Will the Rain EVER Go Away in May?? (final update 7/29)

[TigerLaw]

Introduction

This trip was special for us in that it was a delayed wedding anniversay and birthday celebrating trip (delayed by a couple weeks). Folks, this trip report details the wettest trip we have ever had at WDW. It rained more on this trip than during all our other trips combined! (Actually, the only rain free days we had were at the end of the week, friday-sunday) I wish I had some better pictures to show just how bad some of it was. Having said that, we still had a great time on vacation, we just had to be flexible with some of our plans. Here’s some introductory info on our trip:

The Cast:

Michael, twelfth visit to WDW (Disney fanatic for years) :confused3

Melissa, wife of the fanatic, fellow lover of WDW, just nowhere near my level. This will be her eleventh visit (eleven visits together) :worship:

http://inlinethumb06.webshots.com/42821/2973218280101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

The Time:

Saturday, May 23, 2009 to Sunday May 31st

The Resorts:

Polynesian Resort (first three nights of the trip, using AP discount)
Beach Club Villas – studio room (remaining nights of the trip)

The History:

Melissa and I first went to WDW in September, 2000. :banana: Since then we have gone every year at least once. :thumbsup2 Highlights of the different trips include Melissa surprised me with a mini-vacation to WDW for my 30th birthday and going to Disneyland for the 50th anniversary festivities. :yay: In the fall of 2007, I achieved a life-long dream (OK, it was a recent dream really) and talked Melissa into us buying into DVC. :woohoo: Unfortunately, various circumstances led to us not being able to use our points right away, and so this is only our second trip using DVC points.

The Planning: popcorn::

In September, 2008, the plan was originally was to make that trip sorta like a big blow out and then to do some other stuff for awhile. Having said that, life led us back to WDW in both good and bad ways, which I won’t go into here. We originally started to plan for a trip in February and I have to say, planning the trip is ALMOST as much fun for us as actually going! ;) It took a lot of calls into member services at DVC, but eventually, I got us a studio on points for most of the trip. (At various times, we had DVC room on cash instead of points). A couple new wrinkles in planning th trip included booking Airtran fo the first time (having previously always used American) and getting a rental car through Dollar (as we had always used Budget in the past, but no one could beat the deal I got at Dollar)

Here is a quote from my last trip report: “For the purposes of this report you also need to know that while I obsessively plan, Melissa will just come up with ideas just out of nowhere - things that I never think of.” Once again, it was true. For awhile, we were going to stay the whole trip in a BCV studio she decided one day that we should stay at the Polynesian instead and given the AP discount, it wasn’t a huge hit. She also planned “date nights” for the first and last nights of the trip.


COMING UP - THE PLAN OF ATTACK

[TigerLaw]

THE PLAN OF ATTACK

Sat 5/23
arrival day
dinner at narcooses (sp?)
Try to get back to watch fireworks from poly (wishes 10pm)

Sun 5/24
Epcot EE morning (8am open)
take time to check out flower festival stuff (get topiary location list)
lunch - lotus blossom
afternoon - pool and nap
dinner - ohana (5:15 - 55327764), then leave for MK (7:30ish?)
MK EE night (park closes at 2am!) (spectro 9 & 11, wishes 10, EMH 11-2)

Mon 5/25 (memorial day)
MGM EE morning (8am open)
lunch at sci fi (mike may stay at MGM after lunch-mel pool?)
AK EE night (6-9pm) dinner at AK’s rainforest
then go to DTD?

Tues 5/26
MK EE morning (8am open)
Breakfast at ohana 10:45
HOTEL SWITCH IN AFTERNOON - ask for late check out just in case - DTD??
dinner at brew house OR ESPN, then get table in england for fireworks (stay later?)
Epcot EE night (park closes at midnight) (illuminations 9pm)

Wed 5/27
MGM morning (9am)
Lunch - ESPN or Trex
cape may dinner, then drive to MGM
MGM EE night (8-11)

Thur 5/28
MK EE morning (8am open) chef mickeys
(mike may stay at MK after lunch)
Dinner ??? then to epcot for drink around the world
Epcot added EMH that night (9pm-midnight)

Fri 5/29
MGM EE morning (8am) (star wars wkd SWW), then mike stays for SWW,
mel has pool morning, and then late lunch together (12:30ish?) beaches & cream
MK (MK has EMH for 10-1am) (wishes 9pm, still no spectro?)
crystal palace dinner

Sat 5/30
AK EE morning (8am open) donald’s breakfast
Maybe check out Kadani village afterward
maybe DTD to kill time in afternoon (lots of time for pool)
epcot le cellar
then leave time to drink, then find spot for fireworks (9pm)

Sun 5/31
Epcot EE morning (8am - get a couple hours in before leave for airport)
cape may breakfast 11am?

COMING UP - OUR FIRST BATTLE WITH THE RAIN

[TigerLaw]

Sat. May 21st

Park Visited: None
Dining: House of Blues (dinner)

Saturday was our travel day. Due to cutbacks, the number of nonstop flights from St. Louis to Orlando had been cut back pretty hard. Usually, we took a 6-7 am flight out on American, which of course meant that we had to get up at 3-4 am, thus making it hard to actually do anything on our travel day. Because of this (and the costs of flights on American at the time we wanted to book) we decided to take a later flight in the day with Airtran (11:05 take off STL time and 2:20 arrival Orlando time). It was the first time either of us had used Airtran, which doesn’t have much of a presence in the STL market. The flight down was uneventful. It did take FOREVER for our luggage to come out and we had some trouble figuring out how to pick up our Dollar rent a car (a dodge avenger), so we left the airport a bit behind my desired schedule but no biggie. :confused3 On the way to WDW, we stopped at a wendy’s to get something to eat (we hadn’t eaten since around 8am) and eventually made it over to the Polynesian for check in.

Last fall, we had stayed at the Poly for a night before moving over to BCV and had gotten an upgrade to a water MK view so I had hopes given we were celebrating our anniversary and Melissa’s birthday, we would get some kind of upgrade, but no luck - they were sold out. The room we got on the third floor of Tokelau was just fine. While Melissa started to unpack and get ready to go out to downtown disney, I headed over to MK to pick up our annual passes and to buy our disney dining experience/tables in wonderland card. The latter issue was no big deal, but for whatever reason it took them awhile to process the APs. I eventually made it back to the hotel, moved our car to the closer, side parking lot and got ready to go out for our fist night date night.

We had originally planned to go to Narcoossee's for dinner, but Melissa decided about a week beforehand maybe we should do something less pricey, so we headed over to House of Blues, which we hadn’t been to in years. After a brief wait to get seated, we both had the shrimp & cornbread appetizer, which we both really liked, and then Melissa had the chicken fried chicken and I had the jambalaya. We also split chocolate cake and ice cream for Melissa’s b-day). Neither of us were “wowed” by our dinners, but we would definitely go back there again in the future (service was really good).

