Trip Reports

Honeymoon Trip Report

November 13 - 20, 1999 Planned

September 11 - 18, 1999 Actual

About Us

Ben - 25, thrill-ride enthusiast, generally goes along with whatever I want, two previous onsite trips (with the ex girlfriends - grrr! )
Michelle - 23, obsessive-compulsive planner, only day trips in the past
Planning

INITIAL PRE TRIP PLANNING

Research

Since I am a hopeless sufferer of OCD, a trip to Disney World is pretty much planning heaven. I started researching for my November, 1999 trip around June 1998. I went to several bookstores and skimmed pretty much every book I found, buying the Unofficial Guide (Sehlinger) and the Birnbaum for Adults book. I also wasted innumerable hours at work surfing the web, sifting through the good, the bad, and the ugly. Having said that, both Deb Wills’ and Brian Bennett’s sites have been utterly PRICELESS in the planning of this trip. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Hotel Saga

We agreed from the beginning that we wanted one of the deluxe resorts - nothing wrong with the moderates (or even the All Stars), but this being a honeymoon trip, we were going all out. Ben originally wanted to stay at the Polynesian (Poly). I flat out refused, having read some very bad things about the condition of the place. (The phrase “Over my dead body are we staying at that place!” was used more than once.) I really wanted the Yacht or Beach Club, since we’ll probably spend more time at Epcot and MGM, but when we went to our travel agent (The Saint) in December, we found that because of MKC discounts, we could get the Grand Floridian (GF) for $239/night. We jumped at the chance, and booked a room for November 14 - 21, Sunday to Sunday because there was no availability Saturday the 13th. About a week later, it occurred to me that a king-size bed would be a good thing, so I called The Saint, who changed our reservation to reflect that request.

Then the buyer’s regret set in. I started reading not-overly-complimentary things about the GF, along the lines of “to stuffy,” “nice but not THAT nice,” etc. Ironically, at the same time, I started hearing GREAT things about the Poly - most importantly, that the recent renovation had solved the repair problems, and the proximity to the TTC started to REALLY appeal to me. (I am not patient enough to wait very long for a bus, and we can’t get a rental car.) So one day, I tried to casually suggest switching our reservation to the Poly. After getting teased for my 180 switch, Ben agreed, and I called The Saint, who switched us to a garden view room in the Poly for $219/night, from Saturday to Saturday. I then had to call her AGAIN, because I’d forgotten to request the specific buildings I’m hoping for (the ones closest to the TTC). I’m hoping not to waffle again, but stay tuned - there’s still six more months! J

Restaurants

Along the lines of the only-deluxe-hotels plan, we’ve decided to do all the sit-down eating we can, and not worry about the bill (until we get home!) After an incredibly OC couple of hours in which Ben and I separately rated EVERY sit down restaurant in WDW (including all parks, all hotels, Boardwalk, Pleasure Island, and Downtown Disney), and then combined our scores to come up with an index (I told you I was obsessive), we are going to try very hard to hit the following:

MK: Liberty Tree Inn (lunch), Cinderella’s (dinner)
MGM: Hollywood Brown Derby
Epcot: Chefs de France, Teppanyaki Dining Room
Beach Club: Cape May Café (dinner clam bake)
Yacht Club: Yachtsman Steakhouse
GF: Narcoosee’s, and possibly the Afternoon Tea
Poly: O’hana’s
Pleasure Island: Fulton’s Crab House
We had initially included several other restaurants we’d heard had great food (Artist Point, Victoria & Albert’s, California Grill, etc.), but decided against them because we’re not into “fancy” food. Don’t get me wrong, I eat more than meatloaf and mashed potatoes, but “poached deer with raspberry lime vinaigrette and salmon couscous” doesn’t do much for me. (Yes, I made that up, and I’m exaggerating. But not by much, according to some of the menus I’ve seen!)

Parks

I am planning on waiting until just before we go to make the “which park on which day” decision. Neither one of us are morning people, so we’re probably going on the “Day After Early Entry” plan. We want to do a day each at the four main parks, probably a half day at Blizzard Beach (Typhoon Lagoon will probably be closed for rehab during our trip), and fill the rest with re-visits to our favorite attractions and (much to Ben’s dismay) plenty of shopping. I won’t bore anyone with the complete list of attractions we plan on doing (another instance where we individually rated each and every item), but the summary is that we won’t do many (if any) shows, neither of us could care about the simulator rides, I will take the “chicken exit” on all mountains but Splash, and a vast amount of time will spent in the Muppet show! J We plan on (heaven forbid) having at least some time to relax and enjoy our vacation.

Admission

We will “officially” be at WDW for 8 days, but I don’t really think we’ll get much out of our arrival or departure days. The initial plan was to get 6 day hoppers, and spend the first and last days on the Great Pressed Quarter Quest, and/or napping in a Poly hammock. Then they announced the $169/night Poly summer rate for AP holders. I’m going to wait until they announce the rates for November - if it’s anywhere near as good a deal as the summer rate, I’ll go ahead and buy AP’s, even though we probably won’t get a chance to use them more than once.

