Liz
07-08-2002, 06:18 PM
Cast:
ME - 43, Author of this report, grew up in Florida, too many WDW trips to really count
PAUL - 50, my dear husband, several WDW trips under his belt
JEFF - 14, our dear son, this is about his 6th trip to WDW
LAURA - 13, our dear daughter, her 6th trip also. Will be participating in the U.S. Transplant Games in Orlando.
MY MOM - late 60's, been to WDW many times, last time 5 years ago
JUNE 28 - FRIDAY
Going home tomorrow so today was our last day to enjoy the parks. You'd think being our last day we'd be up and ready super early but we ended up leaving the room later than we did any other day. Mainly this was because there was debate about what we were doing today. The plan had been to go to MGM in the morning and end the day at Epcot. But Jeff just had to ride the water mice again. We told him it wasn't in the budget to pay for the boats again so if he wanted to do it he'd have to pay for his out of his souvenir money. We felt like that was a good way to spend some of his money rather wasting it on junk.
Laura didn't really want to do the boats again and she didn't want to have to pay for it herself. I enjoyed the boats and would do it again on another trip, but didn't really feel like doing it again so soon.
So a new plan was hatched. We all rode the bus to MK. Paul & Jeff walked to the Contemporary and rode the water mice for another hour and Jeff paid for his hour. Laura, my mom and I went to MK and arranged to meet the boys later by Walt & Mickey's statue.
Maybe it was because we arrived a little later than before, but the line for security was much longer and slower this morning. Again, Laura did not pass the finger scan and had to be overridden to be let in. I have no idea why she never had any problem at any park other than MK. That forever will remain a mystery I guess.
My mom went on very few rides that I could probably count on one hand. She did ride the Tomorrowland Transit Authority with Laura and me but she didn't like the steep grade of the moving sidewalk going up and down. Laura and I rode Buzz twice. Then we waited in line at Winnie the Pooh for 15 minutes and could see we wouldn't finish the ride before it was time to meet the boys so we got out of line. Then they were 25 minutes late!!!
We all had an early lunch at Cosmic Rays. Laura and I each got chicken strips. They gave quite a lot and we probably could have shared an order and been happy but they were really good and we each finished our meal. We got a large diet Coke to share but we were still really thirsty after finishing that one off and got another. Paul & Jeff each got double cheeseburgers. I asked if the large chicken meal that serves 3-4 people could be ordered with the Connections vouchers and was told no. We could have used vouchers here but we weren't getting dessert or the most expensive entree so we just paid cash.
After eating we all went to see Carousel of Progress. We all, even the kids, love this! I hope they never take it away completely. Its bad enough that its only open a few hours each day, if that.
The kids got FP to Space Mountain, and while we waited for their time to come we went over to the Haunted Mansion, because we had missed riding that so far this trip. While there I asked if a DIS CM by the name of Steve was working and they said no. It appeared this day almost all the CM's working at the Haunted Mansion were women.
I found a spot on Main Street to sit with my mom while Paul took the kids back to ride Space Mtn. When they returned we headed out to Epcot.
While Epcot is my mom's favorite park, she still said she'd rather go back to the Dolphin instead. Paul walked her back to the Dolphin bus stop while we went ahead on the monorail to Epcot. We agreed to meet in the area behind Spaceship Earth. I was beginning to think we'd have to drag mom kicking and screaming out of the Dolphin tomorrow!!! She told me later that it was about 4:00 when she got back to her room only to find it had not been cleaned yet! Our room, which connected to hers, was clean. Also there were no housekeeping carts in the hall at all. When she was opening her door a housekeeper came down the hall saying that room wasn't cleaned yet, so my mom sat in our room while she waited for hers to be done. That was really late, I think, to not have her room finished. Other than the small problem of waiting on her room to be cleaned, she said she had a wonderful last night at the hotel. She went downstairs THREE TIMES to get something to eat! The last time she got take out ice cream (fat free, sugar free - why bother I say!) and took it up to her room. She sat on the bed watching T.V. eating her ice cream and said she was in heaven!