Here’s a couple HoB pics:

http://inlinethumb20.webshots.com/26067/2379731130101338200S425x425Q85.jpg
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Now comes our first of several rain stories. As many know, in mid-May, Orlando got hit hard with days of heavy rain. I had heard that before we even got down there, they had already broken their record for most rain in the month of May! Our forecasts had thunderstorms and rain forecasted for every day we were there, so I just hoped for the best. Well... while we were eating at HoB, it starts thundering and raining pretty hard, so we hoped it would be a typically Florida storm that would blow out in like 15 minutes... NOPE!! :scared1: I wish I had pictures to show this, but basically the rained cleared out all the pathways of DTD except those running for cover. This was the type of rain that would completely drench you in seconds. We had brought ponchos, but they were really of no use, as by the time we got to the car, we were soaked, our shoes were soaked, everything was soaked!! By the time we made it back to the poly, it had let up to become a normal level of rain, so we dried off in our room, watched some TV, and then got up and went to the main pool area to watch Wishes from the beach (which had been our plan all along, just with the bar open and with fruity drinks in hand!)

COMING UP - OUR FIRST DAY IN THE PARKS

[KeepSwimmingDory]

Great start! We were there at the same time and watched the pouring rain from our AKL balcony that day. It was quite a downpour and lasted a while.

Looking forward to seeing what else you did. popcorn::

[TigerLaw]

Great start! We were there at the same time and watched the pouring rain from our AKL balcony that day. It was quite a downpour and lasted a while.

Looking forward to seeing what else you did. popcorn::

trust me, I would have much rather been underneath a balcony! ;) I can't tell you the last time I felt so wet from a storm!

thanks for checking in, I'll have lots more report coming! :thumbsup2

[DEdisprincess]

Hi,
My family and I were in the MK that night. we were stuck in POtC...we rode it 5 times in a row so we didn't have to go out in the rain. augh..and the rest of the week wasn't any better for us either. can't wait to read more to see if our plans overlapped with you in anyway.

[TigerLaw]

Hi,
My family and I were in the MK that night. we were stuck in POtC...we rode it 5 times in a row so we didn't have to go out in the rain. augh..and the rest of the week wasn't any better for us either. can't wait to read more to see if our plans overlapped with you in anyway.

here's an question for you - what would you have done if the monsoon had started just as you were getting off of its a small world - what would have been worst - the rain or 5x on IASW?!? :confused3 :rotfl2:

[TigerLaw]

Sun. May 24th

Park Visited: Epcot & Magic Kingdom
Dining: Seasons (lunch), O’hanas (dinner)

Sunday morning was early entry day at Epcot, and the weather looked good. I woke up first ( as always) went over to Caption Hook’s to get Melissa coffee (it is a family tradition that I get coffee for my wife every morning at disney - don’t know how I ended up w. this duty other than its how I get her up, but she loves it) and ended up buying one of the refillable mugs for my morning soda. One the way back to the room, I saw a family of ducks in the main pool and then some more right by our building, so I gave that second family of ducks some of my muffin. Anyway, we eventually walked over to the TTC and there was a monorail just sitting there, but it was having issues, so it was maybe like 10 minutes before we could get on it. As we did the loop around Epcot, I took some pics of an empty future world:

[http://inlinethumb44.webshots.com/43499/2917770440101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb48.webshots.com/45039/2873546370101338200S425x425Q85.jpg
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Once we got off the monorail (maybe 20 minutes before opening), there was already a large line but I think it was b/c they had “herded” all the guest to only use like the most central ticket machines (something I had never seen before). Anyway, once they let us in early, we saw that there wasn’t going to be a character-driven opening (b/c it was an EMH day) and that the character spot wouldn’t be opening early, so we headed over to Soarin (along with everyone else!)

Once we got to Soarin, I ran ahead to get some FPs, but had problems with a couple of the machines, so by the time we got in line, it was a 25 minute posted wait (actual wait more like 20 minutes) and then a 15 minute wait the second time we went through the stand by line. After soarin through California twice, we did Living with the Land (a family favorite). I thought there was supposed to be something new at the end, but I didn’t see anything really (and they didn’t have any mickey pumpkins either!). From there, we got a second set of Soarin FPs and then we went and signed up to do a Kim Possible mission once world showcase opened at 11am and then headed over to Test Track. We often ride TT using the single rider line and this morning we did so twice with no waits (despite the fact that the standby line was out the door). After TT was done, we walked through Minnie’s Butterfly Garden, but didn’t see that many butterflies and so we also went into mouse gears and bummed around there for a bit. Next, we were trying to kill some time, so we went over to Spaceship Earth. It had only a 20 minute or so line, but we had never seen it so crowded before, as the lines were out on both sides of the “V” entrance. We actually enjoyed it more this time than in past trips, as we often have trouble hearing the narration for some reason.

Now at this point (10:30-11am), it was hot and sunny, so we ended up making a change in plans and decided to blow off the KP mission so we could finish the morning and get back to the Poly’s pool. We went over to the land and eat at the Seasons food court - Melissa got a turkey sandwich and I got a mix chinese plate of beef and chicken with rice and noodles. Once we finished our lunch, we used our two sets of Soarin FPs and headed back to the Poly.

Here are some pics I took from the flower festival:

http://inlinethumb48.webshots.com/43375/2506511870101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb42.webshots.com/43433/2977397570101338200S425x425Q85.jpg
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COMING UP - ONE OF OUR FAVORITE RESTAURANTS AND OUR FIRST TRIP TO THE MAGIC KINGDOM

[msgrimm23]

great report so far i missed alot of epcot when we where there. love the pics

[noahdove]

I love the pics:) Thanks for sharing them.

[TigerLaw]

great report so far i missed alot of epcot when we where there. love the pics

I love the pics:) Thanks for sharing them.

Thanks for the kinds words - lots more report and pics coming up!

[mickeystoontown]

I in for a Disney vacation trip report even if it a rainy one.:thumbsup2

[dd50]

Great report. Sorry about all the rain.

[TigerLaw]

I in for a Disney vacation trip report even if it a rainy one.:thumbsup2

Great report. Sorry about all the rain.

I heard people say this on the boards, and even down at wdw: "a rainy day at WDW is better than a sunny day at" work, home, etc. Trust me, we haven't even BEGUN to talk about all the rain we had!

thanks for jumping on board!

[KeepSwimmingDory]

Enjoyed your Epcot pictures. Love that you get your wife coffee every morning on your trip. Great tradition!

Looking forward to your dinner and seeing MK!

[TigerLaw]

Enjoyed your Epcot pictures. Love that you get your wife coffee every morning on your trip. Great tradition!

Looking forward to your dinner and seeing MK!

Thanks! I honestly can't remember how the "tradition" started, if I had to guess, when we stayed at CBR, she wanted coffee, I don't do coffee makers, and hence, I am fetching the coffee! Tradition started! :thumbsup2

[TigerLaw]

Sun. May 24th (cont.)
After getting back from Epcot, we hit the Poly’s quiet pool for a bit and then we took a nap before our long MK night (but not before I walked around the grounds and took a few poly pics - I love the first two in particular):

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We went then went over for dinner at O’hanas. We had like maybe a fifteen minute wait, so Melissa got one of those fruity drinks in a pineapple at the bar. (One side note - we sat at the bar next to a british guy eating wings with a martini - thought that was an odd combination!)