Transportation

We live just outside of Dayton, Ohio, and are only about 20 minutes from the airport. However, there are no direct flights out of Dayton; if we drive the extra 30 minutes to Cincinnati or Columbus, we can get a nonstop flight to Orlando, that is about half the total flight time, for less money than a stopover flight from Dayton - go figure!

If we can find a way, we’d like to get a rental car; however, if that doesn’t work out, we’ll probably go with Tiffany Town Car. It will only be about $25 more than Mears, and I’ll gladly pay that to have a private car that goes only where we want it to go.

END OF JULY UPDATE

Transportation

My Aunt Marie, who lives about 45 minutes outside of Orlando, solved the shuttle/town car/rental car dilemma. She's graciously offered to pick us up at the airport (and take us out to Narcoosee's!), and return us as well. This way, we can just get taxis for the two resort dinners we're planning, and save both money and hassle - yippee!

I was able to book tickets on a Delta flight out of Columbus, for $178 each. They've since gone down about $20, so when I have a minute I need to go to the airport and get a voucher for the difference. (This was a pleasant surprise - I figured I was out of luck when the price went down, but their customer service people said the difference could be applied to a future flight.) It's a non-stop flight, so my "why oh why oh why aren't we there yet???" time will be reduced to about 2 hours.

Admission

The consensus on RADP seems to be that there won't be any AP rates for the Poly in November (there weren't any last year, plus the Millennium celebration will be going on), so I went ahead and added 8-day UMP's to my hotel reservation. The convenience of not having to count days and especially "plus uses" was worth the extra ~$100 over the 6 Day Hopper Plus passes.

Restaurants

We eliminated Fulton's Crab House, because Ben was afraid he'd get "seafood-ed out." We also decided to try Victoria & Albert's - Kathy Kula's latest trip report with the wonderful food descriptions convinced us that the food won't be too fancy. Thank you, Kathy! I was able to secure all the PS times I wanted so far. I will still need to call in September to try to get PS's for the Liberty Tree Tavern and Cinderella's Royal Table (60 days is the maximum allowable for future bookings). I'm not TOO worried, though, because I think it's just the character meals that are really difficult to book there, and we're not eating at those times.

Basic Schedule for the Trip

Neither of us are morning people, so the only day we plan on getting anywhere before 10:00 is Animal Kingdom day - we HOPE to be there by 8:00, but I'll have to keep my fingers crossed!

Meal budget was sanity-checked for me by several RADPers (thanks to all!), based on the fact that neither one of us drink to speak of.

Date
Park
Lunch
Dinner
Misc.

11/13/99
None
on plane
Narcoosee’s $0 (Marie’s wedding gift)
Resort-hopping, maybe PI

11/14/99
MK
Liberty Tree Tavern $40
Cinderella’s $75

11/15/99
Epcot
Chefs de France $50
Teppanyaki Grill $60

11/16/99
AK
Counter service $20
Victoria & Albert’s $250
PI, if we can move after we eat at V&A’s!

11/17/99
Blizzard Beach
Counter service $20
Yachtsman Steakhouse $75
Maybe DisneyQuest

11/18/99
MGM
Hollywood Brown Derby $40
Cape May Café $50

11/19/99
none
Counter service $20
‘Ohana $50
Downtown Disney shopping, plus DisneyQuest (if not on 11/17)

11/20/99
(probably) Epcot
Counter service $20
Counter service $20
Leave by 7:00PM to catch our 8:30 flight


Shameless Commercial (it's not for me, so I don't feel bad)...Run, don't walk, and buy a copy of the Walt Disney World PassPorter. I LOVE this guidebook, and I've got about five others sitting in my bookcase. The resort descriptions are the best I've read, and the "PassPockets" are WONDERFUL for organizing the huge volume of stuff I've accumulated, before I've even left home! The authors describe its features better than I do, so check them out at www.passporter.com. I've never seen the book for sale in a bookstore, but the publisher sells it on their site, and you can also link to it through Deb Wills' site, www.wdwig.com.

BEGINNING OF AUGUST UPDATE

[Yes, indeed, only about four days after the previous update. D’oh!]

Okay, so I’d been counting down the days, and the number was just too big. So, out of nowhere, I called Ben and asked if we could move everything up to September. Being the wonderfully accommodating man that he is, he agreed. [Note to Brian Bennett - please forgive me for putting off the report for so long!!!] I cancelled our November reservation, and managed to secure one for September 11th through the 18th (Saturday to Saturday) at the Poly, with the $169 AP rate - woohoo! I ran out to the Disney Store that night after work and ordered PAPs for both of us. I called and moved all the PSs I’d made up to September, got a new flight, leaving Columbus on Friday the 10th, and arranged with my aunt who lives an hour south of Orlando to pick us up at the airport, and spend Friday night at her house. Never let it be said that I am inflexible once I’ve made plans!! J

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(FINALLY) THE ACTUAL TRIP REPORT

First of all, an apology for being a slacker and putting off the writing of this trip report for three (gulp!) months. Take pity, please - I’m a newlywed! J At any rate, assuming you’ve read through all the pre-trip babble and are still with me, here we go…

Friday, 9/10/99 The Journey…

… was largely uneventful, although it seemed ENDLESS. We left our apartment in Dayton at 9:00 for our 12:30 flight out of Columbus - only an hour and a half drive away, but I was paranoid. Arrived at the airport, checked in, got on plane, whined about small seats, asked 580 times how much longer the flight was going to be, bla bla bla. Landed in Orlando around 2:15 - a little early (scheduled for 2:30). Got our bags with no problems (yea!), and headed off to my Aunt’s house for the night. (If you cheated and skipped past the pre-trip report, we’re spending the night at her house Friday, and she’s driving us to the Poly Saturday morning.) Somehow managed to get to sleep that night.

