"Why the Face?!" - our Aug/Sept 2011 TR! (updated 11/28 Last Day - MK)

[kdka421]

Nice updates! I'm on your Dad's side about Rainforest Cafe being noisy and crowded. Yet I still have an inexplicable desire to try out T-Rex sometime, even though I know it will be the same thing. Poor Mrs. Incredible; I bet that happens to her a lot

Thanks

LOL, we got such a kick out of Mrs. Incredible, haha - there is another picture of her later too.

Working on my next update now, will post either later tonight or sometime tomorrow...

Can't believe we've been home for over 5 weeks already! Geez the time has flown by.

 

[kdka421]

Day 4 (afternoon and evening) - Hollywood Studios

When we last left off, we were all meeting up for lunch. Our plan for this day was to have lunch at Studio Catering Company, a place Aaron and I "discovered" on our last trip, and enjoyed a pretty healthy and tasty lunch there. We all met up there - and then my parents announced that for whatever reason, they heard "Studio Catering Company" during our planning talks, and thought "The Commissary". Not sure why, but they were both thinking we were eating lunch at the Commissary. We looked at the Studio Catering Company menu, but since they both had the Commissary in mind, we decided to just head over there and do that, we were flexible.

I'm not really sure why they were so keen on the Commissary - and when we were done with lunch, I think we all thought we should have stuck with our original lunch plans. Aaron and I got burgers, and my parents got salads, but neither of them were really thrilled with them. Oh well, I know we hadn't been thrilled with the Commissary in the past either. Live and learn, maybe next time they'll remember and we'll finally end up at Studio Catering Company again.

After our less than satisfactory lunch, we decided to head to the Beauty and the Beast show. Aaron and I had missed this on our last visit, but I'd seen it before with my family. This certainly isn't our favorite Disney stage show by any means (side note - does anyone else desperately miss the Hunchback show? We do!), but we had a special reason for seeing it this time. First, here are some pictures from the show, but it'll be followed up with a special story...

Back story - our family trips when we were kids, we took 6 trips over a span of less than 10 years...and one of my father's favorite acts, as I think I've already mentioned, is the Main Street Dapper Dans. So as we went over the years, he struck up a friendship with a number of the Dans, there were a couple who he exchanged contact info with, wrote emails from time to time, etc. One in particular, his name was Aaron (only slightly confusing since that's my now husband's name, but during this story, Aaron will refer to this CM). He and my dad were close over the years, and one of our last trips there as a family, the Dans told us he was over auditioning for the role of Gaston in the Beauty and the Beast show. So, when my husband and I were there last year, we of course saw the Dans, and made sure to ask about Aaron - and the Dans confirmed that he was playing as Gaston. Unfortunately this was after our day at HS.

SO, to get back to the present day...even though this was a few years later, we were wondering if Aaron was still playing as Gaston, that was our main motivation for seeing the show. My dad recognized him hands down! So, after the show, we asked some of the CMs who were around if they could confirm that was Aaron - they said yes - and we asked if they could give him a message. We said that our family was here, and could he come say hi for a minute? All the while though, my Dad was wondering if he'd remember us after all these years...we probably hadn't seen him in person in over 10 years. The CMs told us he'd be out in a few minutes, he was getting changed.

A few minutes later, Aaron came out, with a big smile on his face. "I was JUST thinking about you guys yesterday!!" he said. I kid you not. He proceeded to tell us that he was at his parents house, and his mom had out a copy of Guideposts magazine (which my mother writes for), and that got him thinking of us! Aaron also proceeded to retell the story of the last time our family was at the park (7 years ago), remembered it was Christmastime and how we called him while we were there (we had called him to let him know that my dad had left him a Christmas CD with one of the Dans). My dad was floored. They had a great time catching up, Aaron spent about 15 minutes or so chatting with us. We then made sure to get his new contact info, took some pictures, and then he went off with some of his coworkers to take a run (this was his lunch break, and he gladly spent the time with us). He is such a sweet guy, and it was one of the highlights of our trip.
My dad and Aaron:

After this, we headed out to go get a seat for the Pixar Parade, which we hadn't seen before. On our way out to the main street, we noticed 2 Toy Story FPs which someone had left on top of a trashcan - sweet! We debated a little who would go use them, but since Mom wanted to be sure to see the parade, us ladies staked out seats, and sent the guys off to Toy Story. Mom and I people watched - it's probably in bad etiquette to post the photos, so I won't - but our favorites were a husky gentleman in a t-shirt which read "Blink if you Want Me", and a lanky CM selling balloons who was walking around with a look of utter boredom on his face.