When we got off the monorail to Epcot it started raining. And we realized Paul had Jeff's AP in case they asked for it when they reserved the boats! We thought we'd just wait for Paul there, at the entrance, but I remembered what he said about if we have a meeting place to be there and not change it! I thought there was an outside chance, although a small one, that Paul would go back to the Dolphin with my mom and then walk to Epcot through the International Gateway. If he did that then waiting for him at the front would be a bad idea! Then I remembered I had my mom's hopper pass. It had already been used by her at MK that morning, and Jeff had his hand stamped when he exited the MK, so we just ran her pass through and he came in. We rode Spaceship Earth (no line at all) and then met him in the area behind it with no problem.
After Spaceship Earth we went to the Living Seas. We skipped the movie and expected to go straight to the ride. Much to our surprise we found there WAS no ride! When did the ride get removed? We walked around and looked at the tanks, which were greatly improved over last year when there was a problem and the tanks were totally cloudy and we were unable to see any fish. My favorite way to enjoy the Living Seas is to find a spot to sit by the tanks and just take some time out to enjoy watching the fish. We found a spot this time by the dolphin tank and watched the dolphin do some tricks. There was a trainer on the far side of the tank giving it instructions. We couldn't hear what she was telling the dolphin to do, but we could see everything and where we were it wasn't crowded at all.
As we got ready to leave the Living Seas, Paul asked a CM working in the gift shop what happened to the ride. She said they found people would just leave the pavilion after they got off the ride and now that the ride has been removed people spend time there and really take the time to look around. So it doesn't sound like the ride is coming back. Of course nobody asks my opinion, but I think the ride should have been longer and have it go real slow around the tanks. Its probably not possible to do that, but that's the way I'll do it when I'm in charge! Ha!
When the little hydrolator opened up to the outdoors everyone let out a big "ohhhhh" because we saw it was, of course, raining again. As we stayed in that sheltered area a to put on our rain ponchos it was funny to hear the exact same reaction every time a new group came out!
We briefly went into that big gift shop by Innoventions to buy some gifts for people back home. We didn't have money in our budget to buy ourselves any souvenirs this time (except for the kids, who had their own money for such things) but we got something for the people who took us to the airport, the people picking us up from the airport, the people taking care of our pets, Paul's older daughter, and Paul's parents. The kids got some gifts for their friends, but they paid for those themselves.
We then went to Innoventions briefly and didn't find anything to really hold our attention, and being our last day we didn't want to spend a lot of time in there.
We went to World Showcase and rode the Mexico & Norway boat rides again.
We had several Connections vouchers left and we decided to buy one meal per country and split it four ways just to have fun with them! Our first stop to get a meal was Norway. We got a ham & cheese open faced sandwich, salad, lg. diet coke and lg. sweet pretzel covered with almonds. The total here would have been $14.29. This was the best meal and we'd eat here again. All the desserts here looked wonderful and it was hard to choose! Everything was very good and we felt like we got a good value for our $11 voucher. We didn't even order the most expensive things. Be forewarned, it will be VERY hard choosing just one dessert at the Kringla Bakery! Yum!!! In retrospect we should have used more of the vouchers at Norway because that was the best meal.
As we passed China we saw some street performers demonstrating one of those things that look like an hourglass and they throw it high in the air and catch it on a string. Jeff has been wanting one and he bought it. We're not sure but we think it was cheaper than we saw it for sale in Salt Lake City! Now that would really be something!
Our second voucher was used at the fast food place in Germany. We got the chicken sandwich, potato salad, black forest cake and lg. diet Coke. The total here would have been $12.79 so we didn't save a lot of money with the $11 voucher. The people working here were really friendly and fun to talk to but the food was GROSS! Paul got the honor of eating the sandwich & potato salad all by himself while the kids and I helped ourselves to the delicious cake. The sandwich had whole mushrooms on it that kept falling out. Also I think it had tomatoes. Anyway it was gross. I had one bite of the potato salad and it had a strong vinegar taste. Not good!
When we got to the America area we watched the end of another Shockwave performance. After it ended we talked to one of the performers, a sax player. He said he's been performing 4 shows a day for 51 days straight! They have two sets of performers but he and one other person perform every show. He was so nice and friendly but I can't remember his name. He really encouraged Jeff in his drumming and told him the drummers in the show started the same way with snare and then bass drum in their school bands.