Saturday, 9/11/99 Arrival!!! Shopping at Downtown Disney, (briefly) Magic Kingdom, Epcot

We got to the Poly at around 11:00 - the line to check in looked a bit fierce, but we were at the counter in less than 10 minutes. For family travelers, there is a TV in the Poly foyer constantly showing feature cartoons (when we checked in, I think it was The Little Mermaid) with appropriately-sized seating. There was also a Polynesian woman (Hawaiian? I’m not sure…) playing the ukulele, singing, and playing games with the kids brave enough to participate. I had requested either Oahu, Moorea or Pago-Pago (these are the old names - the PassPorter WDW site has a list of the new ones) building, and we got a first floor room in Oahu, that turned out to be only 3 rooms down from the main entrance - a BIG plus with tired feet, let me tell you! There was also no problem with the early check-in.

We’d decided to go to Downtown Disney with my aunt and find our Christmas presents, but we went to the room first to check it out and drop our stuff. She disappeared into the hallway after we opened the door, and I heard her arguing quietly with the bellman. It turned out, she’d ordered us a large flower arrangement, bottle of champagne, and toasting flutes that were supposed to be in the room when we got there, but weren’t. All but the champagne was delivered while we were out running around that day - they can’t deliver alcohol to an empty room, so we called the front desk, and they sent a runner over with it. With the gifts from my aunt, they also delivered a Mickey & Minnie picture frame, a rose, and a Happy Honeymoon from the Poly card. Very cute! and a nice touch.

We went to the DTD Marketplace, and bought a cheesy-but-cool ankle bracelet for me, 22 postcards to send to various and sundry recipients, an ivory Mickey-head candle and a red Mickey-head candle holder, and about $75 worth of stuff in the Christmas shop that was our Christmas present from Aunt Marie. We went to lunch at Fulton’s Crab House [it was put back in the plan, since we weren’t going to go to Narcoosee’s that night], where I impressed my fellow travelers by knowing to request the Constellation room. (Those 52 guide books I read before our trip came in handy! J ) The food was good, but not great. I don’t remember what we spent - Marie paid for lunch, so the receipt isn’t stored in my PassPorter! I did manage to embarrass myself a bit by almost laying down on the floor to take an appropriate picture of the VERY cool ceiling. This was Ben’s first clue that I was going to be more obsessive than usual on this vacation. Go figure.

Marie dropped us off back at the Poly, and we took the Monorail over to the Magic Kingdom to get our annual passes activated. (We didn’t plan on doing much at the MK, but if it turned out there was a problem, I’d rather be 5 minutes from our hotel than 20.) You’re supposed to get them activated at Guest Services outside the gate, but it was MOBBED by people waiting in line for their Night of Joy bracelets. Literally about 250 people in one, very slow-moving line. We went to one of the turnstiles and told our sad tale, and the kind CM let us through - she said she’d had to do the same for several people that day. We got the passes activated at the Main Street Guest Services with no problem at all. Also, the entire trip, we didn’t have one single problem with the fingerprint scanners. Woohoo!

We walked around TomorrowLand for a few minutes, but there were HUGE lines for every attraction, what with the Night of Joy influx of people, so we decided to bail for that night - we’d have plenty of time on Sunday, our planned MK day.

We took the Monorail over to Epcot - it was around 6:30 by that time, and we were getting hungry. We stopped to see HISTA - Ben had seen it on a previous trip, but I’d never gone. Wait time was about 15 minutes - just the length of the previous show. I’d been wanting to try Le Cellier, and had heard how it was this big, secret place that you could walk into at noon on July 4th and get a table. First big surprise of the trip - Le Cellier had a wait time of over an hour. Yipes. Plus, it had started to rain. Yipes again. We slogged over to Morocco, and thankfully, Restaurant Marrakesh lived up to its walk-in reputation. We ordered the Diffa for Two - it’s a sampler meal sort of thing - includes soup, a beef dish, couscous, a chicken dish, various kinds of baklava, and something else that I’m forgetting, I’m sure. The food was wonderful, and I’m not usually a very ethnic-food kind of girl. The service was also GREAT. We had a waiter and a bus boy, and both were very attentive and very friendly. I asked for lots of ice in my water when we sat down, as I was melting from the heat, and the bus boy brought me TWO glasses of lots-of-ice water, and kept them filled all night. The funny for the day was Ben coming over to my side of the table to “sit by you, honey,” coincidentally when the belly dancer started doing her thing on the side of the room I was facing.

