Trip Reports

Cast:

Julie - DVC Member and Disney Fan

Nathan - DVC Member and Golf Fanatic

Zachary - age 11

Sydney - age 6

Jon & Jill - Julie's parents, celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary

Method of Travel - Plane & Rental Car

Accomodations - Contemporary (Tower Room) & Old Key West (2 Bedroom)

Dates: September 3rd - 8th

Disney Veterans

Some background and Day 1:

We are frequent WDW travelers, but due to other family trips to Maui and the Caribbean the past few years, we had not been to "the world" since 1996. We joined DVC early in 1999 and this trip was our first time staying as members and our first stay at Old Key West.

Since my parents are celebrating their 35th anniversary next month, we asked them to stay with us as our guests. That is one of the many wonderful things re: DVC. We plan on taking our friends and family more often in the future and sharing the magic with them.

All of us were traveling with frequent flyer miles. My parents traveled on TWA and our family traveled on American. Since we were arriving at different times, we planned to rent a car and my parents planned on taking Tiffany Towncar to and from the airport.

Originally, our flight was to leave Central Illinois at 1:00 p.m. and arrive in Orlando at 6:30 p.m. We received a call from AA approx. 6 weeks before leaving to advise that they had moved our flight back and we would arrive at 9:30 p.m. I was not happy with this. Fortunately, Rebecca from AA was most helpful and she was able to get us on the first flight out at 6:55 a.m. with arrival in Orlando at 1:50 p.m. I was thrilled. It was my original preference to travel early in the morning (so that we would have more time at WDW), but there had been no seats left for passengers traveling with frequent flyer miles. Fortunately, due to the inconvenience of the flight changes, they made an exception for us.

My parents were not leaving until 6:00 p.m., with arrival at 12:00 a.m. <yawn>.

Our initial flight from Bloomington to O'Hare was uneventful. We had a 2-hour layover, so we ate breakfast at Chili's in the terminal. We arrived at our connecting gate about 1 hour prior to our 10:15 a.m. flight. We watched our plane arrive, the passengers disembark and our flight crew arrives and boards the plane. And we waited... and waited...then, finally they announce that our plan was unsuitable for flight and they had to locate another plan. I guess that the passengers who just got off that plane should be thankful that they made it! Our crew got off the plane and left. AA did not know how long it would be before locating another plane and could not advise when we would depart. This was frustrating. About an hour later, they announced that a plane landing from Monterey, Mexico would be available for us after it cleared the International terminal at approx. 12:15 or 12:30 p.m. In the meantime, they brought us food and drinks to make the wait a little more painless. This was going to put us in Orlando about 2 hours later. I called WDW-DINE and changed our PS at Liberty Tree Inn from 5:30 p.m. to 6:45 p.m. to give us plenty of time to check in before rushing to the park.

We boarded around 12:15. We had a wonderful crew. The co-pilot had pictures of his children taped to the inside of this cap. I thought this was so sweet and it made sense that when he was flying with his co-workers, this was the easiest way to show pictures of his children. The pilot was very warm and friendly. As we were ready to take off, he asked that all of the children on board raise their hand high above their heads since this would really help the plane to lift off the ground. Of course, Sydney had her hands up immediately. This caused some of the adults around us to chuckle, and they joined it. Very cute. Throughout the flight, the pilot kept the kids informed re: our flight pattern and gave some trivia concerning our plane. It had been in service since 1978 and made over 330,000 landings. He also mentioned that he and the co-pilot were carrying on a family tradition. He said that both of their fathers were pilots and they had actually flown together years ago.

We landed safely and while my husband went to get the luggage and rental car, I went to the Disney store in the airport to pick up our annual passes ($1,196 with MK discount - ouch!). Since we are returning in January and August of 2000, we thought it well worth purchasing annual passes vs. multi-day passes for each trip.

I met Nathan at baggage claim and we walked to National to pick up our car. We had reserved a mid-size car with 1 free weekend day (AA coupon) for $152 total with tax/charges. He told me that National upgraded us to a mini-van for the same price. Excellent news since we would be a bit crowded in a mid-size once my parents joined us.