The parade was actually delayed a little bit due to some passing rain and thunder, so the guys actually made it back before the parade started. We all enjoyed our first viewing of the Pixar Parade:

After the parade, we had decided to head back to POFQ for a break, and dinner. We were walking down towards the exit, when we had yet another fun CM encounter. This story comes courtesy of Mom, she wrote this up:

I have such fun memories of the streetmosphere characters here (who yelled out to Kate the last time we went "Hey, look, it's Molly Ringwald!") . I couldn't wait to find them. Suddenly I saw a car with two elaborately-dressed people inside. When it stopped nearby, I said hello and asked "Where's Mel Rose?" The last time we were at HS, he was a talent agent. He'd come up to my mom and I, and said "Oh you must be sisters!" which of course delighted my mother. Then he led all the other characters in a glee club rehearsal. Anyway, the woman in the car thought about it for a minute and said "OH, Mel Rose, we did that like, 10 years ago!" Which makes sense because that was about the last time I'd been there. Anyway, she told me that she was Paige Turner. We joked around for a bit, then she told me that Mel Rose was now over judging the American Idol Show. I thought that was funny that she broke character a bit.

We went back to POFQ, took a short break, and enjoyed dinner at the Food Court. The food was pretty decent, a fair number of options, although nothing close to Riverside in my opinion. We happened to get mischarged for an extra meal, which we noticed the next morning at breakfast. We enjoyed being able to get our meal, and then go up and get our dessert (ice cream cones) when we were finished.

We returned to HS after dinner, with only 2 things left to do: use our FPs to do Toy Story 1 more time, and see Fantasmic. So we first headed back to Toy Story. Here's another comment from my Mom about her thoughts on Toy Story:

Toy Story Mania: I was sent to get Fast Passes, and even first thing in the morning, the line for FP was huge! Never having ridden it before, I asked the guy behind me why this ride was so popular and he replied, “I don’t know. The kids like it.” Well of course, that answers it. (sigh). I was skeptical, but everyone convinced me to try. Well, it only took about 1 minute on the ride to know exactly why people love it! 1. You can actually do something while riding and 2. People are competitive and want to beat their friends’ scores! And yes, when we got off the ride, I did say, “Again! Again!”

So glad she loved it! So we rode Toy Story for a 2nd time (3rd for the guys), and I think Aaron won again! What a champ. It was then getting close to the time for Fantasmic, so we all headed over together - although since it's right next door, Aaron and I took a detour to ride Tower of Terror one last time. That ride is truly spectacular in the evening we think! We walked right on, rode quickly, then met up with my parents in the Fantasmic arena. We all loved Fantasmic, I think it's very well done, and something quite unique. Hard to photograph, but here are a few of the better shots:

And that was the end of our night! We battled through the large crowd of people all heading out the same way, made it to the exit, and caught the bus back to POFQ.

Up next - Day 5, and why, for the second trip in a row, did we have to make a lovely visit to the Epcot First Aid station!!

 

[TinkerBelle_325]

3. Each of these dishes came with a side of something, that for the life of us, neither of us can remember...but it was good!

Wow!! The "side" was a small portion of abalone! It is one of the upcharge items on the menu and I had it as my fish course on Oct 7th. It's to die for isn't it? Looks like it was compliments of the chef for you

 

[kdka421]

Wow!! The "side" was a small portion of abalone! It is one of the upcharge items on the menu and I had it as my fish course on Oct 7th. It's to die for isn't it? Looks like it was compliments of the chef for you

Aha! Thank you, that's exactly what it was! And yes, it was delicious.

Yes...the chef (and the restaurant) took very good care of us. With this extra fish dish, plus the extra main course plus wine pairing...they were more than generous!

 

[kdka421]

Day 5 (morning) - Epcot

After a string of early morning wake ups, we were ready for a (slightly) more leisurely start to the day (although....the day would not be quite as uneventful as we thought! You'll see...). So we slept in! We got up at 9, and had a relaxing breakfast at the POFQ food court. They had all your typical breakfast foods, plus we got to try some beignets - yum! When purchasing breakfast, we noticed the snag with our counter service credits, that we were one short due to being double-charged for one meal the night before, so we lost some time trying to straighten that out with the front desk, but eventually they gave us our credit back. We left POFQ around 11am to head to Epcot.