We stayed at Epcot for Illuminations, then took the Monorail back to the TTC, and walked, for the first and last time, back to our room from there. We hadn’t even walked much that day, but another walk at the end of a long day was not in the cards - after that first trip, we took the TTC-Poly Monorail.

Expenses:

Shopping: $36.50 (does not include our Christmas gifts, as we - obviously - didn’t pay)
Dinner at Marrakesh: $72
Restaurants (scale is icky, okay, good, great, and oh-my-god):

Fulton’s Crab House: okay food, okay service - nothing special but the ambiance of the Constellation room
Restaurant Marrakesh - great food, great service
Attractions (scale is skip it, if you have time, see it, and run-don’t-walk):

HISTA: see it
Sunday, 9/12/99 Magic Kingdom, Blizzard Beach, Boardwalk

We hauled ourselves out of bed around 10:00 and made it to MK by 11:15ish. We walked around a bit, and then headed to lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern. The food there was some of the best we had, and it was very reasonably priced. We split a mushroom crepe appetizer and a seafood pasta entrée and were both STUFFED. The portions there are very, very big. I bought a stuffed Mickey for my cousin at one of the Main Street shops and had it sent back to the Poly. At some point, we went to the Diamond Horseshoe Revue for ice cream cones. We went on Splash Mountain, which was our longest wait, about 15 minutes. Then the Haunted Mansion (5 minutes), Alien Encounter which scared the bejesus out of me, even after I’d read the entire script on the Web (5 minutes), the TomorrowLand Transit Authority (walk on), and Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin twice, both walk-ons. Ben LOVED the Space Ranger Spin (no big surprise, since I had to boot him off the computer playing StarCraft to write this trip report), but it really sort of irritated me. Granted, I’m not the biggest video-game player in the world, but I’m not completely incompetent, and I had no idea whatsoever what I was doing on this ride. The first trip, I scored 10,000 ish, and the second trip, 100,000 - but here’s the kicker - both times, I have no idea HOW I scored any points. I pretty much got to the point where I just pointed the gun in one direction and held down the trigger. I couldn’t figure out how to actually hit anything on purpose. C’est la vie, I guess.

We took a bus over to Blizzard Beach for some badly needed cooling off. The lazy-river ride was wonderful for those purposes, but I really thought it was too darn hot to be tromping up a mountain to ride anything else. We waited the 15 minutes for the chair lift, and went on Teamboat Springs, the family-sized river raft ride. I entertained the CM’s at the top - they kept telling people to “Jump, jump!!” into the raft, but everyone was either just stepping into it, or giving a half-hearted two-foot hop. I counted on fate not to break an arm on my honeymoon, and did a tuck-roll-leap into the thing. Woohoo! The ride was fun - even with only two people in the raft, it was very fast. People who load up the raft with a whole family must really FLY. We indulged in a turkey leg (horribly messy, but tasty and just cavemanish enough to be big fun), and then took a bus back to the MK. We walked around for another hour or so until it was time for our seating at Cinderella’s Royal Table.

I have to say, I’d read that the food at Cindy’s has improved greatly the last few years, and if that’s true, I shudder to think what it must have been like before! The service was very good, and we got a very cute set of champagne flutes for being on our honeymoon, but the food was pretty darn icky. We both ordered prime rib - the house specialty, and it was only about half as good as you’d get at a Steak&Ale or similar place. Also, and just bringing it up makes me want to be ill, but their “root smash” is the most God-awful thing I have ever witnessed being done to an innocent potato in my whole life. The idea here seems to be, “Hey, you know all that crap we’ve got sitting around in the kitchen? Let’s throw it in with the mashed potatoes!” Some of it (mushrooms, carrots) was weird but not disgusting. Then I bit into a something, I still don’t know what, that, if death has a taste, this is it. On the bright side, we did get the table right by the main picture window (playing the honeymoon card again), and the view was awesome.

We then took a bus to the Boardwalk. Maybe it’s because it was the off season, but the summary is: big, dull dud. A few face painters, hair braiders, and the like. Nothing to write home about. We took a taxi back to the Poly - and I think the $10 is very, very, very cheap to avoid two long bus rides with a stop over.

Expenses:

Breakfast at Captain Cooks at the Poly: $6.50
Stuffed Mickey: $13
Ice cream cones: $5.50
Lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern: $25
Turkey leg at BB: $7
Dinner at Cinderella’s Royal Table: $70
Taxi from the Boardwalk to the Poly: $10
Restaurants:

Liberty Tree Tavern - service good, food great
Cinderella’s Royal Table - service great, ambiance great, food icky
Monday, 9/13/99 Epcot

The first thing we did was buy a frame-magnet and a British Flag Mickey-head pin. Don’t ask me why, and I hope I don’t offend the heck out of British report-readers, but that pin made me feel like Ginger Spice or someone similarly cool. Totally put me in a great mood the entire day. Yet another sign that I’m pretty weird. I digress.