The third voucher we used at the good ole USA, Liberty Inn. Since the kids and I were hungry from not eating much we used a voucher here for something we knew we'd eat! We had a bacon double cheeseburger with fries, fruit cup topped with ice cream and a diet Coke. The total would have been $13.12. Paul and the kids ate all the fruit & ice cream and said it was great. It looked really good too. They aren't as generous here with what you can order with the voucher (compared to somewhere like Beaches & Cream). I tried to order the root beer float as the beverage since it was listed under the beverages and not under dessert but was told it was not allowed. Also asked if I could order a drink in the souvenir mug as the beverage and was told no. I noticed later it says right on the vouchers that drinks in souvenir mugs are not included.
After eating, the 8:15 Shockwave performance was about ready to start. We decided to stay and see it one last time! Laura wasn't thrilled with the idea but she went along with it. It was lightly raining and there were seats in the AP covered section but we didn't have one of those preferred seating cards from the AP lounge. We asked if we could just show them our AP's and sit there but they said no. There was also a handicapped seating (lots of benches for handicapped that remained empty throughout the show). This area was covered too. We showed them Laura's GAC and asked if we could sit there and again we were told no. So we just sat in the drizzling rain and watched it with our ponchos on. After this show ended Jeff was able to talk to the drummer (Todd) and I took a picture of Jeff with him. It hasn't been hard for Jeff to pick out the two highlights of his trip - Shockwave and the water mice!
It was now getting close to park closing time. We had to really hurry to get to Morocco, where we were going to use another voucher. Here Paul ordered a Shawarma platter (chicken & lamb), diet coke and some cake looking dessert with fruit on top. I had one bite of the dessert (didn't really like it) and several bites of one of the side dishes that had a lot of onions (I love onions!) It was good! There was another side dish that we all thought was really gross but we don't know what it was. It didn't seem bad at first but then there was a really bad aftertaste. Paul ate all of the meat because the kids and I were full by this time.
It was fun eating around the world. We probably wouldn't eat at Morocco again (with or without vouchers). If we ate at Germany again we wouldn't get the chicken sandwich. We would definitely eat at Norway again!
Illuminations was going off while we were sitting at a table outside Morocco. We couldn't really see well from there. Paul & Jeff stayed behind to finish eating while Laura and I went ahead so we could catch the boat. Laura doesn't have a lot of stamina for a ton of walking so she preferred the boat. Actually I didn't mind either because my feet hurt! Paul and Jeff still beat us back to the room. The people running the boats were pretty funny and very well informed. One night we had a captain who told us a ton of facts about the Dolphin, exactly how many rooms, etc. You could tell he took great pride in having memorized all that! This night the captain was pretty funny. He was saying this was special Disney rain we were having because it didn't actually get you wet. Then he said "I want you to think about that tonight when you're back in your room wringing out your socks!" One captain was a huge WDW fan who had visited many times. He said he always forgot to bring back his Mickey ponchos and always ended up having to buy a new one. When he got back home he would just throw the poncho in his trunk and finally one day he counted and he had like 30 Mickey ponchos in there! Finally he just moved to Florida and now is a captain on the Friendship boat!
When we got back to our room I saw that we had another message. When I listened to it my heart about stopped for a few seconds till I heard more. It was our next door neighbor who was taking care of our pets. I had left the Dolphin number for emergencies. She said "This is June and I need you to call me right away. (heart stopped) The power went out for awhile and now your sprinklers are coming on every day and we don't want you to get a ticket. (heart resumed beating)" I was so afraid she was calling to say something had happened to one of our animals. We're having a severe drought here in Utah and we're only allowed to water on certain days, but when the power goes out our sprinkler system resets itself to come on every day so that's why she called. Whew. Paul went down to the phone to call her and everything was okay at home.
Back in the room I got as much packed as I could so we could leave early in the morning and then we went to bed.
