)

Today we decided to make another Epcot day. Because we'd been up late the night/morning before and because this was our last day before leaving Dixie Landings, we decided to enjoy the hotel for a while, took a walk around the grounds and enjoyed the view. We snacked on leftovers in our room before catching the 9am bus to Epcot.

Arriving at Epcot we headed to the left side of Future World, since we'd done most of the right side attractions the previous visit. We first looked through Innoventions. One nice thing they have is a booth where you can take digital pictures and e-mail them to friends. We took advantage of this to send out stuff to our family as well as a few friends (including Brian, just to make him envious).

We then headed over to the Wonders of Life pavilion, which features two shows/rides: Cranium Command and Body Wars. Body Wars is a flight simulator type ride based on the old Fantastic Voyage movie, in which you ride a probe through the human body. Walt had envisioned such an attraction back in the 1960's but they couldn't get past the problems of needing to make the body parts actually be huge. The moving parts of the heart, lungs, etc just couldn't handle running over and over. But modern technology won out over this problem.

Lori is a nurse, so I was interested in her reactions. One thing I liked was her telling me that it's impossible to totally clean the skin (you go through some 'decontamination' scenes as you walk on the ride). I thought it funny that Disney did the job so well she never questioned being shrunk down and injected into a human body, just the decontamination process. As to the ride, she found it pretty accurate, although obviously some aspects were simplified for ride purposes.

The second part of the Wonders of Life is Cranium Command, which is an audio animatronic/audio visual presentation that is supposed to show the day in the life of a 12 year old boy from the perspective of his body systems. It's a really funny show and it was great to try and guess all the celebrity voices. One side note though, having been a 12 year old boy I can tell you that the guy rarely got a girl as cute as the one in the show, but that's Disney magic for you.

We finished up with the left side of the park, so we moved back over to the right and took in the Imagination pavilion. There are two attractions here. The first is Honey I Shrunk the Audience, based on the series of Honey I Shrunk movies. It's a fun show, but the same at DL and WDW (and I assume Tokyo and Paris). It's well worth going to, although it does feature a few scary moments that might shake up some of the younger ones.

The same cannot be said for Journey into Your Imagination, which was recently revamped from it's long standing version to a new one featuring lots of light and visual effects. I was pretty bored with this ride, and most of those around me seemed to agree. I didn't ride the original, but if only based on the song of the old ride, I think it was better. IMHO they should bring back the old version, it certainly could not be worse.

This finished up the Future World part of the park for us. We didn't do Test Track, in part because we are a bit wimpy when it comes to thrill rides and mostly because we just didn't want to make the effort. The waits were usually 30-45 minutes, though you could do Fast pass, but we just didn't want to take the trouble this time. I suspect that since TT is a GM product and Brian is a former GM employee that he will make us ride when we hopefully meet him at WDW in October 2000.

We next headed into World Showcase. It was getting close to noon when we'd planned to meet Judimouse and Andy. We took a quick relook at the UK pavilion and then moved along the showcase, taking a quick glance at Japan, Morocco and France, planning to return later. We made it to American Adventure on time, but didn't see either of our friends. However since they were leaving today, we understood.

We were pretty hungry, so we stopped in at AA and had good old American chicken lunches along with our requisite cokes. The food was actually pretty good, but we were also pretty hungry. Since we were here we decided to check out the show. Luckily we arrived just as a show was going on in the central lobby.

The AA is a huge building which is based on Independence Hall, made of thousands of HAND MADE bricks, which is pretty darn impressive. In the lobby, the Voices of Liberty, a chorale group were putting on a show of traditional holiday music, it was very nice, and these folks can really sing ! We then took in he show, which is a review of American history hosted by animatronic Ben Franklin and Mark Twain. As an American, I'm a tad biased, but I still think it was a good show.

After the American show we backtracked and looked around Morocco and Japan, but we didn't get to France (I actually think we forgot, but whose counting). Neither Morocco or Japan offer any shows or rides, but they do offer some great theming and some wonderful shops (Lori likes that better than me, but I was in a pretty mellow mood by now and it was interesting to see all of the different stuff).