The thing I really like about National is that you find the lane with your car type and pick our whichever vehicle you want. We got a Safari van (brand new with less than 75 miles on it), packed it and hit the road. One note re: luggage - we are traveling light for this trip. One thing we learned when we stayed at the HHI DVC resort is the wonders of having a washer and dryer. Much less packing is required!

For this first night, we are staying in the Tower at The Contemporary ($176 per night-AP rate). This resort has never appealed to me, but we wanted to stay on the monorail for easy access to MK early entry on Saturday. We love The Poly, but it was completely booked. I had requested MK view and when I checked in I was assured that our request had been filled. Well, we were actually given a Bay View. No big deal, I didn't want to mess with getting another room. I have to say that these rooms are the ugliest things that I have ever seen. They are designed in a "Jetsons meets Pablo Picasso" theme. Everything bright, clashing and totally hideous. But, my daughter actually liked it : - ) I think it is because it looks very cartoonish.

We dropped our luggage off in the room, hopped on the monorail and headed to MK. No problems activating our annual passes. We immediately went to our dinner PS at Liberty Tree. We arrived around 6:30 p.m. (15 minutes early). The lobby was pretty packed. We waited around 20 minutes and noticed that people who arrived after us with parties of 4 were being seated. Nathan went to check and found that they were actually seating parties with 7:00 PS before us. The problem was that when the checked in, the hostess was putting the seating card on the top of the pile, so that those who checked in last were seated first. But, the really strange thing was that the hostess had our card (6:45 PS) and another party's card (7:00 PS) - both parties of 4 - and called them first. We pointed this out to them and they seated us next.

We really enjoyed this meal. It is served family style and we were very hungry from the day of travel. You start with delicious roll with butter and apple butter along with a salad tossed in strawberry vinagrette dressing. We loved the salad because it was not your typical iceberg lettuce (it had red leaf, endive, escarole, etc.). But, we noticed that many families did not eat it. We ate every bit of it! Then you are served ham with a sweet mustard glaze, turkey, marinated flank steak, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, glazed carrots and macaroni and cheese. Everything was good with the exception of the flank steak (tough and we did not care for the spices used). We only asked for seconds on the mashed potatoes, and could not even finish the 1st portion served of the other food. But, Sydney and Nathan still opted for dessert. Syd had the triple chocolate cake and Nathan had the apple crisp a'la mode. With MK discount, dinner was about $67 including tip. The characters were all dressed in colonial garb and included Minnie (as Betsy Ross), Pluto, Goofy (as Paul Revere), Chip & Dale (in powdered wigs - hilarious).

After dinner, the kids wanted to ride on Haunted Mansion. Sydney had been watching the Disneyland Sing Along Songs video to get ready for the trip. So, she was familiar with many of the rides and always singing their theme songs (Grim, Grinning Ghosts for HM). But, she was a little frightened by this ride and did not want to go on it again. Our son loves it -one of his favorites.

We walked over to Fantasyland and waited about 10 minutes for Peter Pan, walked on Snow White and waited 15 minutes for Pooh. Peter Pan has always been our favorite Fantasyland ride, but we LOVED Pooh. I have never been a big Pooh fan, but this ride is adorable. Loved the bouncing honey pot with Tigger and the smell of honey throughout the ride. After Pooh, Syd wanted to ride Cinderella's Carousel with Nathan. I got a little misty as I watched them ride the beautiful carousel side-by-side and hand-in-hand as "Colors of the Wind" played on the calliope. It is a memory that I will always have of them together. When she got off she told me that she was pretending that daddy was her prince. It was precious! We then staked out a spot to watch Tinkerbell's flight before the fireworks. In all of our times at MK, we had never seen this. It was great! And, the fireworks were better than we had remembered them. We left the park and walked back to The Contemporary. This is where we found that our Bay View room was a blessing in disguise. At 10:00, we were able to sit in our PJ's on the balcony and watch the Electric Water Pageant. We then turned in for the night.

My parents were supposed to arrive around midnight, but there had been a delay with their flight so they did not arrive at The Contemporary until 2:30 a.m. They said that Tiffany Towncar was wonderful and was the only way to go. They would highly recommend it!