We hiked over to France for our lunch seating at Chefs de France, stopping in one of the shops to buy a very cool thing that’s supposed to be a trivet with spices that show through the plastic, but I’ve hung on the wall. I can’t explain it - trust me, I had to have it. Again playing the honeymoon card, we got one of the best tables - right by the picture windows looking out at the water. We also got free kir royales. I don’t remember what I ate, exactly, but I remember it being pretty good. Ben’s liked his, too, but he wasn’t expecting the French restaurant sized portions. The ambiance and attentive service won him over, though.

We wandered around World Showcase for a while, browsing in the shops and enjoying a kaki gori and a cannoli. (It’s a wonder we both didn’t gain 20 pounds that week!!) Then we headed back to Future World and did some rides. Test Track singles line was a walk on. Big, big fun, and I HIGHLY recommend the singles line [we were, in fact, even in the same car]. Then Cranium Command, another walk on. We’d both seen this one before, but still really like it. Universe of Energy - the Ellen and Bill Nye intro was cute, but the main portion seemed pretty dated. It’s a good thing we did this before Countdown to Extinction at Animal Kingdom. As is was, I fought to stay awake. Spaceship Earth had lines a couple of times we walked by, but we caught it at a slow point and walked on. We spent almost an hour and a half in the Living Seas - we’re both pretty fascinated by zoos, aquariums, and such. Our only wait of the day was 10 minutes at the Land boat ride - I have the least-green thumb in the world, but I think the futuristic growing method stuff is cool.

We then walked back around to Japan for our dinner at the Teppanyaki Dining Room. We ordered the Samurai dinner for two, which includes soup, salad, shrimp appetizer, lobster, and filet mignon. (You’ve gotta love the total lack of financial guilt being on a honeymoon gives you!) I really enjoy this kind of restaurant at home, and the Disney version is even better.

We took the monorails back to the Poly, stocked up on snacks for Monday Night Football (it was the Patriots vs. the Dolphins game, I think), and bought some cute blue tumblers with Mickey heads in the plastic.

Expenses:

Breakfast in the Innoventions pizza place $7.50
Frame magnet and Union Jack Mickey pin $13.00
Trivet-thingie in France $39.50
Tumblers (4) $21.50
Cannoli $4.50
Kaki Gori $2.00
Lunch at Chefs de France $46.00
Dinner at Teppanyaki Dining Room $77.00
Football snacks $25.00
Restaurants:

Chefs de France: good service, good/great food - but small portions
Teppanyaki Dining Room: good service, great food
Attractions:

Test Track: run-don’t-walk
Cranium Command: see it
Universe of Energy: skip it
Spaceship Earth: see it
Living Seas: run-don’t-walk - - but we’re biased
Land Boat Ride: if you have time
Tuesday, 9/14/99 Animal Kingdom, the Hysteria of Floyd

We somehow managed to be at Animal Kingdom for the gate opening at the ungodly hour of 8:00AM. We fast-walked back to Kilimanjaro Safaris, so we could see it in the relative cool. The wait was only about 5 minutes, and we saw just about everything - both lions, the elephants, all sorts of herd animals. At one point, I was trying to take a picture of a very cute emu or some such, about 10 feet away from the vehicle. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see that there’s another one, literally about 6 inches from my hand. (We were in the very last row of the Jeep - which seemed like a bad thing when we got on, but turned out well!) We agreed with the general sentiment on RADP - keep the animals, lose the “plot.” We then walked back through the Pangani Forest Trail, and saw very, very, very cute baby hippos and the bachelor gorilla.

We stopped in Tusker’s for some breakfast, and I was confronted with a horrifying fact - the people who created the crossanwiches there have talked to the perpetrators of the root smash at Cindy’s. Ick. Enough said.

We took the train over to Conservation Station (about 5 minute wait) and poked around a bit. Ben had fun trying to do the puzzle the gorillas (? Chimps? I’m not sure) have to do to get nuts. In the train station waiting to go back to the main part of the park, we heard a CM talking about Hurricane Floyd - apparently, unbeknownst to us this thing was going about 155 MPH and headed straight for Orlando. I pretty much took the approach that if it was going to hit, it would hit, and there wasn’t much I could do about it. Other than leave in the middle of my honeymoon, and that was not happening. Everyone else, however, started getting pretty fluttery. Just a sign of the things to come.

We took the train back, and went to see It’s Tough to Be a Bug - very cute, although I had some trouble with the 3D effects. They kept separating on me for some reason - not a problem I had in Muppets or HISTA. We went on Kali River Rapids, which was a pretty big disappointment, even after being prepared by the descriptions on RADP. We didn’t get a bit wet, and I don’t know how you possibly could. The Maharajah Jungle Trek was great - we saw one of the tigers lounging right by the window, like the world’s biggest Garfield. Very, very impressive. Ben wanted to linger in the bat-house. That lasted about 5 seconds, and I was out of there. Give me a nice, ferocious tiger any day, thank you. We went over to DinoLand and waited the 10 minutes for Countdown to Extinction. Very fun, but it hurt my back, so I waited in the lobby while Ben went on it again. They were very nice about letting me wait in line until right up to the cars, and then taking the chicken exit.

At that point, it was hot, humid and generally miserable, and they’d announced that Animal Kingdom, as well as the rest of Disney World would be closing at 4:00 to give them time to prepare for the hurricane. So we headed back to the Poly and ate lunch at the Kona Café (nothing remarkable).

