2 Lovebirds & a Long Weekend at CBR

[Buttercup Roberts]

A Long Weekend at WDW

Who: Joe and Amanda, 30-somethings, engaged and in love with one another and Disney
When: Thursday, February 2 – Sunday, February 5, 2006
Where: Caribbean Beach Resort

Thursday, Feb. 2

This was a “buddy system” trip, as Joe would call it. He has a buddy he shoots professional fireworks shows with, as a hobby/sideline, and this buddy sky dives and had gotten a gig to do a show for a skydiving event on the Florida space coast this weekend. He called Joe and asked if he’d please loan him his computer-driven electronic firing system and come down and help with the show.

Of course, since Walt Disney World would be only a 75 minute drive away, it was the natural choice to stay there. Anyways, if you buy Annual Passes every year, you HAVE to go, right?

Thank the lord that Disney fired whatever schmuck came up with the Annual Passholder “Best Rate” program, and went back to how it used to be, with rooms available last minute, and good cancellation policies.

We didn’t want to blow the bank so we decided on a Moderate, preferably Port Orleans anything, but when I called there were only double beds available at the AP rate. The cast member found us a King bed over at Caribbean Beach at the discount, though it was still $15 more a night to not have to sleep squished up in a teeny tiny bed. I think we ended up paying $95 a night + taxes. It would have been $45+ more a night for a King bed room at Port Orleans.

So, we were headed for a resort that is infamously the worst of Disney’s moderates. We were looking forward to seeing for ourselves if it really was as bad as they say.

Joe got off work an hour early, and we went to the airport and sailed through security. Not many people flying on a Thursday night, I guess. We had time to shop for some massage oil (Joe gives AWESOME massages!!) at the Body Shop, and look at these wonderful hand-blown art glass octopi that we had to pass on, at $650 a pop.

So, we’re walking up to the gate just when they’re about ready to board, and I look over at the line, and say, “Joe, isn’t that Deb Wills?”

Deb is the webmaster for allearsnet.com, my long-time favorite planning site for online Disney information, and a old-timer at rec.arts.disney.parks, my favorite usenet destination. I’ve met her, briefly, a couple times in the past and I knew she’d recognize me.

Still, we weren’t really sure but we ended up in line right behind her, and Joe scoped out her luggage tag. Yup!

“Deb, it’s Amanda! AKA Ginny Favers, Princess Buttercup, whatever my name is now!”

Big hugs and I introduced Joe, who had seen her before at various r.a.d.p. gatherings in the past but hadn’t ever spoken with her, so she didn’t know him.

So, it was a big Disney World fan gathering for a while there, and we all shared a row on the flight. Deb eventually went to sleep and Joe and I did the Sky Magazine crossword, that had a bunch of BAD puns for answers:

What do White House residents use to keep up their socks? Carter Belts.
What do White House doctors tell their patients? Take Your Madison.

When Deb woke up, I told her she’d really missed out on some knee-slapping fun.

Landed after a painlessly short amount of time, and went to get our rental car. We have National’s Emerald Aisle Club, thanks to free offers to join we found at Deb’s site, thank you Deb, many years ago, and Joe had earned a free day’s rental coupon. Unfortunately, that meant we had to go to the counter, which Joe detests, I mean, that’s why we use Emerald Aisle in the first place!

As we walked down the row of rental counters, we saw a line from HELL. But, phew, it was National’s new worse half, Alamo. I’m telling you, DO NOT USE ALAMO if you have to go to the rental counter, in Orlando. There wasn’t a line for any other agency, but if you had an Alamo reservation for pickup around 10 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 2, you could plan to be in line for well over an hour. Those poor people! I bet they were all on packages. Joe said, “If that had been us, I’d just say forget it, and go down there to whatever company that is down there at the end with no one waiting at all, and say, I want a car.”

We got out pretty darn quick, actually, with a great total of around $86 for our four day rental, with all the fees and taxes etc., using our free day coupon. Joe picked out a new Monte Carlo, and off we went.

We’ve developed a routine where we take the Greeneway aka 417 from the airport, to exit 11, where get off at South Orange Blossom Trail and hit the Albertson’s grocery store, because they have Tazo Chai mix, and they’re open to 1 a.m. every day. There’s a Steak ‘n Shake right there, too, that’s open 24/7, and has Joe’s favorite fast food hamburgers, and my favorite breakfast potato has brown thingies after 11 p.m.