We did not have any major plans for the day - we had a few different music/entertainment acts that we wanted to be sure to catch, and we mostly wanted to spend time in the World Showcase. When we arrived, we got their just in time to catch a performance by the JAMmitors:

We then stopped to get some Photopass pictures taken in front of the fountain, with Spaceship Earth behind us. These ended up being some of my favorite Photopass pictures, although the ones we got on our cameras weren't that great. So instead of sharing those, here are a few from just inside the Epcot gates first thing that morning:

After getting our pictures done, one of the musical groups my parents wanted to be sure to see was the Mariachi Cobre in Mexico, and they were about to start shortly; but Aaron and I weren't that interested. We had wanted to go see Captain EO which none of us had ever seen, but my parents had ZERO interest in seeing. So it made sense to split up, my parents headed to Mexico, and Aaron and I headed to the Imagination Pavilion. We headed towards the theater, and I stopped to trade a pin with the CM standing there, while Aaron continued and stopped to look at the backwards fountain. I caught up with him, and we looked at the fountain for a second - and as we turned to head to the theater......that's when what became known as my "EPCOT INJURY" occurred. [Long story to follow - it's not gruesome, but if you don't like to read about an injury, skip to the end!]

Here's what happened - we were standing right here:

If you can picture it, we were on the far left side of this picture, right where that triangular wall comes down, to the left of that, looking at the fountain. We turned around to walk away, and I basically fell right into/flew over that triangular wall. OUCH. I landed on my right knee, and scraped it up nasty. Of course, the first thing that goes through my mind, when I gather my thoughts briefly, is to make sure my camera is okay, and that's the first thing I say to Aaron He keeps asking me if I'm okay, which in that situation was a little irritating - NO I wasn't okay! lol. I just stayed there on the ground for a minute, totally crying and trying to pull myself together. My knee was bleeding pretty badly, but I was able to walk well enough. Still crying, half from pain, half from shock, we walked over to First Aid.

Side note: We were familiar with Epcot first aid - this was our second trip in a row where I needed to go to first aid at Epcot! During our last trip, we were at Epcot on the second day of our trip. Mistake #1: I wore new shoes that I hadn't walked in very much. Mistake #2: I hadn't gotten used to the heat yet, and just hadn't drank enough water that day. By dinner time, I was overheated, and had to go to first aid before we left, to rest, drink some energy drink they gave me, and recover before heading back to the hotel.

The weird part to this story, is that both when I fell, and during our walk across the park to first aid - we didn't have any CMs ask me if I was okay. We walked past quite a few, including one who came right at us on a Segway. I had a huge cut on my knee, was bleeding, and crying, it was pretty obvious...and I was just perplexed that no one said anything.

We made it to first aid fine, and the ladies there were very sweet and took good care of me. Cleaned out my knee and a scrape on my arm, bandaged me up, and made me ice my knee for a while. I definitely am glad I iced it for a little while, but it also gave me a chance to collect myself. They gave me a stack of bandages for later, and they let me sit there as long as I needed to.

The aftermath of my injury: that day it was really awkward to walk, because I had three huge bandages on my knee (picture below). I needed the bandages to stay on because the scrape was still bleeding, but it was so hot out and I was sweating and the bandages had a hard time staying on. I am stunned that I was able to walk around as well as I was that day - however, I think I pushed myself way more than I should have, because the injury took a long time to heal. The next few days it was extremely swollen (yuck), mostly because I didn't get the opportunity to ice it like I would have at home. For the next week or two, it really affected all my movements - I traditionally lead with my right leg (stepping, climbing, getting into rides), and I just wasn't able to bend my knee almost at all for at least a good week or so, and I limped for at least a week or two because I couldn't fully straighten my leg. It took at least 3 weeks before I could fully put pressure on my knee again. It's been over 5 weeks, and I still have a deep red mark (about the size and shape of a pressed penny, lol) on my knee - I'm sure there will be a permanent scar. I'm totally fine, and I'm glad it didn't affect my trip any more than it did - but I was very surprised at how much damage I did do, and how long it took to heal.

Injury story over!

Needless to say, that's not how we expected to spend our morning! We went and met up with my parents, who had just finished watching the Mariachi Cobre and also took the boat ride through Mexico (I believe this is the first time they had taken it since they introduced the Three Caballeros into the ride...ugh). We then regaled them with the story of how we had spent the last hour or so! But I was in good spirits by then, and just didn't let it affect my day.

Okay, I think that's all I have time for now. Up next time: more musical entertainment, a gift from Aaron to make me feel better, and an AMAZING lunch!