Once we got seated we got stuffed eating all the good stuff that makes this one of my favorite restaurants anywhere! Melissa loved the pot stickers and I the BBQ chicken wings. One of the funny things to me at least is that while I love all the different meat skewers, my favorite thing about O’hanas is the banana bread pudding dessert! Its always a fine line to leave enough room for dessert at O’hanas, but I do it!

http://inlinethumb35.webshots.com/44258/2528779650101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

The service was great at the beginning, but then just died off for some reason. By the way, this was our second dinner in a row where it monsooned while we ate (again no storm pics). At least this time, by the time we left dinner, the rain had let up, so we didn’t get soaked. After dinner, we went back to the room to rest for a bit (Melissa’s great idea to not go straight into a park after pigging out) and then headed over MK for the extra magic night.

If I can digress for a bit, if you’re reading this report, then you are a likely a disney groupie like me. As a WDW fan, you might snicker or even outright laugh when you hear people ask basic questions like “what is fastpass”? You might even look down a bit on “them”. Well, this Sunday night at MK, I didn’t feel like a WDW “expert”, I felt like them - I just couldn’t get much going right in terms of a plan of attack. The park was open until 2am, and I was dying to try to see how long I could stay in a park. This was one of the only times there was going to be two spectros, so I know there would be crowds, I think I just didn’t hit the lines right.

Coming into the park, I thought I had a good luck sign, as we saw a rainbow! (the second pic shows just how weird the skies loked after the dinner-time storm):

http://inlinethumb30.webshots.com/42909/2294325140101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb42.webshots.com/42729/2878988780101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

After going down main street, we ignored those lining up for the first spectro parade and got a FP for buzz, did haunted mansion with like a five minute wait and then did pirates as a walk on, so I thought we were off to a good start. Our trouble started when we went to Big Thunder which had a 40 minute wait - we passed. Splash was down and the water was drained out of it. We tried to do jungle cruise, it had a 40 minute wait, so we tried to then do philharmagic, but it was closed too! We eventually headed over and did the monsters, inc. laugh floor after about a one room wait, with one of my favorite characters:

http://inlinethumb27.webshots.com/42266/2404091600101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

ROZ IS WATCHING, ALWAYS WATCHING!!

After the monsters show, we watched Wishes from our usual place on the tomorrowland bridge.

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(The last picture is one of my favorites from the trip). After the fireworks were over, we tried to do Big Thunder again, but the wait was now up to 60 minutes (splash had water in it, but was just cycling empty boats). We ended up deciding to just rest for a while and stake out a place for spectro right in front of the partners statute. This was one of the best places we ever saw spectro at and here are some pics:

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After the parade was over, we decided to call it a night and headed back to the hotel, so of my dream to stay in a park past midnight, I still haven’t been able to pull it off!

COMING UP - MEMORIAL DAY, MGM STYLE!

[mickeystoontown]

You're pictures are simply gorgeous. I especially like the one of the castle with the "weird sky".

[TigerLaw]

You're pictures are simply gorgeous. I especially like the one of the castle with the "weird sky".

Thanks - I think "weird sky" is a great description - its one of my favorite pics from the trip.

[TigerLaw]

Monday, May 25th

Park Visited: MGM & Animal Kingdom
Dining: Sci Fi (lunch), Rainforest Cafe (dinner)

Memorial Day found us at MGM for an extra magic hour morning (park open 8am). The forecast called for rain (big surprise) but our morning at AK was rain free. Of course, at open, we did the Toy Story Mania dash, with me weaving in and out to get our FPs. Once I got the magical first set of FPs, we did the ride together basically as a walk on. Both our scores were under 100,000 points, which is unusual for us (I swear my gun was off a large bit!) :rotfl2: When we got out, the line was out the door and the stand by time was for 30 minutes, so we headed over to RnRC, which we did twice, once together and then once using the single rider line. After that, we split up so I could Tower of Terror (ToT is the only ride Melissa won’t do). While I was freefalling twice, Melissa got our next set of FPs for TSM and then did RnRC by herself using single rider two more times. The lines at Tower didn’t feel long, but it still took me over 40 minutes to do just two rides. We next met up at RnRC and wait like over 20 minutes just in the single ride line (we have NEVER had such a long wait there!)

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Melissa had enough RnRC by now :confused3, so we decided to do something easier. My great wife suggested we go over to One Man’s Dream so I could look at the 20th anniversary stuff, so of course I agreed! :thumbsup2 Here are some pics:

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One the movie of Walt ended, we headed over for an early lunch at Sci Fi. We both had oreo shakes with our burgers and fries. It was a good lunch as usual.

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After lunch, we used our TSM FPs, and this time, we did much better, with my high score around 160,000-plus.:cool1: Once we used up our two sets of FPs, we drove back to the poly so we could go swimming and then rest before going to Animal Kingdom.

COMING UP - HOW DO YOU MESS UP A FOUR CHEESE PIZZA THAT BAD?!?

[KeepSwimmingDory]

My 2 favorite pictures from your MK post are the first and the weird sky one. Beautiful!

DH & I were at Boma in AKL during that heavy rain while you were at the Poly. Then we went to MK for EMH night too and made it just past midnight only because our sons were hanging out with friends from home that they met up with. The boys thought they were going to stay until 2 am but they are not used to commando park touring anymore and were ready to head back to the room by then. I enjoyed Spectro that night too. We sat on the curb right outside of the Emporium on the corner during the later parade.

Enjoyed your Sci Fi photos too.

We have never eaten at O'hana and would like to try that sometime. We tried to do a luau once but it got rained out. That's what I thought of when I read you were at the Poly in the pouring rain.

Thanks for sharing about your trip!

[TigerLaw]

My 2 favorite pictures from your MK post are the first and the weird sky one. Beautiful!

DH & I were at Boma in AKL during that heavy rain while you were at the Poly. Then we went to MK for EMH night too and made it just past midnight only because our sons were hanging out with friends from home that they met up with. The boys thought they were going to stay until 2 am but they are not used to commando park touring anymore and were ready to head back to the room by then. I enjoyed Spectro that night too. We sat on the curb right outside of the Emporium on the corner during the later parade.

Enjoyed your Sci Fi photos too.

We have never eaten at O'hana and would like to try that sometime. We tried to do a luau once but it got rained out. That's what I thought of when I read you were at the Poly in the pouring rain.

Thanks for sharing about your trip!


I keep saying I will do a late night at MK but I just can't seem to stay awake that late! :confused3

On O'hana's, its probably must biggest "must do" dining at WDW. Love the food, love the dessert even more! :thumbsup2

[KeepSwimmingDory]

I keep saying I will do a late night at MK but I just can't seem to stay awake that late! :confused3

On O'hana's, its probably must biggest "must do" dining at WDW. Love the food, love the dessert even more! :thumbsup2

You've convinced me! I think that will be our next date night on a trip. May even leave the kids at home!

[TigerLaw]

You've convinced me! I think that will be our next date night on a trip. May even leave the kids at home!

For what's its worth, while I love it, my wife would never let me call this on of our "date night" restaurants -its can be noisy. Also, young kids seem to like it b/c they have games such as limbo and "coconut races" (pushing a ball w. a broom) during the meal.

[TigerLaw]

Monday, May 25th (cont.)