Day 2:

Up at 6:30 a.m. for early entry at MK. Nathan and my dad decided to sleep in and meet us at the castle for our 9:30 a.m. PS. My mom and I took the kids down to the monorail (love the characters announcing the floors on the elevator, BTW) and were able to sit in the nose of the monorail for the trip to the MK. There is a new policy posted at all of the resorts re: requesting to sit in the monorail. Evidently, you can only do this from the 3 monorail resorts. They will not allow you to ride in the nose from TTC or MK.

We were at the gate to MK at 7:30 a.m. - no lines to enter and we walked right in and on to Fantasyland. All of the rides were walk-ons (except Dumbo). The CM's let us stay on Peter Pan and Pooh for 2 rides and we could have continued to stay on, but wanted to move onto other rides. Went on Buzz and everyone loved this. It was my mom's favorite (probably since she had the highest score and loved to rub it in). We met Nathan and Dad at the castle and checked in for breakfast. The Fairy Godmother now sits on a chair in the lobby to greet guests and take pictures. She used to stand in the lobby and this is a much better setup since there is a more organized line to see her and she doesn't get quite so "mobbed". One side note - one of the best purchases you can make for your child is a personalized nametag. Sydney wore hers everyday and CM's and character greeted her by name and gave her special attention. I would highly recommend having your children wear them. It really adds to the magic for them. The tags can be purchased at a cart on Main Street. We were seated fairly quickly. Breakfast was excellent! Wonderful service and the cheesy potatoes and deep fried french toast were delicious. The character included Cinderella, Belle, Snow White, Princess Aurora, and Peter Pan. This is our favorite character breakfast. Sydney loved dining with the princess' since she is one herself ; - ) The total for the 4 of us was $56. Well worth it!

We took the monorail back to The Contemporary and checked out. Drove to OKW. While we were impressed with the resort, the staff here was underwhelming. The front desk staff was less than friendly and we did not have good experiences with other staff members as you will see later. Unfortunately, this may keep up from purchasing OKW points when they are available later this year. Since service is such a large part of a wonderful Disney experience, we felt a little let down in this area. We found CM's at other resorts to be much more friendly. I would be interested to hear of others experiences here. Anyway, of course our room was not ready. We were given our keys, bought our E-Night tickets and was told to check back throughout the day for availability of our room. We drove around the resort to check it out and then went to Downtown Disney. Hit the World of Disney (I was searching for a watch - bought one I love. Bracelet style with Mickey heads making the links and a gold Mickey on the white face), the Lego store - the Lego sculptures are INCREDIBLE - Arribas Brothers (found some fantastic deals on Swarovski jewelry - my mom cleaned them out!), etc. One really cute item that we found at Arribas Brothers is a crystal bracelet with Minnie's outline and bow on it. It was only $9.50 and is a great gift for a little girl. Syd wore hers almost every day. Also, you receive a 15% discount at World of Disney if you use your American Express card. While the girls were shopping, the guys had chocolate sodas at Ghiradellis's. We tried checking on our room at around 2:30 - not ready yet. So, we decided to head to Animal Kingdom.

The park was not very crowed, but was it ever HOT! The theming here is fantastic - I actually felt like I was in a third world country and should have brought a backpack with provisions! We walked onto It's Touch to be a Bug, admiring the Tree of Life along the way. It is truly spectacular. We loved ITTBAB, but Syd was a little spooked by the sting and the spiders. But, she went on it again later in the trip, so it evidently didn't effect her too much <vbg>.

We then walked into Asia. There was an hour wait for Kali Rapids, so we got Fastpasses for 3:30 - 4:30 (approx. 35 minutes later). A note re: Fastpass - we loved it! It is an excellent concept and worked well for us.

While we waited for our Fastpass time, we did the Jungle Trek. Again, the theming is incredible. But, it was SO hot that they tigers were just resting in the shade (I would be too) and there wasn't a lot to see. The bats were interesting - very strange creatures.