We then headed over to the Italian pavilion, which has a courtyard like St Marks Plaza. Again, I've never been to Italy, but it looked pretty good to me. While Lori did some shopping I sat in the courtyard and listened to a classical music rock group which performed some beautiful music. Again, this was a Disney moment as I just felt like I was really off in some Italian plaza listening to music.

They also had performers out dressed in medieval costume and providing quite a show dancing to the music and entertaining the guests (frequently by posing behind the guest without their knowing it, much to the amusement of others).

We headed down to Germany next, which is a sort of Bavarian village setup. Lori enjoyed looking around the courtyard and the shops. We also stopped at a fountain where N'Sync (yes them again) had been interviewed. Lori was really sad about missing the show, so posing here for a photo helped her feel a bit better. (by the way, I don't mean to give the impression she's the only fan in the house, but she probably is the biggest one).

After Germany we moved down to China, which offers a series of shops as well as a wonderful 360 circle vision movie. One of the locations featured in the movie is the Temple of Heaven in Peking, one of the prettiest temples in the world. When you come out of the theater, you are looking right at a perfect replica of the temple, something you noticed when you went in, but didn't realize how perfect the replica was.

After China we stopped in Norway and had a quick snack, then went on the boat ride in the pavilion, which offers the history of Norway a'la Pirates of the Caribbean. It's one of the most enjoyable rides in Epcot and we made a point to ride it again.

The last place on the showcase was Mexico. This wasn't as big a treat for us since we are from the Southwest originally and live in an area with a significant Hispanic population, so we are more familiar with Mexican culture. Perhaps because of that we found the boat ride rather insulting and stereotypical. More annoying was the song, which is enough to drive you nuts. I've always liked Small World, despite the critics, but this song could be used to torture spies for information. IMHO you should skip the boat and look around the rest of the pavilion.

By now it was getting to be close to 6 and we were pretty hungry. We'd noticed a fish and chips stand in the UK pavilion so we decided to go there. While I stood in line waiting for food, Lori went to a nearby food cart and got us some sodas. At lunch I'd joked with Lori about how silly it was for us to be surrounded by all kinds of international food and yet end up eating American food. As I stood in line I noticed everyone but me was English, so I suppose everyone likes to stick close to home. Our meal cost with tax $ 18.

There weren't any tables nearby, so we wandered over to the International Gateway (which leads to the Epcot resort area) and grabbed a seat on a bench. Not long after we sat down we heard an announcement that the Tapestry of Nations show was starting, and to our delight we saw we had a perfect view because they were keeping the gateway clear of people, so we could just look right at the show.

The food was pretty good, not spectacular, but good fish and fries. The Tapestry show starts with a series of drum beats from around the showcase that gradually blend into one. The parade features huge (and I mean huge) drums, acrobats, tall (10 foot plus) puppets and so on. You've probably seen the show featured on TV commercials. The show is a good one, and the music is some of the catchiest Disney has come up with. All around us people watching the show were caught up in the beat and began to dance. I'm not much of a dancer, but had a great time making a fool of myself along with everyone else.

After the Tapestry show we worked our way down to the American Adventure to catch the 6:45 Candlelight Processional show in the American Gardens Theater. We couldn't get inside, as seating is limited, but it's an open theater and so we could hear the show from seats across the way. This is the big Christmas concert, and it was very well done. A combination of traditional and modern music, it ends with the Hallelujah Chorus and puts everyone in the holiday mood.

We looked around the showcase for a while longer, but by 8 or so decided to head back to Dixie Landings since we had to check out the next morning. We were home by 9 and started packing our bags, then kicked back for the night.

Wednesday December 8 : Trip Day #9 (Leave Dixie Landings, Visit Caribbean Beach, Check in Wilderness Lodge, Magic Kingdom)

Today was check out day at Dixie Landings. Check out time is 11am, so we made sure we were up early so we'd get over to Caribbean Beach and get a good room before the crowds showed up later in the day. While Lori did some last minute packing I took out the video camera our Dad had loaned us and took some pictures around the hotel grounds, then returned to the room and got Lori to join me for some filming of our room.

We headed to the car and packed up. We made a quick stop at the front desk to check out (had we known we could ask to extend our stay, we probably would have). Our only bill was $ 42 for the fridge we never used. On future trips we probably won't bother as we rarely had things to put in there, although I'm sure some families would use them alot.