That night we went to EMH night at Animal Kingdom. The extended hours were from 6-9 pm. We got there around 5pm, so we tried to do Safari first, as there were signs up that do the early sunset, it would close at 6pm. When we finally arrived in Africa, the line was out the queue and spilling out towards tusker house. There was no way it was only a 20 minute wait and I was right, as the stand by time switched to 45 minutes. We decided to do it anyway, and as we inched closed to the queue, it started to drizzle a bit, but we made it into the line pretty much dry. . . or so I thought! :rotfl2: What ended up happening was that there was a part of the line that they opened up (because of the size of the line I guess) that is not covered and right before we got to it, it started to rain HARD, so once again, out come the ponchos! :cool1: :woohoo: :yay: Eventually, we made it back under cover and got on the ride w. maybe a half hour wait. Here are some pics:

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From the Safari ride, we went back to the front of the park for our dinner ressies at Rainforest. Simply put, not a good experience! :sad1: Because of the rain and the park closing, it was REALLY crowded. Then, there was no separate line for people already w. ressies, so I had to stand in line for like 10 minutes w. everyone else trying to get a ressie just to check in. Eventually, maybe lie 10 minutes after that, we got seated. Apparently, we had both forgotten just how noisy the place was. The worst part was the meal though. Since our last time at Rainforest, they had substantially paired down their menu, and much of what I used to like on the menu was gone. We ended up splitting nachos appetizer and then I got a half slab of ribs (nothing special) and Melissa got a four cheese pizza that looked like it came out of a kids pizza bake box! :confused3 Melissa took like two bits and was done with it! I might have complained but for some stupid reason I was rushing us to get back into the park so we could see the EMH showing of the Lion King show, so I let it pass. Needless to say, we wont be going back there anytime soon!

As I said, after dinner, we went over to catch the 7pm lion king show, which was good as usual. Here’s a couple pics from the show:

http://inlinethumb13.webshots.com/42956/2511944580101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb27.webshots.com/44442/2506587810101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

After the show, we went over to Dinosaur, which actually had a bit of a wait - maybe like 10 minutes. One ride on that, and we were good. As we walked through Dinorama to get to Everest, you could see the storm clouds coming in. The stand by line for Everest was out the door (so much for shorter EMH lines! :lmao:) so we did the single rider line, and even that was still like 15minutes. While we waited, it got darker and darker, and just before we got under cover, it started to rain AGAIN! :thumbsup2 While a drizzle at first, it got stronger and stronger. Here’s what the sky looked line just before the downpour:

http://inlinethumb07.webshots.com/34630/2472481200101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

Somewhat surprisingly, they kept the coaster going, so Melissa got on first and rode w/o her poncho. She came back absolutely drenched and said she had to keep her eyes closed the whole time b/c of the rain slapping against her face! . I rode maybe like 3 trains after her, did it with a poncho, and still got pretty wet! After that Melissa wanted to go home, and while I thought about ride Kali, I didn’t push the matter, and we made it back to the Poly around 9pm.

COMING UP - IS ANYTHING ACTUALLY WORKING AT THE MAGIC KINGDOM?!?

[KeepSwimmingDory]

For what's its worth, while I love it, my wife would never let me call this on of our "date night" restaurants -its can be noisy. Also, young kids seem to like it b/c they have games such as limbo and "coconut races" (pushing a ball w. a broom) during the meal.

Thanks for the warning. I guess "date night" is the wrong word. Our real "date night" is usually Artist Point. And I do see that it is not like that. Thanks for the heads up because it would be a disappointment if we expected it to be quiet. We enjoy lots of things at WDW without the kids just because we are big kids ourselves and it's fun to go do what we want when the trip is mostly about what they want.

Now off to read your next installment.

[TigerLaw]

Thanks for the warning. I guess "date night" is the wrong word. Our real "date night" is usually Artist Point. And I do see that it is not like that. Thanks for the heads up because it would be a disappointment if we expected it to be quiet. We enjoy lots of things at WDW without the kids just because we are big kids ourselves and it's fun to go do what we want when the trip is mostly about what they want.

Now off to read your next installment.

Dory, can you tell me about Artist Point? We have often discussed going there but my wife is nervous a bit about the menu - thanks

[KeepSwimmingDory]

Dory, can you tell me about Artist Point? We have often discussed going there but my wife is nervous a bit about the menu - thanks

We have never had anything there we didn't like and I'm pretty picky. Now when I look at the menu I never understand half of it. :lmao: They are nice to explain what it is and I have always enjoyed what I have tried. Their menu changes all the time based on what they can get fresh. My DH had buffalo before and I had a free range chicken neither of which appears on the current menu. The Portobello Mushroom Soup is heavenly and I didn't think I like mushrooms. I finally tried it because my friend raved about it so much. It is very creamy and delicious! The Cedar Plank Roasted Salmon is delicious and they bring it out to you on the cedar plank that it was cooked on. That is their signature dish I believe, so I think they always have it.

We love the theming of Wilderness Lodge. Artist Point is a large restaurant with high ceilings, full length windows, dark woods, and very relaxing to us. It is expensive but in our opinion it is worth it. The service has always been excellent--they are very attentive. I have read that the wine selection is wonderful but I don't drink so I can speak for that. I have also heard many people rant about the cobbler (blackberry I think), but we are always too full to try it. We usually get an appetizer though.

Hope that helps.

[TigerLaw]

We have never had anything there we didn't like and I'm pretty picky. Now when I look at the menu I never understand half of it. :lmao: They are nice to explain what it is and I have always enjoyed what I have tried. Their menu changes all the time based on what they can get fresh. My DH had buffalo before and I had a free range chicken neither of which appears on the current menu. The Portobello Mushroom Soup is heavenly and I didn't think I like mushrooms. I finally tried it because my friend raved about it so much. It is very creamy and delicious! The Cedar Plank Roasted Salmon is delicious and they bring it out to you on the cedar plank that it was cooked on. That is their signature dish I believe, so I think they always have it.

We love the theming of Wilderness Lodge. Artist Point is a large restaurant with high ceilings, full length windows, dark woods, and very relaxing to us. It is expensive but in our opinion it is worth it. The service has always been excellent--they are very attentive. I have read that the wine selection is wonderful but I don't drink so I can speak for that. I have also heard many people rant about the cobbler (blackberry I think), but we are always too full to try it. We usually get an appetizer though.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the scoop! It's sad to say this, but we're running out of places at WDW we haven't tried yet, so maybe we'll do this sometime in the future

[TigerLaw]

Tuesday, May 26th

Park Visited: Magic Kingdom & Epcot
Dining: O’hanas (brunch), ESPN zone (dinner)

Tuesday morning was the first of two EMH mornings at the Magic Kingdom. The weather was hot and sunny (for a change - actually I don’t recall us ever having a rain issue during any of our mornings, it as always in later in the day). Anyway, when we went, it was about a few weeks since they switched the EMH attractions to include Splash, Big Thunder and Haunted Mansion instead of the Tomorrowland rides due to Space Mountain’s rehab. We were really looking forward to this, as we aren’t big Space fans so the tradeoff of rides worked in our favor (or so we thought). We got to the park at about 20 minutes before opening and then dashed along with everyone else when the park opened.