We headed to Kali and waited about 10 minutes to board the raft. The theming of the line is exceptional. We enjoyed it, but it was short. We did not get too wet, but the family sitting across from us was soaked. We laughed the entire time. After exiting the ride, we checked on our room. Still not ready at 3:45 p.m. We were so hot that we decided to leave the park, get groceries and hopefully get into our room. We went to Goodings to stock up on some lunch and breakfast items and by the time we arrived back at OKW, our room was ready (5:00 p.m.). We were in building 39, which was a pretty good location since it was near the Turtle Pond pool area. The down side was that we were on the 3rd floor, so it was a bit of a trek with our luggage and groceries.

We all loved the accomodations and my parents settled in the master bedroom while we took took the 2nd bedroom. My mom and dad were ready to move in - they thought they could be perfectly content in a home like this rather than their huge house.

We spent the evening relaxing and had a leisurely dinner of spagetti and salad in the room. We then took the kids down to the pool for a quick swim. It had been so hot that day, the water in the pool felt like bathwater. We stayed for a bit and then returned to the room and turned in for the night. It is very quiet and wonderfully relaxing here. My parents agreed that it spoils you - you can hardly imagine staying in a hotel room after you have stayed in these wonderful accomodations. Sydney was singing - "I'm walking right down the middle of Main Street USA" all day long. She loves it here!

Day 3-

Nathan had a tee time this morning at The Palm at 10:12 a.m. The rest of us decided to sleep in a bit and have a leisurely morning.

Since Nathan and I will be in Orlando next month for a business meeting, he decided to purchase the golf badge. With the badge, green fees after 10:00 a.m. are $45 on all of the courses vs. $95-110 (after October 1st). The golf pro was nice enough to give him the Florida resident badge, which was the same price as the regular badge ($50), but gives you $35 green fees vs. $45 with the regular badge. He left around 8:45 a.m. to hit some balls before teeing off.

The rest of us decided to head to EPCOT and eat lunch at Marrakesh (a restaurant that we had not been to in over 9 years). We walked to the bus stop and waited only about 5 or so minutes for the bus to EPCOT. When we arrived, I stopped at Guest Relations to find out where we needed to pick up our "Lord of the Dance" dinner package and cards for reserved seating. They told me to go to the farthest ticket booth for pickup. This is not well marked. We trudged over there and waited while the party in front of us exchanged some day passes for multi-passes. Those of us waiting to pick up the packages were a bit miffed that this line was not for LOD package pickup only. There were many other ticket booths open that could have accommodated these guests, but only 1 ticket booth that could accommodate those waiting for LOD tickets. We finally got our passes for the 4:00 p.m. show and headed into EPCOT. This reminded me why we always get an early start and leave the parks around this time. There were huge lines of people waiting to get in! It probably did not help that there is a tremendous amount of construction at the gate in preparation for the Millennium celebration - this does not help traffic patterns.

When we entered the park, we quickly walked through Future World, but made a brief stop at Ice Station Cool. The kids loved this place. Sydney could not get enough of the watermelon drink from China. I liked the ginger ale from Mozambique, while Zac and my Mom liked the lemon/lime drink from Israel. Of course, I did not try Beverly, but everyone else did and it was a hoot! After we cooled off, we strolled through World Showcase. The Beast was in France and Jafar was in Morocco. By this time we were ready for lunch. We were seated immediately, as Marrakesh was not very crowded. I had the lemon chicken (delicious), Zac had the lamb and lentil soup along with vegetable couscous, my Mom had the Oasis chicken salad (it was excellent) and my Dad had the meatballs. Syd settled for the beef shish kebab. They have the most delicious mint iced tea. Totally refreshing! The belly dancer entertained and brought Syd up to dance with her. Syd feels right at home in the spotlight (she is a big ham) and thoroughly enjoyed this. We had bastilla for dessert. Lunch for the 3 in my family was about $27 with MK discount.

After lunch, we strolled through the shops - something that we do not usually have the time to do. Enjoyed looking at the many beautiful and unusual items. One big disappointment for Zac was that there were no Pokemon cards in Japan. He had $50 burning a hole in his pocket and he hoped to purchase some cards to add to his collection.