We drove over to Caribbean Beach and checked in. They had a room ready for us, but it wasn't in a very good location and Lori suggested we wait. They checked again and told us they would have a better room ready in a few hours, so we decided to take it. This left us with a few hours to kill, and we were hungry so we decided to get lunch. As it turns out it would be a very expensive meal.

We'd tried to do a lot of resort hopping, checking out all of the hotels. By now we'd seen most of the Epcot hotels, the Downtown Disney hotels, the Animal Kingdom area hotels and all of the MK hotels except Wilderness Lodge. So we decided to go there for lunch, as we'd been told Whispering Canyon Cafe had good food.

We drove over to WL, parked our car and walked in. We entered the lobby and stopped short at what can only be described as spectacular. The WL is a seven story tall building and it has an open central lobby reaching all the way to the top, surrounded by balconies leading to the hallways where the rooms are. In the center of the lobby is a huge Christmas tree, all decked out for the holiday. In one corner is a seven story tall fireplace made of stone.

A waterfall starts at a spring in the lobby and leads outside to the main pool. The central courtyard offers a view of Bay Lake (just to the east/right of Seven Seas Lagoon). Even though you are close to the MK, the area is surrounded by trees which make you feel like you are in an isolated forest retreat. Needless to say we were impressed, and both instantly wanted to stay there (we'd always considered WL but had passed due to the expense, which now became less of an issue).

On a lark, we went to the front desk to see if they had a discounted room available. We figured that there was no way we could just walk up and get a room for 7 nights, or if we could it would cost way too much money. To our shock, they not only had a woods view room available for 7 nights, but they also had it with a discount: $ 180 per night, $ 200 with tax. We could have gotten a courtyard view for $ 225 a night ($ 250 with tax), but decided that $ 250 was too much. We told them we'd think about it over lunch.

We went to the Whispering Canyon and got two of the best grilled chicken sandwiches we'd ever tasted, served with a huge platter of fries and our ever present cokes. For dessert we had a chocolate indulgence treat consisting of rich dark chocolate fudge. The meal was great and cost $ 25 with tax and tip, or alot more with tax, tip and room upgrade.

By now I knew we were going to stay here, and I suspect Lori did too, but we were raised by our parents to be responsible, and dumping an extra $ 600 for a room seemed pretty frivolous. But when I started to look at the fact that we were way under budget on food, and we'd also passed on some of the off site trips we'd planned, I realized we could upgrade and still spend about what we'd planned.

We had considered going down to Disneyland for the big New Years Eve celebrations, and so it came down to a choice. We could either do Disneyland for a few days or we could do this treat. We thought about it and figured Disneyland would be way too crowded for Y2K, and it would be hard to justify a second trip so soon after this one. After a bit more soul searching, we headed to the front desk.

Our check in clerk was smiling as we walked up, she'd known we were coming back the whole time. She called CBR and arranged to transfer our whole deposit, including the amount we would theoretically lose because of the lateness of our change. We were assigned room 4104, woods view facing the construction for the Disney Wilderness Lodge Villas. This was not a major problem as they worked from 9-5, and we would usually be in the parks. Also, I'm a frustrated Imagineer/architect, so watching the building in progress was fun. Just to give you an idea of where we were, I'll try another diagram (ouch).

<----Magic Kingdom this direction Fort Wilderness this direction-------->

Bay Lake Bay Lake Bay Lake Bay Lake Bay Lake

Boat Dock Fire rock geyser Beach area

Open walkway to dock

| Hot tubs |

Forested | Pool |Our room Wilderness Villas

Area | | Construction

| Waterfall area | Lots of trees as well

|______________________________ |

Main entrance/parking lots Covered walkway to Dept

Bus depot

Hopefully this gives you an idea of how the hotel is laid out. The lines represent the wings of the hotel which house hundreds of rooms. The gift shop and front desk area are located on 'our' side of the hotel while the restaurants and laundry facilities are located on the MK side of the hotel. Our view did look on to the construction but it also gave us a view of the walkway down to the bus depot and lots and lots of trees. In many ways it reminded me of the views I get from Lake Tahoe, lots of pretty nature.