We went back to our room, and I called Victoria & Albert’s to make sure dinner was still on for that night. We’d heard the Poly CMs saying that only the Kona Café would be serving there, so we weren’t too hopeful. The V&A’s CM told me, in her snootiest voice, “This is the Grand Floridian, madame. I assure you we will be open for dinner tonight.” Having been so assured, we took a nap.

We woke up about an hour before our reservation, got dolled up (nice clothes, big hair, the whole nine), and walked over to the Great Ceremonial House to get a cab to the Grand Floridian. The cab-stand CM looked at me like I was nuts, and said everything was closed due to Floyd. The food-and-beverage manager came over at this point (of his own volition - I’d not yet gotten hysterical), listened to the story, and called the GF. Of course, they were completely closed. Plus, by this point, the Kona Café was closed as well. The manager was nice enough to make up boxed dinners (sandwiches, chips and such) for us, in Ducktales boxes, no less, and Ben went off to try to find a deck of cards. The gift shops were closed, and the manager even opened the shop, but to no avail - the smarter people who’d not napped away the afternoon had bought every deck of cards in the resort. At this point, I pretty much just lost it. On my honeymoon, 5 star super romantic dinner planned, all prettified, and I was looking at a night of a Ducktales boxed dinner and not even any cards to pass some time. I started WAILING quite pathetically. The manager obviously had no idea what to do with a weeping female, and that actually helped me shape up, because the look on his face was so funny! He went into the Concierge lounge and made up plates of yummy dessert treat thingies for us, and promised to do whatever he could to find us a deck of cards.

We went back to the room (still sniffling a bit), and started eating our dinners. Before we’d even finished, there was a knock on the door. It was a CM holding a deck of (huge coincidence, since we live in Dayton) Cincinnati Reds cards. They were his personal deck that he keeps in his glove box. He offered them to us for the night, but repeated a couple of times that they were his FAVORITES, and that his name was, “Scott, Scott at the Front Desk.” Really, really, really nice and completely above and beyond the call of duty. The next day, we returned the cards with a $20 bill stuck in the middle of the deck, and filled out CM comment cards for both Scott and the manager, whose name I knew at the time, but has faded.

Of course the best part of this sad tale is, Floyd completely missed Orlando. It rained for a while. End of story. Oops!

Expenses:

Breakfast at Tusker House $13.50
Lunch at Kona Café $21.50
Dinner (boxed) $11.00
Stuffed Pooh $13.00
Banana & Water snack $4.50
Frozen Banana $3.00
Restaurants:

Kona Café: food okay, service okay
Boxed Dinners (not technically a restaurant, but hey): food okay, service oh-my-god! J
Attractions:

Kilimanjaro Safari: run-don’t-walk
Pangani Trail: see it
Conservation Station: if you have time
It’s Tough To Be a Bug: see it
Kali River Rapids: if you have time
Maharajah Jungle Trek: see it
Countdown to Extinction: run-don’t-walk (with a caution to those bothered by jerky rides - no others bothered me, but this one did)
Wednesday, 9/15/99 Disney Quest

Because of Floyd, Disney had planned not to open any of its parks (for the first time since the opening of MK in 1971!!!) Once it turned out that Floyd wasn’t a danger, they were stuck, because they hadn’t scheduled any staff. Animal Kingdom was open - some of the staff there had had to stay over the night to take care of the animals in the event of a disaster. We didn’t want to go back to AK at that point, so we decided to go to lunch and then go check out Disney Quest.

We took the monorail over to the Contemporary, and checked out the California Grill, but the menu sounded a bit too weird for unadventurous me. We went to Chef Mickey’s instead, which has a really nice buffet (soups, various meats, fish, lots of veggie-saurus options, fruit, desserts, pretty much everything you could ask for). The characters were supposed to be Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and Pluto, and they were all there and accounted for. However, the MOST MARVELOUS thing happened - for whatever reason, Mary Poppins and Burt put in a guest appearance!!!!! You must understand, I can talk along with about 90% of the dialogue in Mary Poppins - she is my absolute favorite Disney character, hands down, and I’d been disappointed on Epcot day - I’d been hoping we would find her in the gardens in England. It was just like meeting a rock star, the President, or some such - I could barely form a sentence, I was so excited! I posed with them for a picture, and Mary even told me to, “Stand up straight, please - don’t slouch.” I pretty much could have died happy at that point. I was on cloud nine for the rest of the day.

We did some shopping while we were at the Contemporary. I have to say, I liked the Poly, the atmosphere was fun, but the shopping is pretty paltry compared to what we saw at the other deluxe resorts. I bought another picture frame magnet (this one with the four park icons) and a really cute Mickey America shirt and shorts set.