 

[kirrrby]

I'm sorry for your injury. And sometimes the CM's just don't pay attention. It sucks sometimes. BUT the First Aid/Baby Care center is a lifesaver.

We also love beignets. Theres a place in Savannah, Ga that has amazing ones called Hueys. It's on River Street. Pain to get to, but always good.

 

[kokotg]

Oh no! I'm sorry you got hurt

That's strange that no CMs paid attention to you; glad they were nice at First Aid at least. We had our first Epcot first aid encounter on our trip this year...well, DH and DS did; they said everyone there was very friendly.

And I love your mom's Mexico ears--those are hilarious!

 

[kdka421]

I'm sorry for your injury. And sometimes the CM's just don't pay attention. It sucks sometimes. BUT the First Aid/Baby Care center is a lifesaver.

We also love beignets. Theres a place in Savannah, Ga that has amazing ones called Hueys. It's on River Street. Pain to get to, but always good.

Oh no! I'm sorry you got hurt

That's strange that no CMs paid attention to you; glad they were nice at First Aid at least. We had our first Epcot first aid encounter on our trip this year...well, DH and DS did; they said everyone there was very friendly.

And I love your mom's Mexico ears--those are hilarious!

Thanks to you both I was just a little surprised at the CMs, because we've had the total opposite situations in past trips, where the CMs were there in a heartbeat. Not a big deal though.
Yes, both times I've been very happy with the staff at the epcot first aid center!


I'm home visiting my parents this weekend, through tomorrow, to help celebrate my mom's book, which had it's US release on Saturday! So hopefully I'll post my next update Wednesday or so, once I'm back in VA. Hope everyone is doing well!

 

[kdka421]

Oh, I forgot to add - we received our Photobooks in the mail last week. They came out great, I'm really pleased with the quality of them! The discount that came with the free dining package worked out perfectly, the first book and the shipping charge was free, and then we were able to order a second book at the discounted price that you get when you order 2+ books, and only pay like $2 extra shipping charge. It arrived in time for me to bring it with me when I came up to see my parents this weekend, so that worked out well too!

 

[ChefDisneyLu]

thanks for sharing your tr and pics! Cant wait for more

Lisa

 

[kdka421]

Hello everyone!

I'm so sorry it's been so long since I last updated! I was home in NY for 4 days, celebrating with my Mom the US release of her book! We had a book signing, a launch party, lots of fun events! Got to see lots of friends and family who I hadn't seen in a long time. Here's a pic of Mom, signing some books!

Now, back to the trip report!

I had just gotten my EPCOT injury, and we had all met up in Mexico. We still had a couple of hours before lunch (it was a late lunch), so we decided to just slowly work our way across the World Showcase. Our first stop was China, where we got a nice picture of Mulan:

But while we were exploring around China, we separated a bit, and next thing I knew, Aaron was coming over with a gift to make me feel better. He presented it to me on bended knee, like a soldier coming back from battle:

I carried it around the rest of the day, it definitely gave me a nice break from the sun. And it was very sweet of him

We next spent a lot of time in Germany, just browsing the beautiful shops, my Mom was also looking for a gift for her mom (my grandma) and her husband, who is German. We also peeked into the caramel store, which somehow we had never seen before...not sure how we've missed that. YUM!

Next stop, America - where we caught a performance by the Voices of Liberty. They are a beautiful singing group, unfortunately it's so hard to get a good picture of them in the room where they perform.

Next, we walked briefly through Morocco, catching a glimpse of Aladdin and Jasmine, and getting a few photos of this beautiful pepper garden:

We then wanted to catch a glimpse of Off Kilter before our lunch reservation, so we walked quickly through the UK, stopping just to get a picture of Mary Poppins:

We then watched the first few songs by Off Kilter in Canada...

...before having to go check in for our late-lunch reservation, at Le Cellier!
This was a first for all of us, none of us had eaten here before. When I made my original dining reservations, I wasn't able to get one here. But every few days, I kept checking back, and then one day, this reservation appeared! It was for a pretty awkward time, 2:50pm or something like that, but it worked out to be at the tail end of lunch, but late enough that we counted it as a lunch/dinner combo. We knew it'd be enough food to count as our main meal for the day.

Aaron and I started with one of their non-alcoholic smoothie drinks, while my folks stuck to their standard Diet Coke. Then, each couple shared a bowl of the Cheddar Cheese soup, with lots of their yummy breads.