We loaded up on late night breakfast and burgers and milk and soda and water and chai mix, and got to Caribbean Beach’s “Customs House” check in desk just after midnight.

This place is pretty confusing. First of all, the check in desk is in its own building, on the opposite side of the resort from the food and shopping. Weird. Secondly, the roads are not well marked in and out of the checkout area, and we had to turn around and back track to find the way to the rooms.

While we were checking in, we saw a bunch of things about some giant dance competition that was there that weekend, and saw that our building area, “Aruba”, was the location for the express check-in for this giant group! OH NO. When we got there, sure enough there was a series of huge white tents in the parking lot, and busses even that late at night, spewing out dozens of teenage girls.

Well, dear reader, Joe had a few choice predictions, like, we wouldn’t be there tomorrow, but I’m happy to report we NEVER heard a single teenage girl the whole weekend. Maybe they wore themselves out dancing, because they certainly weren’t running amok in the resort.

Joe called his mom back home, but quickly found the phone reception in the Caribbean Beach Resort is non-functional, because the place has nothing but huge metal roofs! You really have to get out to the edge of the room, or go out on the breezeway, to get any signal.

We took a shower, had some cereal, and got to sleep around 2 a.m., our usual bedtime.

Friday, Feb. 3

Slept in as much as we could today, though there was almost an hour between 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. where we couldn’t fall asleep at all as the woman in the room next to ours was non-stop barking out orders and talking out loud to herself, around getting two young boys ready for the day. I think she was a mom with the dance people, watching two boys that weren’t her own.

There seems to be a problem with connecting rooms and sound proofing in Disney hotels. We had a studio at Old Key West last year that was locked off from its adjacent one-bedroom unit, and again, the sound through the connecting doors was like someone was standing next to you. I’ve always been able to hear toilets and people out in the breezeways at the Value and Moderate resorts, but only these two times staying in a room with connecting doors have I had to listen to our neighbors like they were in the room with us.

Thank god the lady and the two boys finally left for the day, as we’d only been asleep for about 6 hours or less, and it would have made for a pretty crappy day if we hadn’t been able to doze off again.

We finally woke up for good around 10:30, still not much sleep for a weekend, but it would have to do. I made my coffee and got to have real milk with it, thanks to the fridges in all the Disney rooms now! Word to the wise, don’t get a gallon of milk, there’s no way to make that big of a jug fit in the fridges they have. At least, we couldn’t find a way, without storing it on its side.

We had considered going to Disney Quest and Downtown Disney today, but it was raining pretty hard, and usually when it’s raining, those two destinations are at their most crowded. We decided to go off property to an airfield in Kissimmee instead, to see an old restored WWII fighter plane Joe flew aerobatics in a couple years ago, and visit their gift shop.

On the way, we stopped at a nearby Popeye’s and had some chicken, and then on to Stallion 51. These guys make a living restoring “warbirds”, i.e. military planes, and selling them for a million dollars and up to wealthy enthusiasts. They had four planes in house today, that we got to see. Joe bought a pin and a reproduction operations manual for the plane he flew, a P-51 Mustang.

It was still raining hard, and after a brief discussion about wet pants legs and impending misery in the parks for Joe, I asked him to see if there was a Sports Authority in a giant big-box store outdoor “mall” area I could see in the distance, and sure enough, there was. I talked him into buying a pair of sport rain pants with ankle closures, and I must say he looks damn nice in them. With those, and the Tevas (waterproof sport river sandals, I favor the suede/leather models) I turned him onto last year, he was set to stay out in the rain all weekend if need be.

We drove to Epcot and parked, and Joe changed into his new rain pants. We took the monorail over to the Magic Kingdom. It was just about time for the 3 p.m. parade, but they canceled it due to the rain. Instead, they put all the characters which would have been in the parade, including all the Princesses, and took them down the street in the Main Street vehicles. There was a cute “It’s raining so we’re doing this instead” song that played and some of the usual dancers in between the vehicles in costume-y rain slickers. It was kind of fun, and I’d never seen it before.

Joe got his hair cut in the barbershop while that was going on, no wait. Thank goodness they had two new people in there, we haven’t been happy with the cm’s for the past year. We got a great lady from New York, Danielle, who was fun to talk with and did an excellent job on Joe’s hair. She tried to talk him out of getting it cut as short as he always does, but she was understanding that he didn’t want blue gel and pixie dust on it, especially in the rain today.