Budget for the day:
$5 Maid tip
$27 Water mice - Paul
$30 Lunch - Cosmic Rays
$20 Drinks throughout the day
$38 Gifts for family & friends back home
$11 Voucher - 1 dinner in Norway
$11 Voucher - 1 dinner in Germany
$11 Voucher - 1 dinner at Liberty Inn
$11 Voucher - 1 dinner at Morocco
ME - 43, Author of this report, grew up in Florida, too many WDW trips to really count
PAUL - 50, my dear husband, several WDW trips under his belt
JEFF - 14, our dear son, this is about his 6th trip to WDW
LAURA - 13, our dear daughter, her 6th trip also. Will be participating in the U.S. Transplant Games in Orlando.
MY MOM - late 60's, been to WDW many times, last time 5 years ago
JUNE 28 - FRIDAY
Going home tomorrow so today was our last day to enjoy the parks. You'd think being our last day we'd be up and ready super early but we ended up leaving the room later than we did any other day. Mainly this was because there was debate about what we were doing today. The plan had been to go to MGM in the morning and end the day at Epcot. But Jeff just had to ride the water mice again. We told him it wasn't in the budget to pay for the boats again so if he wanted to do it he'd have to pay for his out of his souvenir money. We felt like that was a good way to spend some of his money rather wasting it on junk.
Laura didn't really want to do the boats again and she didn't want to have to pay for it herself. I enjoyed the boats and would do it again on another trip, but didn't really feel like doing it again so soon.
So a new plan was hatched. We all rode the bus to MK. Paul & Jeff walked to the Contemporary and rode the water mice for another hour and Jeff paid for his hour. Laura, my mom and I went to MK and arranged to meet the boys later by Walt & Mickey's statue.
Maybe it was because we arrived a little later than before, but the line for security was much longer and slower this morning. Again, Laura did not pass the finger scan and had to be overridden to be let in. I have no idea why she never had any problem at any park other than MK. That forever will remain a mystery I guess.
My mom went on very few rides that I could probably count on one hand. She did ride the Tomorrowland Transit Authority with Laura and me but she didn't like the steep grade of the moving sidewalk going up and down. Laura and I rode Buzz twice. Then we waited in line at Winnie the Pooh for 15 minutes and could see we wouldn't finish the ride before it was time to meet the boys so we got out of line. Then they were 25 minutes late!!!
We all had an early lunch at Cosmic Rays. Laura and I each got chicken strips. They gave quite a lot and we probably could have shared an order and been happy but they were really good and we each finished our meal. We got a large diet Coke to share but we were still really thirsty after finishing that one off and got another. Paul & Jeff each got double cheeseburgers. I asked if the large chicken meal that serves 3-4 people could be ordered with the Connections vouchers and was told no. We could have used vouchers here but we weren't getting dessert or the most expensive entree so we just paid cash.
After eating we all went to see Carousel of Progress. We all, even the kids, love this! I hope they never take it away completely. Its bad enough that its only open a few hours each day, if that.
The kids got FP to Space Mountain, and while we waited for their time to come we went over to the Haunted Mansion, because we had missed riding that so far this trip. While there I asked if a DIS CM by the name of Steve was working and they said no. It appeared this day almost all the CM's working at the Haunted Mansion were women.
I found a spot on Main Street to sit with my mom while Paul took the kids back to ride Space Mtn. When they returned we headed out to Epcot.
While Epcot is my mom's favorite park, she still said she'd rather go back to the Dolphin instead. Paul walked her back to the Dolphin bus stop while we went ahead on the monorail to Epcot. We agreed to meet in the area behind Spaceship Earth. I was beginning to think we'd have to drag mom kicking and screaming out of the Dolphin tomorrow!!! She told me later that it was about 4:00 when she got back to her room only to find it had not been cleaned yet! Our room, which connected to hers, was clean. Also there were no housekeeping carts in the hall at all. When she was opening her door a housekeeper came down the hall saying that room wasn't cleaned yet, so my mom sat in our room while she waited for hers to be done. That was really late, I think, to not have her room finished. Other than the small problem of waiting on her room to be cleaned, she said she had a wonderful last night at the hotel. She went downstairs THREE TIMES to get something to eat! The last time she got take out ice cream (fat free, sugar free - why bother I say!) and took it up to her room. She sat on the bed watching T.V. eating her ice cream and said she was in heaven!