We took a bus over to Downtown Disney to go to Disney Quest. We’d both been really looking forward to this part of the trip, and thought it was going to be BIG fun. The most important thing you should get out of this trip report is, DO NOT GO TO DISNEY QUEST WHEN IT IS CROWDED. All the cool crowd engineering that’s in place at the parks is totally absent. When you wait in line here, you wait. Standing in one place for 5-10 minutes. Without anything much to look at, even. The Aladdin ride was the most useless - we waited for 45 minutes for a 3 minute “VR” video game that was very, very boring. We did have fun on the Mighty Ducks Pinball game - I had no idea what I was doing, but managed to come in second the first time, and win on the second try. Ben had the movements and strategy all figured out - he came in next to last and dead last. Incompetence can be good.

The Virtual Jungle Cruise was okay, but we were riding with two giggly girls who spoke zero English and kept paddling us towards the bad things that try to eat you. Not good, strategically. But entertaining anyway. We went on the Alien Adventure thing (can’t remember the exact name), and it was fun, but you really need three or preferably four people to do this. Ben was the pilot and I was the gunner, and I thought I was doing a great job. What I didn’t know was that while I was doing swimmingly at killing the bad guys in front of us, there were about 50 behind us, “killing” us left and right. Oops. The Buzz Lightyear bumper-car thing was fun - we got hit about ten times, and the spinning left me pleasantly dizzy for a while.

We took a bus to the Yacht Club for dinner. We had drinks in the Pub-type place while we were waiting for our table. Nice place, but snooty service. Maybe because we hadn’t changed clothes since Disney Quest, and most everyone else was in yacht-y clothes. Whatever. Anyway, we got a great table at the Steakhouse, right by the window. I have to say, the Yacht Club is BEAUTIFUL. If we ever get to do a deluxe-type trip again, this is where I want to stay. The service and food here were both outstanding. We had tomato and mozzarella salads that were the best I have ever tasted. The steak was just okay (weird, since we were in a steakhouse), but the dessert was almost as good as the salads. On the whole, a great dinner that was well worth the big chunk of money we spent.

We took a cab back to the Poly, and called it a day.

Expenses:

Breakfast $18.00
Lunch at Chef Mickey’s $37.00
Dinner at Yachtsman’s Steakhouse $121.00
Disney Quest passes $47.00
Shopping at the Contemporary $49.00
Taxi from Yacht Club to the Poly $14
Restaurants:

Chef Mickey’s: food good, service good (especially for a buffet place)
Yachtsman’s Steakhouse: food oh-my-god!, service great
Attractions:

Aladdin’s Magic Carpet Ride: skip it
Virtual Jungle Cruise: if you have time
Mighty Ducks Pinball: see it
Alien ??? name??: if you have time
Buzz Lightyear bumper-cars thing: see it
Thursday, 9/16/99 MGM

I’m ashamed to say that at this point, I stopped taking notes about rides and such in my trusty PassPorter, so the details are a bit sketchy. We did Muppets 3D and loved it - it’s one of our favorites at all the parks (about a 10 minute wait). Tower of Terror was similarly great, especially the 30 year old woman in front of us who screamed obscenities all the way down, up, down again, etc. (walk on) We also LOVED the new Rock-N-Roller coaster - it was well worth the 15 minute wait. (That doesn’t seem like a long wait, but it’s about the max we waited at anything, except at DisneyQuest.) We went on the Great Movie Ride (walk on), which was fun - I’m very into movies and irritated Ben by being able to name the sources of every clip. *giggle* We got to be the people on the Backlot Tour who get to drench each other, in the little wheel house and on the dock. That was BIG, BIG fun. Especially since Ben got me first, then just saw the little drips coming at him on the dock, and apparently didn’t remember how big the explosion was. The expression on his face was priceless - it was the only time I really wished we were travelling with some friends - I would love a video of the whole thing. The tour itself wasn’t much fun, sad to say. It was really hot and sticky, and the tram moved so darn slowly, it was like standing still out in the sun.

We had lunch at the Brown Derby - I loved this the first time I went, but was a little disappointed this time. Not a bad experience, mind you, just not as good as I remembered. We also stopped in for a snack at the 50’s Prime Time Café. Big mistake, big, huge. Our waitress talked like someone from the Bronx (no offense intended!), with a cold, strangling a cat. Not pleasant to hear this person whining at us and all her other tables about whatever in God’s name it was she was talking about. I really have no clue. Plus, I asked for marinara sauce for my not-very-good fried mushrooms, and she never brought it. Then came back 15 minutes later, and said, “Oh geez. You wanted sauce, didn’t you?” in a tone that assured me I was bothering her. The sauce never appeared. Neither did much of a tip. :Pththththth on her.

Fantasia - I don’t want to say much, but OH MY GOD. This thing is by FAR the coolest day-ender I have ever seen. Loved it, loved it, loved it. We brought a deck of cards to play while we waited, and more than one person remarked that they wished they’d thought of it. I saw the little girl sitting next to me (~9 years old?) looking at my cards when she thought I wasn’t looking, so we invited her to play, and proceeded to have several rousing games of Crazy Eights. She was from just outside of London, was munching on potato chips, which her father snagged every time she looked away, and cracked me up by yelling at him, “Ey, what’s this? Me own father, nicking me crisps!” Totally like watching Americans playing British people on TV, too funny. She was really very sweet, and not running around like an idiot like a lot of the kids there.