We were going to try and eat lunch here, as Joe had his stomach set on the corn dog nuggets and tator tots he’d seen at Cosmic Ray’s last trip. When we got there, they had removed the tots and replaced them with Disney’s abysmally mediocre fries, so he was put off and figured it wasn’t worth paying for a meal that came with those and apple sauce that he won’t eat. Casey’s Corner sells more corn dog nugget with no sides for the same price, just about, but Joe wanted a full meal, so we decided to just bag the MK and take the monorail back to Epcot, and go get something good.

At Epcot, we went to the Land and saw about getting a fastpass for Soarin’, which is evidently the only way to ever be able to ride it. Our return time was 6:30, at around 4, not too bad. But not very convenient, either. We were starting to starve so we split a very good soft pretzel from a stand outside, and then Joe got some chicken nuggets from the Mickey D’s stand. We sat down on a bench nearby and munched our snacks, and finished just as the boat over to Morocco approached its dock.

We rode over to Morocco, and got a couple of pieces of baklava, and went to see about buying a lamp we wanted, for our new condo we just moved into together over Christmas. After a disagreement about the color yellow that we managed to keep from turning ugly, we settled on a cheery purple and red combo. The lamps are meant to look like the real cowhide henna-stained lamps from that country, but of course they’re just plastic, and overpriced. But hey, it’s a Disney souvenir! The clerk wrapped it very well for us and had it sent to package pickup at our resort, where we could pick it up the next day after 1 p.m.

We sauntered down to Japan and Joe had a big bowl of udon noodles and I had some sushi and hot tea. Now totally full, we went and saw the African-American art exhibit in American Adventure. There’s a wonderful modern sculpture there that looks like a traditional ebony wood carving of a spirit woman, but instead it’s made out of black leather high heeled shoes, totally cool. The exhibit alternates art from Africa with modern African-American art. I think this was Joe’s first exposure to traditional African art, so that was cool for me to share with him (he’s an Engineering major, I got a degree in Anthropology).

We browsed through the Italy gift shop, nothing very memorable there except some unimpressive millefiori art glass trinkets. The Germany gift shop was more fun, with some lovely glass Christmas ornaments. We put a couple of coins in the fountain in the courtyard and made some wishes.

Now it was time to head to the front, because I’d forgotten my cell phone in the car and wanted to call home to my son, Miles, if I could reach him. Joe rode Spaceship Earth without me once, and then I came back from the parking lot and rode with him a second time. No answer at home. Our Soarin’ fastpasses were way past return time, but looking at the time we realized that even with them, we wouldn’t have enough time before ROE to ride it. Oh well, maybe after ROE when Extra Magic Hours started!

We walked to Mexico, stopping at the start of World Showcase to get our Extra Magic Hour wristbands for tonight. I thought maybe I’d get a snack from the counter service outside and we could sit at a table at the rail. But the table available had trees blocking the view too much, and the lines at the restaurant were nuts, so we just went over to Norway, where we usually stand, and watched from there.

After the show I tried Miles again, no answer, left a message. It was Extra Magic Hours so we got pastries from the still-open Kringla bakery and sat down to eat them all up. I’d taken my Bonine a couple hours earlier, so we could ride Mission Space, and we headed over there.

Dang it, they have Ellen’s Energy Adventure closed for EMH! Test Track was down for rehab, so that left only Mission:Space open on this side of Future World tonight. In fact, it felt like “why bother” for EMH here tonight.

This was my third ride on M:S. I get pretty motion sick pretty easy, so all three times I’ve made sure to take medication. The first time, I took Bonine, and felt a little queasy afterward, and uncomfortable during the ride. The second time, I took Dramamine and felt nothing adverse at all and really enjoyed myself. This time, time number three, I was on Bonine again, and again, it was unpleasant and I didn’t feel so great after. Moral of the story? Dramamine is the thing for me! Don’t get me wrong, the Bonine let me ride at all without having to go out of there on a stretcher.

We think M:S is a “bust” as an attraction. It’s a total walk-on when Soarin’ has a 40 minute wait, tonight. Joe has a point when he says that if there weren’t so many “you may vomit” warnings before the ride even starts, people might not get as sick. He says the power of suggestion from constantly being asked to imagine vomiting while you’re in the pre-show and pre-flight areas makes him feel awful. He says when the ride actually starts spinning, he suddenly feels much better. He’s a bit of an emetophobic!