When we got off the monorail to Epcot it started raining. And we realized Paul had Jeff's AP in case they asked for it when they reserved the boats! We thought we'd just wait for Paul there, at the entrance, but I remembered what he said about if we have a meeting place to be there and not change it! I thought there was an outside chance, although a small one, that Paul would go back to the Dolphin with my mom and then walk to Epcot through the International Gateway. If he did that then waiting for him at the front would be a bad idea! Then I remembered I had my mom's hopper pass. It had already been used by her at MK that morning, and Jeff had his hand stamped when he exited the MK, so we just ran her pass through and he came in. We rode Spaceship Earth (no line at all) and then met him in the area behind it with no problem.
After Spaceship Earth we went to the Living Seas. We skipped the movie and expected to go straight to the ride. Much to our surprise we found there WAS no ride! When did the ride get removed? We walked around and looked at the tanks, which were greatly improved over last year when there was a problem and the tanks were totally cloudy and we were unable to see any fish. My favorite way to enjoy the Living Seas is to find a spot to sit by the tanks and just take some time out to enjoy watching the fish. We found a spot this time by the dolphin tank and watched the dolphin do some tricks. There was a trainer on the far side of the tank giving it instructions. We couldn't hear what she was telling the dolphin to do, but we could see everything and where we were it wasn't crowded at all.
As we got ready to leave the Living Seas, Paul asked a CM working in the gift shop what happened to the ride. She said they found people would just leave the pavilion after they got off the ride and now that the ride has been removed people spend time there and really take the time to look around. So it doesn't sound like the ride is coming back. Of course nobody asks my opinion, but I think the ride should have been longer and have it go real slow around the tanks. Its probably not possible to do that, but that's the way I'll do it when I'm in charge! Ha!
When the little hydrolator opened up to the outdoors everyone let out a big "ohhhhh" because we saw it was, of course, raining again. As we stayed in that sheltered area a to put on our rain ponchos it was funny to hear the exact same reaction every time a new group came out!
We briefly went into that big gift shop by Innoventions to buy some gifts for people back home. We didn't have money in our budget to buy ourselves any souvenirs this time (except for the kids, who had their own money for such things) but we got something for the people who took us to the airport, the people picking us up from the airport, the people taking care of our pets, Paul's older daughter, and Paul's parents. The kids got some gifts for their friends, but they paid for those themselves.
We then went to Innoventions briefly and didn't find anything to really hold our attention, and being our last day we didn't want to spend a lot of time in there.
We went to World Showcase and rode the Mexico & Norway boat rides again.
We had several Connections vouchers left and we decided to buy one meal per country and split it four ways just to have fun with them! Our first stop to get a meal was Norway. We got a ham & cheese open faced sandwich, salad, lg. diet coke and lg. sweet pretzel covered with almonds. The total here would have been $14.29. This was the best meal and we'd eat here again. All the desserts here looked wonderful and it was hard to choose! Everything was very good and we felt like we got a good value for our $11 voucher. We didn't even order the most expensive things. Be forewarned, it will be VERY hard choosing just one dessert at the Kringla Bakery! Yum!!! In retrospect we should have used more of the vouchers at Norway because that was the best meal.
As we passed China we saw some street performers demonstrating one of those things that look like an hourglass and they throw it high in the air and catch it on a string. Jeff has been wanting one and he bought it. We're not sure but we think it was cheaper than we saw it for sale in Salt Lake City! Now that would really be something!
Our second voucher was used at the fast food place in Germany. We got the chicken sandwich, potato salad, black forest cake and lg. diet Coke. The total here would have been $12.79 so we didn't save a lot of money with the $11 voucher. The people working here were really friendly and fun to talk to but the food was GROSS! Paul got the honor of eating the sandwich & potato salad all by himself while the kids and I helped ourselves to the delicious cake. The sandwich had whole mushrooms on it that kept falling out. Also I think it had tomatoes. Anyway it was gross. I had one bite of the potato salad and it had a strong vinegar taste. Not good!
When we got to the America area we watched the end of another Shockwave performance. After it ended we talked to one of the performers, a sax player. He said he's been performing 4 shows a day for 51 days straight! They have two sets of performers but he and one other person perform every show. He was so nice and friendly but I can't remember his name. He really encouraged Jeff in his drumming and told him the drummers in the show started the same way with snare and then bass drum in their school bands.