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Unfortunately, we got all the way to liberty square before learning that both Splash AND Big Thunder weren’t up and running yet. :confused3 Once we figured this out, we headed into fantasyland and did Dumbo as the second group to ride. By the time we got off Dumbo though, EVERYONE was in fantasyland due to the liberty square section being closed off, so it was a complete ZOO! :eek: (For example, at 8:15 am, Peter Pan’s line was already out of the queue and into the main walkway. We decided to head over to HM, which surprisingly was still a walk on. After that, we went over to the mountains to see what was going on, but both Splash and Big Thunder were still down. The bigger problem though was that everyone had started to grab fastpasses, so that the return times for both rides were now past our breakfast ressie time at O’hanas. :sad2: Eventually , the rides opened up, Big Thunder first, so we did that w. a 10-15 minute wait, then a similar wait time for Splash. We next tried to do jungle cruise, but it already had a 30 minute line, so we saved that for later and did pirates instead with maybe a couple minute wait. We then took some time to look around the Emporium shop and then took the monorail back over to the Polynesian so we can have our character breakfast at O’hanas. Here's a couple more MK shots I took leaving the park:

http://inlinethumb45.webshots.com/32748/2538987970101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb24.webshots.com/43415/2258631450101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

We set the breakfast up for one of the last sittings, and we really came to like doing breakfasts this way, as the crowds were lesser, so easier for food purposes and for seeing the characters. The breakfast itself was really good :banana::banana::banana: and we saw Mickey, Pluto, Lilo & Stitch. Here’s a couple pics:

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After breakfast, I went to the front desk to deal with a bill dispute while Melissa waited in the lobby. That took about 10-15 minutes, and then we checked out and drove over the Beach Club Villas, where we were able to get into a studio without a wait. :cool1::cool1::cool1: Our room was on the first floor, looking out into the woods (so not much of a view) but a decent location b/c it was right next to the door exiting out to the dunes cove pool.

Once we got unpacked, we headed over to DTD and walked around there for a bit before heading over the grocery store to pick up a few things (including funoodles) for the room. Once we got back home, we took a nap and heard it raining outside.

COMING UP - OUR ESPN ZONE “EXPERIENCE”

[mickeystoontown]

I just read the last two updates and I have to say that I really like the picture of Expedition Everest. It's not the typical EE shot that everybody takes. Cool!

[TigerLaw]

I just read the last two updates and I have to say that I really like the picture of Expedition Everest. It's not the typical EE shot that everybody takes. Cool!

thanks - I TRY to get all artistic w. the picture taking (and drive my wife nuts in the process), but you can only do so much w. a P&S camera (no matter how good it is), and I simply will never be allowed to carry around a DSLR! :rotfl2::confused3:rotfl:

Hope you come back and check out the rest of my report and pics! :thumbsup2

[mickeystoontown]

thanks - I TRY to get all artistic w. the picture taking (and drive my wife nuts in the process), but you can only do so much w. a P&S camera (no matter how good it is), and I simply will never be allowed to carry around a DSLR! :rotfl2::confused3:rotfl:

Hope you come back and check out the rest of my report and pics! :thumbsup2

Yeah, sometimes, I get all "artsy fartsy" with my picture taking too. But, they usually don't turn out as well as your's. Now that we have a digital camera, my husband can actually take pictures of us with our heads! Before, you would have thought we were the headless family:lmao:

[TigerLaw]

don't you hate it when you are decapitated like that ?!? ;)

[TigerLaw]

Tuesday, May 26th (cont.)

The following is going to sound like one of Dennis Miller’s old rants, so please bear with me. For dinner Tuesday night we headed to the ESPN Zone. I like their BBQ wings (which are actually a leg and a wing), so Melissa humors me, as its not her favorite place. We got there at a normal or so time, only to find that the door to the restaurant is roped off and we have to wait. Fine. So we wait like 10 minutes or so until we are let in and then we see just how crowded the place was - take a look!

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So fine, if they want to try to create an appearance outside that its hard to get in, whatever. :confused3 So next, we see a empty dining room so we think we’re going to at least be offered a decent table right? WRONG!! :mad: They try to put us in the most far away corner of the room on barstools to boot! I think its worth noting here that if we had wanted to sit at a bar, we could have done so w/o any wait! I nicely ask for a regular table and we get moved to a little better location. When we get our waiter, he advises that they have a new menu. Now for dinner I wanted to get the wings as a meal and just get a side of fries. I asked about this, and was told not a problem. I can’t remember what Melissa got, but I think it was a hamburger and fries. Well, soon after we place our order, out comes this tower of fries1 :rotfl2: I ask what it was, as I wanted my side of fries to come with my meal (the wings), and the waiter says the only fries they can order separately is the appitizer which is like almost six bucks. My response (at this point) was still civil, this isn’t what I wanted, I was clear in wanting a SIDE of fries, and could he please send it back, which he did. Now here is where I start to lose it - Our meals come out and instead of getting the wings that I wanted, I get BBQ boneless chicken bites (basically chicken mcnuggets). :confused: When I asked the waiter did they no longer have the wings with the drumsticks on them, he goes that wasn’t what I asked for! :scared1: I am getting madder by the second, but I go ahead and start eating what was brought out when halfway through the meal, he brings out an order of the wings I had wanted in the first place! At this point, I just want to leave. The final insult was the bill, they only charged me for one of the two sets of wings, but it was for the higher priced, second set that I barely touched b/c I was getting full from the first set of wings! :rotfl: Needless to say, we won’t be going back there anytime soon!:thumbsup2

As an aside, while we are suffering in the meal from hell, our friends at the ESPN Zone decide they are going to host a live ESPN-like show while we eat, so we get to deal with all of this while nearly going deaf from the loud announcers! (See pic above)

After our fabulous dinner, we headed over into Epcot. We just walked around world showcase for a bit before eventually going into Mexico to do the boat ride - DONDE DONALD?!? (One quick aside, in all our years, we NEVER saw off kilter play, but this night we finally got to see them!) From there, we continued our world showcase stroll until we hit france, where I got in line and got us some grand mariner orange slushies :cool1: and Melissa went over to the beer garden area in England, where planned to watch Illuminations from. One funny note was as we made our way around world showcase, a marching band came by - that was a new one on me!

http://inlinethumb52.webshots.com/44979/2891663440101338200S425x425Q85.jpg :confused3

By now perhaps you are wondering to yourself, hey, we haven’t heard about any rain on your trip lately?!? Well.... what was at the beginning a great looking night, slowly gets worse and worse and so for like the last hour before the fireworks, we are sitting w. our ponchos on totally getting rained on. Actually, I think it started to rain right when we get done with our alcoholic slushies! Thankfully, they had illuminations despite the weather, but after the fireworks, we came home even though our plan was to do the EMH night.

Here are some other Epcot pics from that night to get a sense of how the skies got worse:

http://inlinethumb12.webshots.com/19531/2445623050101338200S425x425Q85.jpg[http://inlinethumb54.webshots.com/9781/2759072970101338200S425x425Q85.jpg[/URL]

COMING UP - I GET ON THE TOP THREE SCORES AT TSM (FOR LIKE A MINUTE!)