We walked through Mouse Gears looking for salt & pepper shakers and a napkin holder. Saw a few likely candidates for the s&p but I wanted to wait and see the full selection I’d imagine would be at Downtown Disney’s “Disney at Home” store. No napkin holders of any type.

Soarin’ had a 40 minute wait, still, and no fastpass during EMH. There was nothing else for us to do here tonight, so we went “home”.

We were really beat, and my feet hurt like hell. I gave myself a deep tissue massage on ‘em and got them to where they felt usable again, then fell asleep with the t.v. while Joe puttered around eating cereal and calling his mom on the phone.

Saturday, Feb. 4

Today was supposed to be the day of Joe’s friend’s fireworks show, but the constant rain storms had caused it all to be cancelled, and Joe’s buddy called us to break the “bad news” some time yesterday. Oh well! We weren’t sorry, it meant a full day at WDW we hadn’t counted on, and we were glad we’d been kind of “tricked” into making this trip at all.

No noise this morning, thank God, from the connecting room next door. I think I did hear our neighbor’s door close, but whether it was just the maid, and they’d checked out, or they were quieter today, or we just slept way more heavily, I don’t know. But thanks for small favors!

I’ve been trying to get to breakfast before they quit serving it, on these trips with Joe, for a year now, and rarely succeed. This morning, he’d encouraged me to make a reservation for Boma, where I’d tried to go twice before and we never made it out of the room on time. Animal Kingdom Lodge is my favorite resort, and I missed it and wanted to just darken its doors a bit this trip, too. I am really craving staying there again, but I don’t want to unless my son Miles is with me, because he loves it so much, too. Maybe next summer.

We actually got up and out on time, and got seated right as everyone else was starting to clear out, but the buffet stayed nicely stocked up until and even after we left, so no fears if you duck in at the last minute. Our waitress was really bad, because she kept disappearing and forgetting things, and sitting down at the table next to us every time she came by. Another waitress finally had to take over a bunch of her duties. I wanted Joe to give her 10% for a tip but he 15%-ed her. And that’s really radical for me, because I normally tip 20%. But you know, if you make me get up and wander around the restaurant looking for anyone to help us after you said you’d be right back 15 minutes ago… Maybe she was in the potty, I don’t know, but if you’re going to disappear, tell someone so they can cover for you.

The food was good, Joe especially enjoyed the “bear claws”, a soft handmade mini honeybun with cinnamon type thing, and I really liked the sticky buns with nuts and the chocolate croissants. The pastry here is the best thing, though they do a decent job with the meats and eggs, too.

Too much money later (but thank you, baby!), we went up to the lobby where I showed Joe some of the architectural features here that make it my favorite resort. We browsed the gift shop for a moment, and Joe nixed the $70 salt & pepper shakers from Zimbabwe.

We were off to the Animal Kingdom now, to try and get on Everest. Last weekend had been the Annual Passholder and DVC Member preview, and I fully expected it to be closed, or mobbed, so I didn’t have very high expectations.

On the way from the parking lot, I finally got a-hold of my son and had a nice 15 minute chat. He informed me that he still doesn’t want to do any “scary” rides at Disney World. You think he’d be mad that I go sometimes without him, but he is not as into it as me, and one trip every year or other year or so is fine with him. He doesn’t like any of the coasters or anything with a drop, though oddly he used to love them when he was just tall enough first to ride. It was only after he turned 5 that he started being scared of them. I think when he’s around 10’ish, or certainly as a preteen, he’ll come around and want to start trying everything.

We went through the Asia trail first, and had a great time just sitting on benches in a couple of locations, looking at some details in the set we’d not noticed before, and listening the sounds of the birds and the wind in the trees. This place is just SO beautiful.

Walked over to Everest, and what do you know, it’s fully open except for the Fastpass system not being up yet. Only a ten minute wait! We barely had time to enjoy the queue, which was neat, but not as nice as the one at Kali River Rapids, in my humble opinion.

For our first ride, we got seated at the center of the train, and really enjoyed it. There’s a nice, smooth opening hill and banked curve, before you hit the big lift hill. Then there’s a part where you go backwards in the dark that’s really really intense! The intensity took me by surprise. The big drop at the end wasn’t too stomach churning because it quickly leads into a banked turn and rise, which feels great. I really enjoyed it.