The third voucher we used at the good ole USA, Liberty Inn. Since the kids and I were hungry from not eating much we used a voucher here for something we knew we'd eat! We had a bacon double cheeseburger with fries, fruit cup topped with ice cream and a diet Coke. The total would have been $13.12. Paul and the kids ate all the fruit & ice cream and said it was great. It looked really good too. They aren't as generous here with what you can order with the voucher (compared to somewhere like Beaches & Cream). I tried to order the root beer float as the beverage since it was listed under the beverages and not under dessert but was told it was not allowed. Also asked if I could order a drink in the souvenir mug as the beverage and was told no. I noticed later it says right on the vouchers that drinks in souvenir mugs are not included.
After eating, the 8:15 Shockwave performance was about ready to start. We decided to stay and see it one last time! Laura wasn't thrilled with the idea but she went along with it. It was lightly raining and there were seats in the AP covered section but we didn't have one of those preferred seating cards from the AP lounge. We asked if we could just show them our AP's and sit there but they said no. There was also a handicapped seating (lots of benches for handicapped that remained empty throughout the show). This area was covered too. We showed them Laura's GAC and asked if we could sit there and again we were told no. So we just sat in the drizzling rain and watched it with our ponchos on. After this show ended Jeff was able to talk to the drummer (Todd) and I took a picture of Jeff with him. It hasn't been hard for Jeff to pick out the two highlights of his trip - Shockwave and the water mice!
It was now getting close to park closing time. We had to really hurry to get to Morocco, where we were going to use another voucher. Here Paul ordered a Shawarma platter (chicken & lamb), diet coke and some cake looking dessert with fruit on top. I had one bite of the dessert (didn't really like it) and several bites of one of the side dishes that had a lot of onions (I love onions!) It was good! There was another side dish that we all thought was really gross but we don't know what it was. It didn't seem bad at first but then there was a really bad aftertaste. Paul ate all of the meat because the kids and I were full by this time.
It was fun eating around the world. We probably wouldn't eat at Morocco again (with or without vouchers). If we ate at Germany again we wouldn't get the chicken sandwich. We would definitely eat at Norway again!
Illuminations was going off while we were sitting at a table outside Morocco. We couldn't really see well from there. Paul & Jeff stayed behind to finish eating while Laura and I went ahead so we could catch the boat. Laura doesn't have a lot of stamina for a ton of walking so she preferred the boat. Actually I didn't mind either because my feet hurt! Paul and Jeff still beat us back to the room. The people running the boats were pretty funny and very well informed. One night we had a captain who told us a ton of facts about the Dolphin, exactly how many rooms, etc. You could tell he took great pride in having memorized all that! This night the captain was pretty funny. He was saying this was special Disney rain we were having because it didn't actually get you wet. Then he said "I want you to think about that tonight when you're back in your room wringing out your socks!" One captain was a huge WDW fan who had visited many times. He said he always forgot to bring back his Mickey ponchos and always ended up having to buy a new one. When he got back home he would just throw the poncho in his trunk and finally one day he counted and he had like 30 Mickey ponchos in there! Finally he just moved to Florida and now is a captain on the Friendship boat!
When we got back to our room I saw that we had another message. When I listened to it my heart about stopped for a few seconds till I heard more. It was our next door neighbor who was taking care of our pets. I had left the Dolphin number for emergencies. She said "This is June and I need you to call me right away. (heart stopped) The power went out for awhile and now your sprinklers are coming on every day and we don't want you to get a ticket. (heart resumed beating)" I was so afraid she was calling to say something had happened to one of our animals. We're having a severe drought here in Utah and we're only allowed to water on certain days, but when the power goes out our sprinkler system resets itself to come on every day so that's why she called. Whew. Paul went down to the phone to call her and everything was okay at home.
Back in the room I got as much packed as I could so we could leave early in the morning and then we went to bed.
Budget for the day:
$5 Maid tip
$27 Water mice - Paul
$30 Lunch - Cosmic Rays
$20 Drinks throughout the day
$38 Gifts for family & friends back home
$11 Voucher - 1 dinner in Norway
$11 Voucher - 1 dinner in Germany
$11 Voucher - 1 dinner at Liberty Inn
$11 Voucher - 1 dinner at Morocco