Since we were splurging on the room, we also went ahead and gave our bags to Bell Services, who quickly brought us up our bags, although we passed on Valet Parking, doing it ourselves. We got unpacked and relaxed at the hotel for a while, and I went downstairs and made a few business calls, while Lori rested. We called home to tell people where we ended up staying.

I also called one of my best friends who now lives in the Orlando area. He and I grew up together and so I was really looking forward to meeting with him. He works retail, managing a series of art galleries, so this is his busy season, but we made plans to meet on Monday. He was bringing along his girlfriend, who I didn't even know about (just shows how easy it is to get out of contact these days).

We decided that since we were paying for it, we'd soak up some of the ambience at the hotel (how's that for fancy language). We spent much of the afternoon enjoying the grounds, looking out at the lake, and so on. I actually think we'd have been pretty happy at Caribbean Beach, we did drive around a little bit and it looked nice, but I'm glad we splurged because we probably won't get to do that for a while.

One of the things we'd been wanting to see was the Main Street Electrical Parade, and the show was running on Wednesdays, so we decided to go to the Magic Kingdom. One note here, there is only one direct route from the Wilderness Lodge to the MK, and that's by boat. I have no problem with this, it's a fun ride. But it does tend to get crowded at times, and so be warned.

We arrived at the park around 5:45 pm and headed over to find a spot to watch the parade. We found many people waiting, but there were some open spots near the Emporium, right where the parade starts. People were avoiding the spot because the view was blocked, but I noticed that this was one of the designated crossing areas, so I gambled that they would keep this open and thus give us a good view. As it turns out, I was right and we had some prime seats. The view was still a bit blocked, but since the floats are quite tall, it didn't matter.

Right on time the street dimmed, the parade was announced and we waited. The last time I saw this show live was back in the 70's, so I was excited. The music began the familiar strains of Baroque Hoedown, and the first float emerged. Then to my dismay, Christmas music joined the mix. It seems someone in power decided that it would be really cute to replace much of the traditional MSEP music with holiday tunes. While the tunes were nicely done, it wasn't the MSEP we all know and love and it didn't work for me. I hope that the parade is still running in October so I can see the real show.

The park closed at 7pm, so we headed out of the park once MSEP was over. There were lots of people headed for Wilderness Lodge, so we had quite a wait. One thing that surprised me was the number of families with kids staying at the Lodge. I'd assumed that most families would either stay at a monorail resort or at a moderate one to save money. But Wilderness seemed to be a real target for families.

After arriving at the Lodge we stopped in at Roaring Forks, the hotel snack bar. We picked up two personal pizzas along with two more refillable mugs. Each hotel has it's own set of mugs, and you can't use them at other resort hotels. The food was good, and cost $ 28 with the mugs and tax included. We settled into the room and relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Thursday December 9 : Trip Day #10 (Laundry, Magic Kingdom and Epcot)

This morning we decided it was time to do some laundry, as we'd been out for more than a week and were running out of clean clothes. We got our stuff together and went downstairs to the laundry room with several large bags of clothing. We'd tried to do this the night before but the room was full, but by mid morning most folks were at the parks, so it was pretty empty in the laundry room.

We spent most of the morning running loads of laundry and watching TV. For lunch we went to the snack bar, right across from the laundry. Lunch was $ 8 because we used our drink mugs. I also took time to return a few more business calls, which thankfully was the last bit of reality to intrude on our vacation.

After we finished up with lunch we decided to head over the the Magic Kingdom. We'd wanted to take some time to videotape the park, and figured this was a good day to do it. We caught the boat and rode over. For those taking the boat I'd suggest riding in the back, it's more peaceful and offers a better view than the inside cabin.

We got to the MK and headed through the gates. We were momentarily stopped at the gates by what I think may have been a Y2K problem. My AP kept being rejected as expired, but then someone walked over and waved me through, saying it was happening like that all over the park. I suspect the computers slipped up a bit. I know there have been questions about AP's and how well the system works. For those who don't know, they have a rather unique system with AP's at WDW.

In California the AP's are hard plastic cards with a photo on them. This prevents you from giving the AP to someone else. I'm actually not sure why they care who uses the AP, as long as it only gets used once each day, but that's another story.

In Florida, by contrast, AP's are just paper like all of the other tickets. When you go through the gate the first time, you put your fingers inside this little sensor, which reads the ratio of the