We wound our way to Norway and watched the performers there. They reminded us of what my great-grandmother's brothers must have looked like. My great-great grandmother was 100% of Norwegian descent and came over to America on a boat when she was a young girl. She became the 2nd upstairs maid for a wealthy family until she married and moved to Central Illinois to raise her family. So, our family feels a connection to this pavilion (we even stay to watch the movie after Maelstrom!). After riding Maelstrom, we checked out the shops. The Dale sweaters are so beautiful! But at $220+ per sweater, it is a little more than I want to pay. But, they had some children's sweaters and matching caps on sale for 50% off. So, I bought Syd one of each. This winter she will look like a little Norwegian lass with the sweater, cap, her corduroy short and boots ; - ) The sweater and cap were $78 on sale. I was happy!

About this time, we were ready to work our way back around to the American Garden theater for the LOD show. The line for people waiting to get in was HUGE! They must have been lined up for hours. We walked right in the line for those with reserved seating (Nathan was there waiting for us) and got great seats in the 3rd row. This package is definitely worth the money. Not only did we avoid waiting long period s of time for mediocre seats, but the price of our dinner was more than what the tickets cost ($32 per adult, $10 per child). I would highly recommend it! The big difference between this and the Fantasmic dinner package (as we would find out later) was that the LOD reserved seats were the best in the house! The show was good - their energy is incredible. Nathan made fun of the canned music, singing and tapping all night long, but even he had to be impressed with their athletic ability.

After the show, we wanted to take Nathan to Ice Station Cool and try to fool him into trying Beverly. He did and he said it was AWFUL. Aren't we stinkers? The kids cracked up over this. They have some neat tees and sweatshirts in this shop with the Coca-Cola logo in Russian, Japanese, Arabic, etc. Zac bought one in Japanese and Nathan picked up the Russian tee. We headed over to San Angel Inn for our 5:30 LOD PS reservations. We were seated a little early and we had a great waiter. He told us that the package includes soup or salad, entrée, dessert and tea, soda or coffee. But, he told us that he would give us any appetizer and non-alcoholic drinks if we wished. Four of us had the ceviche (a delicious cocktail of shrimp, tomatoes, onions, cilantro and avocado) to start, while Zac had a combo appetizer plate. Syd "officially" was not supposed to get an appetizer - but the waiter brought a salad for her. Both of the kids had non-alcoholic strawberry daiquiris. My Mom and I each had the ranchero filet, Dad & Nathan had the combo plate and Zac had the Sea Bass. Syd settled for her old standby - chicken fingers. For dessert, everyone had rice pudding except I went for the ice cream with caramel served in a fried tortilla. IT was all excellent. Tax and gratuity are included in the package. So, the total bill came to $5.15 - for Nathan's beer. Zac walked over and handed him a $10 bill. Nathan asked him what it was for and Zac said that he wanted to buy his dad's drink with his own money. That was pretty sweet!

After dinner, we headed back to Spaceship Earth and walked on(the waits were 30 minutes plus earlier in the day). Then we went over to Honey, I Shrunk the Audience - one of our favorites. This was also a walk -on. It was 8:00 p.m. when this was over and we told my parents that since it was late, we would walk over to the Beach Club (where Nathan parked the car) and head out. The kids knew that we had a surprise planned and they just about blew it! Syd just kept saying that we had a surprise and then Zac asked me what type of a boat were we going on this time. I think my parents had an idea that we were going on the fireworks cruise. We have done this many times in the past, but this time I requested the party boat. I cannot tell you how great this was! The pontoon was decorated with balloons. There was a basket with napkins, chips, pretzels and sodas. But, the highlight was the cake. It was an absolutely gorgeous cake! It had Mickey and Minnie on it with beautiful lilies made of frosting - wishing Jon & Jill a Happy 35th anniversary. And, it was delicious. White cake with the lightest, fluffiest buttercream frosting and chocolate ganache filling. The cake was so huge, we ate it for the next 2 days! Lori, our captain, took us for a spin over to MGM and around Boardwalk. She was great about letting Syd drive the boat (since Syd was sitting next to Lori, talking her ears off!). We anchored under the World Showcase bridge. I think we had the best vantage point of all the boats there. It felt like the fireworks were right in front of us. And, even Lori admitted that they were incredible this night. They were adding in more for the finale in anticipation for the new show that will debut 10/1. It was awesome! I told my Mom that we had ressies for the Chef's table at Victoria & Alberts for their anniversary celebration, but did not think they would want to dress for dinner and also we would have to exclude Sydney from that. She said that was much better - we had a great time! Lori let Zac drive the boat a bit after the show and she even let him dock it. We strolled through Beach Club -dodging all of the surrey bikes (there were quite a few of them out that night) - and left for the evening. As soon as we climbed the stairs to the room, we all crashed for the night.