[TigerLaw]

Wednesday, May 27th

Parks: MGM
Dining: Pizza Planet (lunch) Cape May Clambake (dinner)

Wednesday was our first regular 9am opening of the week. We did our usual “get to the rope drop line” and I was worried given the size of the crowd:

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Well, by the time the dash to Toy Story Mania ended, I was the very first person to get FPs! :cool1: (I know, that and a quarter....) Anyway, we did TSM as basically a walk on and I score like 160,000+ which for a brief minute was the second highest score of the day :banana: (and before we even got off the ride, the score was off the top 3 list!) We next headed over to RnRC and there was a line already and the park wasn’t even open 20 minutes. We ended up doing it twice using the single rider line w/o any major wait. After that, we got another FP and then I went over and did Tower of Terror once with like a 30 minute wait. While I did ToT, Melissa continued to do RnRc by herself and then rode it one more time with me (maybe a 20 minute wait).

Next, I got a couple character pics in before we headed back over to TSM around 11:30 to get another FP (we knew we were coming back at night so we were trying to stock up on FPs).

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[http://inlinethumb31.webshots.com/42398/2371188020101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb56.webshots.com/13175/2075638890101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

We then headed over to pizza planet for an early lunch and we were both surprised how good it was (Melissa got a cheese pizza and a cookie and I got a pepperoni pizza/salad combo). At last, a cheap (in disney terms) place for lunch at MGM that we actually like! :thumbsup2 Once we finished lunch, Melissa went back to the Beach Club to hit the pool and I stayed a bit longer at MGM, bascially to goof around and take pictures. I tried to get my pic taken with Mike and Sully, but Sully left right as I got there (and BTW, where’s Roz?!?) :confused3 I did get my picture with Sorcerer Mickey and took pics of the Up characters.

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I also went over and did the American Idol show, which I was impressed with even as a non-Idol fan. The girl in the middle below won singing “natural woman”.

http://inlinethumb05.webshots.com/41540/2018884910101338200S425x425Q85.jpg[/URL]http://inlinethumb36.webshots.com/43811/2217342880101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

I wraped up my MGM day at 1:30 by scoring another RnRC fastpass so we had two sets each of RnRC and TSM fastpasses for that evening. Here are some more pics from my shooting spree:

[http://inlinethumb25.webshots.com/45656/2582540430101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb23.webshots.com/44246/2696292050101338200S425x425Q85.jpg
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Finally, what does it say about the state of things at WDW when a star, an icon, like Fozzie Bear is left hanging out in a trash can?!? OH THE HUMANITY!!

http://inlinethumb64.webshots.com/44607/2032957260101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

COMING UP - WE DO MGM TWICE IN A DAY!

[TigerLaw]

really, NO ONE is equally if not more offended at Fozzie Bear's treatment?!? (and yes, this is a shameless bump, but at least I tried to be creative with it!) :thumbsup2

[TigerLaw]

Wednesday, May 27th (cont.)

As we last left the trip report, Melissa had came back home to try to use stormalong bay for the first time this trip, well, as Annie Lennox sang, “here’s comes the rain again!” :woohoo: Literally, within minutes of getting her wristband, SAB was closed down on account of thunder and rain in the area, so Melissa came back to the room right around the time I got back. We waited the weather out for a bit and then once it cleared out, headed over to the dunes cove “quiet” pool.

After swimming at the BCV pool, we had dinner at the cape may café clambake. The surprise that night was they had included crab legs as part of the meal! :cool1: Apparently, this was like a 1 to 2 week test period. We had one of the two person tables next to the where they put the crab legs, and you would have thought this was people’s last meal ever given how that stuff was attacked! :rotfl2: I tried them, but to me, they always have been too much work for the end result, so after playing with trying to get the legs open, I gave up. That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy this meal however, as it has lots of great stuff for carnivores! :thumbsup2 I especially liked the carving station (which last trip I TOTALLY forgot about ever hitting up).

Once we were done with dinner, we came back to the room, changed, and drove back to MGM for the extra magic night hours (which were 8-11pm if I recall right). First, we headed over to Toy Story Mania to use up our two sets of FPs (in case they wouldn’t honor them after 8pm). Around 8pm, I got FPs for tower and then we tried to do Great Movie Ride, but it was like a 40 minute wait, so we passed and did Muppet Vision. I love the two old guys and even though I know most of the jokes by now, I still laugh at this every time! :laughing: We headed back over to GMR, but it STILL had a 40 minute wait :confused3, so we went down sunset instead. RnRC wasn’t working, so I did Tower twice using my FPs and then RnRC was working again, so we used our two sets of FPs on that from earlier in the day. From there we head back over to GMR, where the line was finally like 15 minutes, so we did that and then head back to the resort.

Oh, someone had asked for BCV shots, so here are a few:

http://inlinethumb64.webshots.com/44031/2064000110101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb59.webshots.com/36922/2034699740101338200S425x425Q85.jpg
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COMING UP - WILL EVERYTHING ACTUALLY BE OPEN AT THE MAGIC KINGDOM?

[TigerLaw]

Thursday, May 28th

Parks: MK & Epcot
Dining: Chef Mickey’s (brunch), San Angel Inn (dinner)

Thursday was another EMH morning at MK. The day started out perfectly sunny and fine (so you know what that means later!:thumbsup2) This was supposed to be our big time to “do the mountains” but ONCE AGAIN there was issues! At the rope drop, we dashed over and I got FPs for splash. The idea was to then do Big Thunder, but it was down from like 8 to 8:45,so we just ended up doing splash a couple times in a row. (Also, there was an issue w. the FP machines, as they were spitting out return times of 10am instead of starting at 9am which is usually what they do form EMH). Anyway, after I realized that the splash FP return time wasn’t going to be any use to us b/c of our chef mickey ressie, I talked (OK, I b#llsh*ted) a CM into trading for a Big Thunder FP, so we ended up riding Big Thunder a couple times. We tried to go do jungle cruise again, but the lines were still bad, so we did Haunted Mansion and Pirates again I believe. (BTW, here’s a pic of donald in a costume I had never seen before, and if you have Donald, you need Daisy too right?!?)

http://inlinethumb02.webshots.com/45313/2186841840101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb21.webshots.com/45652/2064227780101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

We decided to head over a bit early to Chef Mickey’s so Melissa could get back to the pool (I went back to MK after “brunch”). Even with our ressies, we still had a good 15 minute-plus wait before we got seated. The breakfast itself was good, but we got little to no love from the characters (while they spent HOURS at a 20-person table next to us). I was going to blow it off, but I said something to one of the helpers, so got a few good pics in the end:

http://inlinethumb27.webshots.com/35802/2300350470101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb51.webshots.com/42610/2765614190101338200S425x425Q85.jpg
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After brunch, Mel went back to the Beach Club to hit the pool and I went back to MK. I wanted to see the castle show, which I had never seen and got to it just as it was about to start. It was cute, but it was sunny and hot! Here are some pics:

[http://inlinethumb59.webshots.com/43514/2952591530101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb18.webshots.com/35409/2922516010101338200S425x425Q85.jpg
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OK, so the castle shows ends, and I have like maybe 20 minutes until the new Move It! Shake It! Celebrate! Mini-parade, so I just hung around the hub, and it started to quickly look like storms were coming.

http://inlinethumb11.webshots.com/43786/2326667980101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb30.webshots.com/43229/2748448460101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

By the time the parade came up main street, it was raining to the point that they decided just to “do a lap” and drive the floats right back down main street instead of stopping in the hub for the dance party portion of the parade - here are some pics of that:

http://inlinethumb27.webshots.com/14298/2289563550101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb11.webshots.com/44234/2294376130101338200S425x425Q85.jpg
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After having enough with getting rained on, I head back to Beach Club to meet up with Melissa. Here’s how things looked at the Beach Club (not much better)

http://inlinethumb45.webshots.com/18220/2423505140101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

Finally, I have to show my favorite picture from the whole trip just about - what you don’t see in this in that there are signs EVERYWHERE saying don’t feed the ducks - guess the ducks didn’t get the message or seem to mind?!?

http://inlinethumb39.webshots.com/43942/2699382560101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

COMING UP - ITS DRINK AROUND THE WORLD TIME AT EPCOT!