Mom, Aaron and I all decided to get the filet mignon with risotto (my mom was especially excited to try risotto - simply because of how often they make it on Gordon Ramsey's television shows!), while Dad opted for the NY Strip with potatoes.

The presentation of the food isn't the most elegant I've ever seen - but the food was melt in your mouth delicious. The soup was overly salty, but still pretty good. The main courses were all delicious. My parents have called this their best meal ever, literally. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Aaron's expectations were a little too high, I think; plus he has a hard time trying not to compare everything to the place where he works.

Here's my mom's short write up on lunch:
Le Celier: Easily this was my favorite meal! I ordered the filet and mushroom risotto, and every bite melted in my mouth. I’m actually not a big fan of beef, but if it all tasted like this every time, I would love it! The risotto was amazingly flavorful and creamy. For dessert I had maple crème brule which surprised me by tasting lighter than I expected. Delicious. I will remember that meal for a long time.

Here's what we got for dessert:

I had the chocolate moose (a little disappointing, but still cute!), Aaron and Mom each had the maple creme brule, and Dad had the bumbleberry cobbler.

After lunch, we had a few more stops in the WS: First, we headed quickly over to France in order to catch the performances of the Serveur Amusant. (Didn't get any good pics of this). While in France, we stopped for some Photopass pictures:

Next we spent some time taking some pictures around the UK, then caught the O Canada! film for the first time - Martin Short is pretty funny!

That was the end of our time in the World Showcase that afternoon, although we headed back there later that evening. Coming up next time: attempt #2 to see Captain EO, Illuminations not in a rainstorm, and evening Extra Magic Hours in the World Showcase.

 

[saintstickets]

The risotto was amazingly flavorful and creamy.

We ate at Le Cellier for the first time during our May, 2010 trip and I too had the filet with mushroom risotto. The filet was real good but, like your husband, I've had steak at other places that was better. IMO, the mushroom risotto made the meal. It was fantastic. We liked it so much, DW makes it at home now!

Enjoying your TR. Keep it coming.

 

[kdka421]

Day 5 (evening) - Epcot

Hello as always

Jumping right back in to my trip report - it was the evening of Day 5, and we had just about wound down our time in the World Showcase. We then headed back to Future World because we had a few things to still cross off our to-do list.

1. The Land
2. Captain EO
3. Journey Into Imagination

Aaron and my Mom both have a weird fascination with the Land. My Dad and I get a good kick out of making fun of it So anyway, we walked right on, and enjoyed our boat ride.

Hidden Mickey:

Before we got on the Land, we had checked to see if there were FPs left for Soarin - unfortunately they were gone for the day, and the line was probably about 90 minutes. Oh well. I was hoping to go on it again, but we just didn't get a chance this time.

After that....

My parents didn't want to see Captain EO (none of us had ever seen it before, but they just knew they weren't interested), so Aaron and I headed to that, while my parents headed to Journey into Imagination.

We actually made it to the show without me falling and injuring myself this time (success!); we got into the theater just as the preshow had finished and everyone was already being escorted into the theater, we made it just in time.

There was a pretty good size crowd seeing the show with us. I didn't really know what to expect, I just knew it was some show from the 80s, 3-D, with Michael Jackson. I don't love or hate the man, I just think he was kinda strange! Anyway - the crowd really got into it, they were clapping and cheering before and after the show...I thought that was pretty strange. The show itself was BIZARRE...it wasn't just dated, it just didn't make any sense! I don't mind seeing it the 1 time - but I'd certainly never care to see it again if there were anything better I could be doing. Aaron enjoyed it well enough (he was more of a MJ fan than I was growing up).

While Aaron and I were seeing Captain EO, my parents had ridden Journey into Imagination. And weirdly, they enjoyed it (I'm pretty sure they had seen this new version before, and we all miss the Dreamfinder), and were getting ready to go on it again when we called to see where they were. So we joined them to go on the ride again. Sometimes it's fun to go on rides even if you don't really enjoy them that much.

After this, we had accomplished everything on our Future World to-do list, so we headed to stake out seats for Illuminations. We found a nice spot to camp out in between Norway and China, just along the railing with a nice view of everything. My parents stayed there for a little bit, while Aaron and I went to get some drinks and snacks...I picked up a few yummy treats from the caramel store in Germany. We tried the caramel popcorn, and the chocolate covered rice krispie treat (side note: this is HUGE, and they actually cut this into pieces for us, which is pretty nice).