Day 4 -

Today was early entry to MK. WE have found that if we are at the gate when it opens, we can get all of the Fantasyland and Tomorrowland rides (that are open) and then leave by around 9:30 a.m. or so to avoid the increasing crowds. It works really well for us. So, we were at the gate by 7:30 a.m. All of the rides were walk-ons and we were able to stay on several rides since there were no lines waiting to get on. This morning, Zac decided that he would try Alien Encounter. He was pretty reluctant and just about ready to take the chicken exit. Nathan explained to him everything that would happen, so that it would not take him by surprise. We sat in the back row, to minimize some of the effects. His hand was cold and clammy, but as soon as it started - he dropped my hand and totally enjoyed it! It is now one of his favorites and he couldn't wait to go back on it again.

We left the park at 9:00 or so to head to The Poly for our breakfast PS at "Kona Café". We had not dined here since they have revamped it from the old "Coral Isle Café". Breakfast was excellent - 2 of us had the Tonga Toast, Zac had Eggs Benedict, Dad had the omelet, Syd had the Mickey pancake and Nathan had the traditional breakfast. The Kona coffee is wonderful (although you do not get 100% Kona unless you order a press pot for $6.95 - it serves 4 cups). Dad bought breakfast for the entire table.

We headed back to the room to relax. Dad jogged and went to the health club - the rest of us went to the pool for a few hours. Unfortunately, my Dad had some problems with the health club. They only had 1 set of pins for all of the weight equipment. So, only 1 person could use 1 piece of the equipment at a time. There were several guests upset about this. My Dad had told them about the problem the day before, and nothing had been done. When he told me about this after we got back to the room, I told him to call the front desk and I was sure that they would handle the situation in a satisfactory way. All he got was runaround - they could not say who could take care of this. He was so frustrated, he asked if it would be possible for him to use another facility. They transferred him to Disney Institute - where after holding about 10 minutes - they told him that he could come over there for $15. I really thought that the OKW staff should have given my father a voucher to use facilities at another health club due to the poor condition and lack of service at theirs. My father would have been willing to go to any of the other resorts- although it would have been an inconvenience to him. We were just very disappointed with the lack of attention given by the OKW staff. They were very unwilling to help resolve this. My parents were impressed with DVC until they encountered the service problems - it is so uncharacteristic of Disney. I hope that the lack of friendly and helpful service that we experienced this trip was an isolated incident. But, I do have to say that the poor service was limited to the front desk staff. Housekeeping and other CM's at the resort were great : - )

Later in the afternoon, we drove to MGM. Sydney wanted to try Tower of Terror. My Mom, Zac and I did not go on it. While the others were in line (15 min.), I walked over to Rock /n Roller Coaster and got 4 Fastpasses for about 35 minutes later. When Syd came off the ride, she was a little shaky. Not from the drop, but she was scared by what she called "the electric family". But, ten minutes later - she was telling everyone that this is now her favorite ride and she wanted to do it again! Mom & Dad took the kids and Nathan and I headed to the RNRC. Again, Fastpass was great. WE bypassed the 60 minute line. This ride is incredible! The takeoff is so intense that it just about takes your breath away. You go from 0 to 60 in a split second and immediately go into an inverted loop. Our first ride, we took the last car. We immediately got back on and took the first car the second time. Although it is fast, the ride is very smooth. This is one of our favorites - it was tremendous! We met everyone at "The Brown Derby" for our 5:30 p.m. PS. While dinner was good, I think this will be the last time we eat here for awhile. Portions are small and it is fairly expensive. I just have a hard time with the full service restaurants at MGM. I am not crazy about any of them. We got our 10% MK discount on dinner and our waitress gave us our Fantasmic passes for reserved seating at the 8:30 p.m. show.