[KeepSwimmingDory]

Love the Frontierland Donald!

Wish we had done the character meet with the UP characters. Wonder how long they will be there?

[Disney4nonah]

Monday, May 25th (cont.)

Somewhat surprisingly, they kept the coaster going, so Melissa got on first and rode w/o her poncho. She came back absolutely drenched and said she had to keep her eyes closed the whole time b/c of the rain slapping against her face! . I rode maybe like 3 trains after her, did it with a poncho, and still got pretty wet! After that Melissa wanted to go home, and while I thought about ride Kali, I didn’t push the matter, and we made it back to the Poly around 9pm.

COMING UP - IS ANYTHING ACTUALLY WORKING AT THE MAGIC KINGDOM?!?

Great TR can't wait to read more!!! We were at DHS that afternoon and by the time the afternoon rolled around and we got in that 'big storm' and I had forgotten the ponchos at the room, yeah we were soaked. Gotta love that sideways rain! haha Look forward to more pics! :banana:

[TigerLaw]

Love the Frontierland Donald!

Yeah, that was a total surprise to me, hadn't even heard of donald looking like this.

[QUOTE=Disney4nonah;32451082]Great TR can't wait to read more!!! We were at DHS that afternoon and by the time the afternoon rolled around and we got in that 'big storm' and I had forgotten the ponchos at the room, yeah we were soaked. Gotta love that sideways rain! haha Look forward to more pics! :banana:

Thanks, more report and pics are defintely on the way this weekend! :thumbsup2

[TigerLaw]

Thursday May, 28th (cont.)

As an brief aside, I forgot to say in the last report that after the Move It parade ended, I tried to use a FP I had for jungle cruise but the FP line was all the way out past the FP entrance, so I gave up on that - so once again, no jungle cruise! :sad2:

Getting current, not really alot to report for Thursday night. The afternoon was spent napping and at the pool (which is what we usually do). Dinner that night was at San Angel Inn in Epcot. Of course, the walk over to Mexico afforded us the opportunity to start on our drinking around the world night. :cool1::banana: We started out with our favorite, the orange grand mariner slushie in France and moved onto the lemon slushie in Italy, which we liked, but not as much as our favorite. Here are a couple pics from france:

http://inlinethumb35.webshots.com/31138/2748850880101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb57.webshots.com/31352/2807394770101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

As far as our dinner went, it was fine, but by no means a favorite. I think they redid the menu and tried to make it more authentic, so the food was good, just didn’t wow us. After dinner, we went over to Soarin to see what the FP situation looked like and specifically, to see if they would reset the FP machines for the EMH night (answer was no). So we ended up doing nemo as a walk on and then living with the land. After the boat ride, we saw Soarin was down to a 40 minute wait, so we did that. As we came out of Soarin, Illuminations had just started and it had started to rain AGAIN as well :confused3, so we just watched it as we walked through world showcase and out of Epcot.

To round out things, here are a few more Epcot topiary pics:

http://inlinethumb21.webshots.com/41428/2534972900101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb54.webshots.com/43445/2983643040101338200S425x425Q85.jpg
http://inlinethumb60.webshots.com/42875/2558412590101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb34.webshots.com/44769/2778130410101338200S425x425Q85.jpg
http://inlinethumb54.webshots.com/45365/2580924700101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb34.webshots.com/42401/2146927430101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

COMING UP - STAR WARS WEEKENDS!

[TigerLaw]

Friday, May 29th

Parks: MGM

Today was one of our “split up” days - I went to MGM for star wars weekends (SWW) and Melissa stayed at beach club to go to the pool. It was also an early entry day at MGM, so I got there, did the 8am rope line dash to toy story, got FPs and then rode it. I can’t remember my scores that day, so they must have been pretty unrememberable! :confused3 A lot of the rest of the morning was just walking around and taking pictures. :thumbsup2 I wanted to get pics of the stormtroopers on top of the entrance way, but never caught them there. Also, because there was a special american idol special event that day (the recent winner Kris Allen was there to help promote the AI experience), Mickey and Minnie would not be in their SW costumes until well after I left the park in the afternoon, so that was a bummer. I ended up waiting in like a 15 minute line right before 9am for chewbacca and got in a brief line for stormtrooper donald duck, but that was about it in terms of getting in line (for example the line for Vader was just way too long for me to care). Here are some of my SWW pics:

Me and Chewie and a Ewok

http://inlinethumb28.webshots.com/42843/2478077780101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb45.webshots.com/42732/2446730450101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

Vader & Boba Fett

http://inlinethumb55.webshots.com/45494/2105718350101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb60.webshots.com/42939/2500800150101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

R2D2 & Jabba’s Guard

http://inlinethumb38.webshots.com/43237/2550273990101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb27.webshots.com/44058/2995362250101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

Me and Stormtrooper Donald and a regular trooper (who I thought looked weird signing a book)

http://inlinethumb61.webshots.com/44028/2283282260101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb47.webshots.com/43630/2849643500101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

Darth Goofy and Jedi (looking all deep and jedi-like)

http://inlinethumb10.webshots.com/43913/2313016790101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb09.webshots.com/21960/2992998040101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

Here’s a pic of AI winner Kris Allen at his little mini-concert after he got his own parade!

http://inlinethumb64.webshots.com/35839/2734668100101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

Finally, as a huge lover of Fozzie Bear, I had never notices this sign before coming oput of Muppet Vision, so I had to take a picture!

http://inlinethumb63.webshots.com/43518/2526742710101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

COMING UP - PICTURES FROM THE SWW PARADE!

[TigerLaw]

By the way, forget to say in my last post, sorry for the dealy in updates - since my prior to today update, we went back to WDW for a brief stay at OKW for my birthday and then I was slammed like never before at work and had to fly out to CA for work as well, so I hope I will finish up this report in short order so I can start on our july report!