We enjoyed this view of Illuminations, and it was a much better showing than the previous night in the rain.

After enjoying a spectacular showing of Illuminations - it was evening Extra Magic Hours! Our first stop was because Aaron had gotten hungry again! So he stopped at Lotus Blossom cafe for some Chinese food (shrimp fried rice). After that - the guys had one main thing they wanted to see, which was the American Adventure show (they both really enjoy things like that, and the Hall of Presidents, both of which Mom and I were more than happy to skip). So they headed off to see that, unfortunately there was a weird wait until the next showing, so they spent some time just waiting around.

Mom and I spent the whole time walking around the WS and taking some nice pictures while the guys were seeing the show. I wandered into Morocco, which I actually had never really done before, and found some pretty stuff there. Here are a few of my pictures, from Italy, Morocco, and France.

When the American Adventure show was over, we were all pretty exhausted, Mom and I had basically collapsed on the benches next to that fountain in France. The men walked over to meet us, and we walked out together. When we got to the park exit, there were still some photopass photographers there, so we took the opportunity to get some nice evening pictures before we left.

We left the park around 11, and went back to go to sleep...because once again, we had another early morning coming up!

Up next, in our last full park day: our Keys to the Kingdom tour! Can't wait to tell you all about it.

 

[a pirate's mama]

What a great report so far! I am enjoying your stories, aside from the EPCOT Injury. I am happy it seems to finally be healing.

I am looking forward to reading more.

 

[kokotg]

I love all the tiles in Morocco...I'm not sure I've ever seen them at night before, though--pretty! I'm thinking we need to do our World Showcase touring during EMH next time...it was so hot every time we tried this past trip that we couldn't make it very far.

Looking forward to the Keys to the Kingdom installment!

 

[kdka421]

Day 6 (morning) - Magic Kingdom

WOW - I can't believe I'm already up to the last full day of our vacation!

And, this was the day of our Keys to the Kingdom tour! None of us had ever done any of the backstage tours at Disney before. It was totally right up our alley; I love behind the scenes stuff, Aaron loves learning about Disney history, and my parents love everything WDW. I'm really glad we decided to give this a try. We booked the first tour of the morning, 8:30, on a 9am park opening day.

Let me jump back a few days, to day 3 when Aaron and I were headed over to Victoria & Albert's for dinner, via MK. When we were at MK, we noticed that in between day 1 and day 3 they had put up the Halloween decorations at MK! We were so excited...and we didn't breathe a word of it to my parents! We told them that we had a surprise for them, and that they'd get the surprise the morning of day 6.

This morning we made sure to get an early start, to be sure we were early enough for our tour, and we also wanted to make sure we had time to get some photos in MK with a nearly empty park. I also wanted to leave time because I knew we'd want to spend extra time seeing the Halloween decorations. So we got on the bus around 7:30, and were at the park just before 8. When we walked up and saw the Halloween decorations, my parents were definitely surprised. None of us had expected to see them!

We went through bag check, then went to the special early entrance, told them our names and that we were there for the tour, and they let us right in. We went and checked in for our tour, and then we had about 15-20 minutes or so to take some quick pictures. We took some pictures of the buildings, and also got some photopass pictures of ourselves - both at the flagpole by the pumpkins, and then up closer to the castle.

I wish I had access to the photopass pictures we got taken by the castle that morning - they came out fantastic! The lighting was great, we were wearing our matching shirts, and the group pics just looked awesome. The photopass photographer, when she finished with the family before us, turned around and before we moved in front of the castle, just told us to stay where we were and took close ups (head & shoulders) of each of us individually. They were spontaneous and came out GREAT. I definitely included those in our Photobook. The group shot in front of the castle was perfect.

After that, we had to go to our tour!!

KEYS TO THE KINGDOM:

We met up with our tour guide, Stacey, and she gave us a little introduction speech right there where we met up.

We all introduced ourselves (there were roughly 20 or so of us on the tour), and she told us about her history with Disney, she's worked primarily in Guest Relations, as well as worked with the castle suite guests. We were all given special pins with our names on them, and a headset so that we could hear her better when we were walking or more spread out.

The first part of our tour was spent on Main Street, where she explained the analogy of how entering WDW was like entering a movie theater: the sidewalks are red, like the red carpet. The names on the windows (which are all important names in WDW history) are like the opening credits of a film. You have popcorn carts when you enter the hub. She talked a lot of history about all the people whose names were on the windows and what they contributed to WDW.