After dinner, we went on The Great Movie Ride and the Drew Cary Sound Show. By that time, we headed back to the area where we were admitted to Fantasmic. They let you in a back entrance by Oscar's. We arrived at the theater around 7:45 p.m. It was 3/4 full. The reserved seating for the Fantasmic dinner package is not the best (in the Ursula section on the far right of the stage). WE actually found better seats than those reserved.

Just a note re: the Fantasmic dinner packages - you can now make PS 7 days in advance. Previously, you had to make your ressies the day of the dinner at MGM Guest Services.

While we were waiting for the show to begin, Syd befriended 2 young women from Japan. They did not speak English, but Syd chatted away - shared her Tinkerbell light with them, they shared gum with her and they were getting a kick out of her. One of the girls videotaped Syd chatting away with the other. Syd sat through the entire show holding the hand of the one girl seated next to her. Strangely enough, the next day when my parents took the kids to Animal Kingdom, they saw the 2 young women there! Sydney ran up and hugged them and they were thrilled to see her again. I guess it really is a small world after all ; - )

Fantasmic was great - my favorite part is with Belle/Beast, Snow White/Prince Charming, Ariel/Eric and Cinderella and her prince. Having seen Fantasmic in Disneyland, I think I prefer it there. The WDW version used so many water screens vs. live action. But, the theater created for viewing the show is great and we really enjoyed it. We probably won't make an effort to see it every trip, but you have to see it at least once.

We were tired and headed out with the crowds after the show. Back to the resort where we all crashed.

Day 5

Nathan had another tee time today at 10:04 a.m. and I promised that I would ride along the course with him. My Mom and Dad wanted to take the kids back to Animal Kingdom, so we were up early to get them ready and take them to the park by 8:00 a.m.

After dropping them off, Nathan and I went to "Boatwrights" at DL for breakfast. This is such a great resort - actually, we love all of the moderates. The CM's were warm and friendly - there was one greeting all the guests with big Mickey hands. Breakfast was excellent - they now have a buffet for $11.95 that has all kinds of Southern breakfast foods. We ordered off the menu. Nathan loves the breakfast skillets that are served here and at Port Orleans. I had biscuits and gravy. The total bill was $16 before tip.

We headed to the Lake Buena Vista clubhouse, checked in and browsed around the pro shop. Nathan was paired with a DVC member from New York named Jim. He was a great guy. He was down for the Disneyana convention - he comes every year since he is a collector of sculptures. Since he made the trip solo, he was using some of his time on the golf courses. It was a beautiful day and I enjoyed the scenery and driving the cart on the path around OKW. We went behind the new construction and it looks like it is coming right along - they were finishing the roof and siding while we were there. While we were on the golf course, the rest of the family had a great morning at AK. Their favorite ride was the safari. They said that it was incredible. They saw all of the animals, including the lions. They also had the added benefit of having several rangers sitting behind them on the jeep and they gave them more insight into the animals and the park. They also made a point of seeing "Tarzan Rocks" since it was highly recommended to them by someone. But, the loud music and skateboarding did not appeal to my parents and they gave this a "thumbs down". They arrived back at OKW at around 1:00 p.m. and we were finished golfing at 2:15 p.m.

We relaxed a bit and debated re: dinner before E-Ticket night. I had PS at "Chef Mickey's", but nobody else was too enthused about going to a buffet. So, we ended up making last minute PS at "Tony's Town Square" for 6:25 p.m. This gave us time to enter the park, get our wristbands and go on the rides that would not be open after the park officially closed. We went on Jungle Cruise, Pirates and the Tiki Birds. Then, we headed back to Main Street for dinner. Our dinner was very good and we had a charming CM from Argentina that waited on us. My parents had spaghetti, I had wonderful chicken scaloppini, Nathan and Zac had the bianca pizza and Syd had the Mickey pizza. Nathan also had an antipasto salad and he thinks this is the best dining bargain that he has found in the parks. It is a wonderful salad with proscuitto, ham, salami and cheese for $6.95. With our 10% MK discount, dinner was about $60 with tip.