[KeepSwimmingDory]

Enjoyed the update & how fun to get to make another WDW trip for your birthday! Love the Stormtrooper Donald and how cute Goofy looks with his Mickey boxer shorts. :)

[TigerLaw]

SWW parade pics:

Jedi Mickey & Princess Minnie

http://inlinethumb54.webshots.com/44085/2213704250101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb53.webshots.com/16436/2681096930101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

Donald & Jedi training academy kids

http://inlinethumb02.webshots.com/42305/2444208870101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb30.webshots.com/42589/2172281420101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

The 501st Legion

http://inlinethumb27.webshots.com/44698/2736971050101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb11.webshots.com/43274/2361664650101338200S425x425Q85.jpg
http://inlinethumb29.webshots.com/6108/2796255040101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb13.webshots.com/15116/2049063600101338200S425x425Q85.jpg
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Sand people (with and without child)

http://inlinethumb40.webshots.com/44135/2512921790101338200S425x425Q85.jpg[http://inlinethumb48.webshots.com/44335/2201826440101338200S425x425Q85.jpg


Boba fett and other bad guys
http://inlinethumb34.webshots.com/44897/2496734740101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb04.webshots.com/21827/2695844610101338200S425x425Q85.jpg
http://inlinethumb25.webshots.com/42264/2512240880101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb04.webshots.com/43907/2820287450101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

Chewie (in and out of costume)

http://inlinethumb45.webshots.com/42732/2745025990101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb38.webshots.com/11429/2161424620101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

Ewoks and R2D2

http://inlinethumb34.webshots.com/44769/2917501220101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb51.webshots.com/43442/2447910380101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

Greedo and Vader
http://inlinethumb63.webshots.com/43966/2106929240101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb46.webshots.com/45485/2129842640101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

You talkin’ to me?!?

http://inlinethumb63.webshots.com/43262/2245404940101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

COMING UP - NO MORE STAR WARS STUFF! :)

[KeepSwimmingDory]

Great SWW parade pics. Brings back good memories from the year we were there for it. My boys loved it! :thumbsup2

[TigerLaw]

Once the parade was over, I came back and found Melissa at the room relaxing after spending the morning at Stormalong Bay. I can’t remember what we did for lunch (I assume Beaches & Cream but just can’t recall). We did go to back to the pool, where it ONCE AGAIN BEGAN TO RAIN!!! :rotfl2: :rotfl: :cool1:Thankfully, this time, there was no thunder or lighting, so we actually stayed in the pool while it rained a bit. :thumbsup2 After we were done at the pool, we came back to the room and took a nap to rest up for another long MK evening.

Upon arriving at MK , I went to get us some splash FPs, but they were out, so I got a set for Big Thunder instead. The cast members at both places said they wouldn’t be restarting the machines for EMH night. Sometime on my walk back to the hub, I realized that I had forgotten my camera (hence no pictures in this update!) :confused3 I met up with Melissa and we had dinner at crystal palace, which we both really liked. :banana: Our ressie was for 7:20 and we didn’t get in until around 7:40, so by the time we got out of CP, we just sat down bear the Tomorrowland bridge to watch the Wishes fireworks at 9 pm. Once the fireworks were over with, we walked over to try to finally ride jungle cruise, but the line simply didn’t move for like 5 minutes, so we left that and did pirates with no wait and then big thunder, using our fast passes. From there we did haunted mansion and philharmagic before heading back over to do splash twice, where we got drenched but the water shoots coming off the main drop. N ot much of an EMH night, but we didn’t push trying to ride everything for a change.

Here a couple beach club shots. The second picture is maybe my favorite view anywhere - I stop almost every time I walk out of the villas and just stare at this for a minute - I can’t explain why I love it so much, just do!


http://inlinethumb13.webshots.com/44428/2406110550101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb31.webshots.com/42846/2013828280101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

COMING UP - OUR LAST FULL DAY AT THE PARKS

[TigerLaw]

Saturday, May 30th

Parks: AK & Epcot
Dining: Donald’s/Tusker House (brunch), Le Cellar (dinner)

Saturday mornings at WDW are usually a bit bittersweet for me, as most times, I know its my last time “in a park doing rides” on a given trip. :sad1: For the past few vacations that I can recall, this usually took place at MGM, as they would have their EMH mornings on a Saturday. This trip however found us going to AK for its EMH morning.

http://inlinethumb63.webshots.com/9278/2239148040101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb05.webshots.com/42756/2042124030101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

At the rope drop, I race walked over to Everest and got us our first FPs of the day. We then did Everest twice in a row - first as a walk on and the second time with a 5-10 minute wait. Usually, two trips on Everest is enough for me (the backwards part gets me sick). :confused3 We next went over to do the Safari ride and had a really good trip :thumbsup2 couple highlights there was (1) we were delayed b/c giraffes stopped in the road and (2) we saw the lion yawning loudly (our safari driver said he had never seen/heard that before). After that, I ran through the Exploration Trail while Melissa waited and didn’t see all that much. Here are some pics:

http://inlinethumb64.webshots.com/45759/2016776640101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb45.webshots.com/29932/2974280520101338200S425x425Q85.jpg
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From there we left Africa and went back into Asia, first to use our Everest FP and then I went on Kali River Rapids first the first time in ages by myself. I didn’t get TOO wet, but wet enough that I didn’t want to take character pictures. As you can guess, we then went over to Tusker House for Donald’s character breakfast. We did this one late in the morning so it wasn’t too crowded and in fact we had more than enough time w. the characters. We had done this before when it was in dinoland, but we liked it much better over at tusker house and food was really good too (Melissa says its her new favorite WDFW breakfast) :cool1::banana::yay: After breakfast, we left AK and came back to beach club to go to the Stormalong Bay pool one more time and a nap.

http://inlinethumb42.webshots.com/34921/2416088040101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb03.webshots.com/30786/2769082980101338200S425x425Q85.jpg
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COMING UP - DATE NIGHT AT EPCOT

[TigerLaw]

As discussed above, somewhere along the way in our last few trips we started making the last night of our trip a “date night” which is Melissa-speak for dinner, fireworks and no running around to get to rides! :worship: On this night, we went to Epcot’s Le Cellar restaurant, where we hadn’t eaten for years. While I wasn’t a big fan of the much-hyped cheese soup, overall we both really liked it a lot and we go back much sooner on future trips. :thumbsup2 (I got the steak and potatoes and Melissa got chicken and the baked mac and cheese.) After that, we headed across the lagoon to try to catch the American Adventure, which we just missed. I ended up getting a funnel cake and we just hung out until the next showing which we went to. (One brief aside - that night tony orlando was packing them into the concert stage and we debated whether Melissa’s father looked like him or not) From there, we found that the patio area between england and france was open that night, so we dropped down and sat on the steps and had a really good view of illuminations.

Here are some random pics from our Epcot night:

http://inlinethumb22.webshots.com/44117/2981893450101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb05.webshots.com/43716/2141882320101338200S425x425Q85.jpg


Sunday was our travel day. Because of the way the flights went (and how the EMH morning worked), we were able to go into Epcot for a few rides on our travel day. Unfortunately, once again, we were let in from the Int’l Gateway area the same times as the people in the front were, so we were behind all of them heading over to soarin. By the time we got to Soarin, the Fps were already out to 9:35 and the stand by line was a 20+ wait, and when we got off, the line was over an hour! :confused3 I went and filed a complaint at guest relations about how the ropelines were unfair to epcot resort guests and was told they were aware of the issue. After I got done venting, we did test track twice and headed back over to soarin for two more rides before we had to leave. We rushed back to our room, changed clothes, and had a 11am brunch at cape may café. Because of the time, as our meal went on , the room really thinned out and we had the characters coming by over and over.

http://inlinethumb04.webshots.com/45059/2973148950101338200S425x425Q85.jpghttp://inlinethumb58.webshots.com/30777/2338262870101338200S425x425Q85.jpg

After brunch, we went to the airport and (after getting lost for a bit) had the best surprise - for some reason, we were upgraded to first class! It was great having leg room, satellite radio, etc.

WELL THAT'S IT - THANKS FOR READING EVERYONE!!