We then moved into the little side street on Main Street, where they do the silhouettes. We stopped to talk there for a while, and got a quick surprise visit from Chip and Dale as they exited into backstage:

The main thing we talked about here were what WDW calls the "Four Keys" that are critical to the WDW experience: Safety, Efficiency, Show, and Courtesy. Those things are really present in all the experiences around Disney.

We next walked over to Adventureland, and along the way, we talked about the history of Disneyland and Disney World. One of my favorite stories that I heard was how rushed they were in the opening of Disneyland, that they were actually pouring cement the day before opening, and how it was still soft on opening day, and you can still see in some areas the indentations left by the ladies' high heels

All along the tour we found places to stop, we weren't walking all the time, sometimes there were areas to sit, we often found shade...it was pretty exhausting, but she was very careful to give us as much rest as possible.

Next we went on our first ride of the tour - the Jungle Cruise. We walked over to the handicap entrance, and they pulled aside a boat just for our tour. The skipper stayed on the boat, but gave the mic to Stacey; so instead of the traditional jokes and stories, we got to learn a lot of trivia and history of the Jungle Cruise ride. She pointed out audioanimatronics that are used in other attractions, special sound effects to listen for, and stories of how the cast members like to play tricks on one another and change the timing of the elephants spray to get the skippers wet.

After the Jungle Cruise, we walked right over to Pirates, for ride #2! This time we went through the regular entrance, and again we got a boat all to ourselves. Again, Stacey talked to us through the ride, telling us lots of trivia about the attraction.

Up next came my favorite part of the tour.....so I think that's a good place to stop for the night Sorry guys, it's getting late! I'll continue with the rest of our tour next time.

 

[kdka421]

Day 6 (morning, continued) - Magic Kingdom

Keys to the Kingdom tour, continued
Caution: this entry gives away some backstage magic. Some of the things discussed below the tour guide would only discuss while we were backstage, not in front of guests, in particular children, so the magic would not be spoiled for them.

We were in the middle of our Keys to the Kingdom tour when I last wrote. We had just finished riding Pirates, and we walked over towards Frontierland, along the far left side of the park, approaching towards Splash Mountain. You probably can't picture it, but there's a little exit way just before Splash Mtn, which is the beginning and/or end of the parade route. We paused here, as the tour was about to take us backstage. As we started walking towards the backstage area, Stacey pointed out a line on the ground - that is the official marking of the line of sight. Once you pass that line into the backstage area, no one in the park can see you any more. Before you cross it, you must keep in character, but once you cross it you can break character.

So we crossed into the backstage area, and walked down the road, towards the area where they keep the parade floats. But first, we paused on some benches, to talk about backstage magic in general. This was our first chance to ask questions about things like the audition process for becoming a character, and questions like that. While we were talking, though, we were in for a special, unexpected treat, and one of my favorite memories from our trip.

In the street area, there happened to be one parade float out, with characters practicing for the upcoming Boo to You Halloween parade! The float was there, with the music going for that one particular segment, and the characters were practicing their dance movements. There were characters in street clothing, in full costume, and (the most hilarious), half in costume. And of course, this was one of the first things pointed out - that the Queen of Hearts, who was only dressed in the bottom half of her costume, since the top half was not in costume, was very clearly a tall, lanky male. This was a perfect lead in to how costumed characters are cast not on gender, but on physical attributes (size/weight/etc). Seeing them practice this parade was so unexpected, and so much fun (and, even though none of us had ever seen the Boo to You parade before, we all got that short segment of the song stuck in our head for the rest of the day).

We crossed over to the parade float area, which was a lot SMALLER than I would anticipated. Man, can they cram the floats in their tight. All the floats for the afternoon and evening parades were in there. We learned a little about parade security, and how all floats have a button on them, which if a cast member pushes it, will stop the float instantly (say, if a kid runs out in front of the float)...that's the primary reason you will often see non-costumed cast members walking alongside the parade floats.

We then walked back, with a quick stop to look at the Splash Mountain reservoir. Then we walked back the way we came in, back into Frontierland. We then headed over to Columbia Harbor House for lunch (included as part of the tour). The food was waiting for us in the upstairs eating area, they had a private section roped off for us. Along with our food, this is where we were given our special commemorative Keys to the Kingdom trading pin.