By the time we finished dinner, the park was closed and droves of people were leaving. We walked back to Tomorrowland along streets that were empty for the most part. They only sold 800 tickets for this night, so the crowds were very sparse. It was GREAT! We walked onto Alien Encounter - Syd watched the pre-show and then took the chicken exit with Grandpa. We walked onto Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain. Sydney declared Splash to be her favorite ride! I must say that we practically forced my Mom to go on this ride. She cannot stand any fast rides (the Barnstormer almost made her sick). About half way through the ride, I thought she was going to cry : - ( But, she survived and the picture was priceless. She looks terrified while Nathan and Syd are in the front with big smiles on their faces and their arms straight up in the air! There were no lines here so the CM told us we could stay on and ride again. My mom (and Zac) said NO WAY. Nathan and Sydney stayed on and had another great ride.

We had a fantastic experience with E-Ticket. We think it is the only way to go. If you hit early entry and E-Ticket you can cover almost all of the rides at MK with little to no waits. We highly recommend both.

We left via a deserted Main Street at around 9:30 p.m. Zac took a panoramic picture because how often do you get a view of the castle and MS USA with the beautiful lights at night with no people? It felt like the park was all ours.

Back in the room we caught up on last minute laundry and began to pack. Our last day to follow......

Day 6 (our last)-

We used this day to sleep in a bit and finish packing. Had a big breakfast in the room, trying to use up the remaining groceries.

My parent's flight left at 11:45 a.m. and Nathan drove them to HH for their Tiffany Towncar pickup at 10:00 a.m. After dropping them off, Nathan and Zac went to Fantasia golf for a quick game while I finished packing. Sydney used this time to take a big bubble bath in the Jacuzzi.

I called the front desk, because we had not received our bill from express check-out. They said that they did not know we wanted to use it. I informed them that - yes, I had requested this when we checked in. They said they believed me because they frequently overlook this and forget to note it. But, they did have someone run our bill over within the next hour or so.

We left for the airport a little early since we wanted to drive over to the Marriott World Center. Nathan and I will be returning next month for a convention here and we wanted to check out the location, facilities, etc.

We checked our luggage with the skycaps at the airport, returned the car and waited around the airport. I really like the Orlando airport. There are plenty of shops for browsing while you are waiting for your flight.

Our flight left on time and our trip home was uneventful. Now came the hard part - return to the real world and reality.

Misc. thoughts and reflections:

We loved utilizing early entry and e-ticket nights to avoid all lines.

We had great experiences with Fastpass!

Purchase guest nametags for your children - the CM's make an extra special effort to talk to them when they have these on.

We highly recommend the fireworks cruises from the Yacht/Beach Club. This was the best one yet!

My parents highly recommend Tiffany Towncar. They made the trip to and from the airport totally painless. If you are not going to rent a car, it is MUCH better than taking the Mears Shuttle.

We were disappointed by the service received (or lack of) from OKW staff - it made a very poor impression on our family. I hope this was an exception and not consistent with the level of service usually provided. We were planning on purchasing points when they become available, but now we may hold off for WL points.

The DVC rep told me that they anticipate WL points will be available just at BWV is 100% sold.

As always, we dreaded leaving WDW. But, looking forward to future trips makes this easier and since my husband and I will be back in less than 4 weeks, we at least have that to look forward to. If you have any questions or comments about our trip, please let me know. Thanks for reading and letting me share!

Julie Price

FOURPRICES@aol.com

__________________
You just read a trip report that was originally published in our MousePlanet Trip Reports column.

Reader-submitted trip reports have always been an extremely popular feature here at MousePlanet. In order to improve the search functionality and shorten the time from when you submit a trip report and the report gets published, you can now post your trip reports directly to our Trip Report forums. The forums are moderated, but reports should become available for reading very quickly.