We were supposed to eat at the Cape May Café, but when we got over there, they had closed, so we went to the Yacht Club Galley instead. Adequate, but not much more. Not as good a buffet as Chef Mickey’s. Another cab back to the Poly, only $10 this time. I think each driver gets to tweak his meter to suit him. No big, though - still better than a long bus ride, in my opinion.

We hit the Tambu lounge at the Poly just before closing and had some yummy fruity things. J

Expenses:

Breakfast $4.50
Snacks (various) $22.00
Lunch at the Brown Derby $52.00
Dinner at Yacht Club Galley $44.00
Deck of cards $4.50
Stuffed Sorcerer Mickey at Fantasia (I couldn’t resist!!) $13.00
Restaurants:

Brown Derby: food okay, service good
Yacht Club Galley: food okay, service okay
Attractions:

Muppets 3D: run-don’t-walk
Rock N Roller Coaster: run-don’t-walk
Tower of Terror: run-don’t-walk
Great Movie Ride: see it
Backlot Tour: if you have time
Fantasia: run-don’t-walk!!!!!!!
Friday, 9/17/99 MGM, AK

We spent this day going back on the most fun stuff at MGM (my favorite park) and Animal Kingdom. We also went to the bird show at AK, which I thought would be silly, but Ben insisted. As usual (and I hate this), he was right. It was really entertaining, and the birds were very cool.

[really, really paltry notes for this day - sorry!]

We had dinner at ‘Ohana at the Poly, and my only question was why the heck did we wait until our last night to eat here??? The food was great, service was great, and you just can’t have more fun than stuffing yourself with various and sundry meat products if you’re meat-a-sauruses like us. J (For those interested, it included salmon, turkey, sausage, BIG shrimp, and steak. It was all WONDERFUL.)

Expenses:

Snacks and lots of bottled water: $25.00
Rock N Roller T-shirt for Ben: $20.00
Drinks before dinner: $14.00
Dinner at ‘Ohana: $53.00
Restaurant:

‘Ohana: food oh-my-god, service great
Attractions:

Bird show: see it
Saturday, 9/18/99 Outlet Mall

At this point, we’d done everything we wanted to do (pretty much anyway), and really couldn’t face hauling ourselves around a park or parks on our last day. So we called my aunt and asked her to pick us up early, and we’d all go to Belz outlet mall. We had fun there, and bought a few little things, but I think I was too worn out to do much damage.

She took us back to the airport, and we said our goodbyes. We wound up getting home around 2:00 in the morning, at which point, I proceeded to sleep for about 12 hours. A fitting ending to an exhausting but wonderful trip!

SUMMARY AND OTHER STUFF

Poly Notes

Captain Cook’s at the Poly seems pretty similar to the descriptions I’ve read of all the resort fast food places. Acceptable food, large portions, and prices that are real-world-high but Disney-World-reasonable. Our room was right by the “second” (i.e., not-the-one-with-the-water-slide) pool, so we didn’t go to the main pool. Neither were very crowded during our trip, were comfortably heated. We somehow managed to stay at the Poly for seven nights and never once see the Electric Water Pageant. Oops. I’d also wanted to try out the water mice, but never had a chance to do that either. We’ll try to do both on our next trip.

Places We Didn’t Go

Since we were planning to go during Typhoon Lagoon’s rehab time (in November), I hadn’t worked it into our plan. We thought about going on one of the hot afternoons, but didn’t want to deal with the bus ride. We’d really wanted to go to Pleasure Island (I am a major disco lover, shamelessly so, and was looking forward to 8 Trax), but after the long days we had, I just couldn’t imagine getting cleaned up and dancing for hours. That probably makes me a 23-year-old Old Lady, but what can I say? Next trip, definitely! J

Disney Transportation

We had generally very good luck with the bus system the whole week. (Of course, we didn’t use it a WHOLE lot, since we rode the monorail everywhere we could.) Even so, I’m just too impatient for public transportation. I think next time (especially since we won’t be staying at a monorail resort, most likely), we’ll rent a car. Or maybe try to con my aunt into loaning us one of hers for a week? Cross your fingers for me!

The Weather…

… was ungodly hot and sticky every day. I know I have no one to blame but myself for this [since I was the one who moved the trip from November to September], but it made me pretty miserable. I really enjoy just walking around and soaking up the atmosphere - I’m one of those people who can go to a park, not see one show or go on one ride, and be perfectly content - and because of the weather, we would up fast-walking from one air-conditioned place to another. For those of you who feel the same way I do, save yourself the sweatiness and go in the cooler months!! J

$pending $ummary

Journey $426.50

Hotel (Poly AP rate, 7 nights) $1,350.50

PAPs $840

Food $851

Shopping $181.50 (nothing short of a miracle!)

Misc. (taxis, DQ tix, misc.) $119

TOTAL $3,768

…which, for a week, for two people, in a deluxe hotel, who went out of their way to spend mad money on food and such, isn’t too bad. Right? J

OKAY, SHUTTING UP NOW

Thanks for making it this far - you are most certainly a brave and loyal reader! J Please feel free to email me with any questions!

Michelle Hopkins

mhopkins@lmberry.com

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