Our next stop was the our 3rd and final ride - the Haunted Mansion. This wouldn't be a ride where Stacey could chat with us during it, so first we paused outside of the gates, and she told us where to look for a handful of Hidden Mickeys during the ride. Also, she told us a little about the creation of the ride. In particular, I loved this story - one of the designers of the attraction, had a model of the ride as they were working on designing it. Some of his team decided to play a trick on him, so they glued his chess pieces to the top of the model. The designer saw it, and decided he liked the way it looked - so he kept it that way. I can't tell you how many times I've looked at the Haunted Mansion and never noticed this, but after hearing that story, the chess pieces are painstakingly obvious:

The cool thing here, is they took us in the "back" entrance - which is actually, the "fraidy cat exit"...if you get into the ride, and your kid (or you!) starts getting scared, this is how they would escort you out. So we waited in a little corridor until they were ready, then we entered into the lobby area, then into the ride.

We took the ride individually, and all met up outside the ride. Our last and final stop of the tour was the Utilidors. Now, I have heard that the Utilidors aspect of the tour used to be much more involved about 10 years ago or so. It's changed a lot since then, and you don't see nearly as much...but it's still cool to say you've been there. So, we walked back to Main Street, and into the Emporium, where we took a cast member exit towards the backstage area. They use a double door system, where you go through one door, let it fully close, then you can open the next door which takes you directly into the backstage area again. (It's pretty cool to think that just behind each side of main street is this area that you're completely oblivious to as a guest).

We went through the doors, and again were in another backstage area. We walked towards the entrance to the utilidors, down some steps, and voila, we were on the "first floor", below the Magic Kingdom. The area where you spend the most time in the Utilidors is right when you enter, there are 2 hallways of photographs/maps/etc, and we heard a lot more history of the park. We walked around just a little, and also saw a video which gave an illustration of how complicated the laundry facilities are for the cast members. We learned about trash, and how there are cast members who literally go through all the trash to pull out any recycling that didn't make it into the proper bins. We did see a few cast members walking around the Utilidors (including the Dapper Dans heading into the break room), but no costumed characters or face characters either. We walked back upstairs, and ended up behind the other side of Main Street.

One other fun piece of trivia we learned at this point, was about the cast member who plays Tinker Bell who flies down during Wishes (we were over near the wire where she comes down, landing on top one of the buildings backstage). Apart from the obvious height/weight requirements that she must meet for safety reasons, she 1) has to be able to do 100 pull ups, in case the wind/weather creates difficulty, and she has to pull herself down the rope, and 2) she is actually, physically kicked out of the window by 2 people, in order to give herself enough speed to make it down.

We came out into the area right where we started, the side street where they make the silhouettes, and were back onto Main Street. Our tour ended here. We walked back to return our headsets, and we were done. The tour lasted just about 5 hours.


I'll end this segment here, I just wanted to finish up our story of the tour. Please let me know if you have any questions about the Keys to the Kingdom tour. I'd highly recommend it to anyone, it was well worth it, a great experience.

I'll finish up Day 6 in the next segment.

 

[kirrrby]

Wow. That tour seems amazing. Theres another completed trip report where she told readers a few other secrets besides the ones you told. I think it might be a cool thing to do one day, but it's just not in the budget right now. Do you know if they have any discounts, such as Military, AAA, AARP for the tours like Behind the Seeds does?

 

[kdka421]

Wow. That tour seems amazing. Theres another completed trip report where she told readers a few other secrets besides the ones you told. I think it might be a cool thing to do one day, but it's just not in the budget right now. Do you know if they have any discounts, such as Military, AAA, AARP for the tours like Behind the Seeds does?

The tour was pretty fantastic

I'm not sure about the discounts - I did ask about a AAA discount when I booked it, and they said no; I think that others might have said there is a discount if you've booked your vacation directly through AAA, which we did not. I'm not sure about the other discounts since we didn't qualify for any of those.

Wow your trip is coming up soon, I bet you're getting excited!

 

[kirrrby]

The tour was pretty fantastic

I'm not sure about the discounts - I did ask about a AAA discount when I booked it, and they said no; I think that others might have said there is a discount if you've booked your vacation directly through AAA, which we did not. I'm not sure about the other discounts since we didn't qualify for any of those.

Wow your trip is coming up soon, I bet you're getting excited!

I am very excited! Ive got a countdown on my phone, and it's marked on my calendar. This will be Dbf's first trip sort of, since last time he went was when he was 3. So he was too short to ride anything. But this will be my 30th trip so it's a mile marker for both of us. Haven't decided if i'm going to write a TR yet, I don't do PTR's because my life is pretty boring to be able to rope anyone into reading about how I planned or booked.