We decided to go do Dinosaur and come back later to ride one more time, if it was still open. Stopped at Restaurantasaurus and Joe enjoyed some Mickey D’s chicken nuggets and fries, sitting up in the front of the place in a cut-open old Airstream camper. A pack of young boys was sitting nearby eyeing us for a while, and I was wondering why until we got up and they descended upon our seats like a flock of eager seagulls on a bucket of chum. I guess I’m not the only guest that digs eating in the Airstream!

Dinosaur said 20 minutes but it was more like 5. We find that they always overestimate the wait time for that ride, or maybe it’s just how you hit it. The front of the line waits 20 but you can walk into the end of a group in the pre-show and only wait 5. The ride was fun. I have to say, after a dozen times on this attraction, it finally doesn’t scare me anymore. We took a really cute photo, up in the front row, but we already have one from this ride so we didn’t buy it. There’s new giant soft rubber dinosaurs in the gift shop, by the way. Miles has three and I will add to his collection next time I go, I think. We were buying too much junk for the condo this trip to add toys to the list, but I’ll put it at the top on our next visit.

We went back to Everest, and the line was a little longer, but not more than a fifteen minute wait. We asked to ride in front, and they had a separate “front of the train” line they put us in that soon had several couples behind us, with the same idea.

The front of this ride is kind of wild, because there is nothing in front of you, like, no fake train engine or bow etc., it’s just your feet and a wall of fiberglass and air. It was even more fun this time, and I got a great view of the tracks switching for the backwards drop, though Joe was too busy watching some other show element to notice. I think this is the spot where they use a projection of a Yeti shadow to show you how the tracks got all ripped up, which sends you hurtling backwards.

I had to stop in the gift shop on the way out, and see if they had a pin, but they didn’t! They sold out of the Annual Passholder/DVC preview ones, they said, and none of the open stock pins had arrived yet. I know I said no toys, but I ended up buying a little stuffed cutesy looking Yeti for Miles.

We decided not to do anything else here this trip, and headed back for the resort, because our lamp was supposed to be at package pickup after 1 p.m. today, and if they had mucked it up, Joe wanted us to find out now, when there would still be time to rectify the situation before we left the next evening.

It was a totally painless package pickup! That really surprised me. Maybe they’ve gotten better, but I’ve NEVER not had a problem, or an insane wait, before.

We checked out the food court, nothing special, and bought a pin for the Caribbean Beach Resort. I have a pin for every resort I’ve stayed at, except Ft. Wilderness, because I’ve never found one from there I like, yet, and Shades of Green, because they didn’t have one!

We put the lamp back in the room and put on our jackets and went out right at sunset to rent a boat from the resort marina. We got a Boston Whaler for half an hour with our Annual Pass discount, and Joe took the helm for most of the ride up to the end of the resort and back. Looking at all of the “islands” which is what the resort calls the various sections, I decided if we ever have to stay here again, I’d try for a water view room in Jamaica.

You do NOT want to stay in the “Trinidad South” section. It’s an entire lake away from the rest of the resort, and you’d have to have a rental car to get to the food court, or ride the bus. No thanks! The rest of the sections were ok, including “Trinidad North”, which is a third of the Trinidad section and is right next to the pool and food court.

Epcot is right across the road from here, in fact, you are just a stone throw from the back of American Adventure when you come out of the resort and turn onto Buena Vista Drive from Victory Way. Joe thinks that with that proximity, you might be able to find some good spots to see the fireworks from Illuminations every night, specifically the beach right in front of the Old Port Royale pool/food court.

We mulled over ordering a pizza from Papa Johns and eating it in the room for dinner tonight, but decided not to waste all that time, and try Disney Quest’s pizza, on a hope and a prayer it wouldn’t be full of garlic. Joe detests garlic and it rips up my stomach.

We drove over to Downtown Disney and parked the car on the West Side, and put our new Premium Annual Passes to use with our second trip to Disney Quest. We found, to our delight, that the pizza here is great, and enjoyed a pie and some Ms. Pacman, then I tried to recapture the glory of my youth when I could beat the entire Moon Patrol game and get into the top three for scores. I seem to have lost my old knack. I just need a full day on the thing, and I know I can beat it again! Let me at it!

We did the design your own coaster thing next, Cyber Space Mountain. Joe talked me into going upside down as much as possible, and we got two warnings from a machine and one from a cast member as to were we aware we would be going upside down eight times? Yes, we understood, and I have to say it was really fun. I had taken my Bonine earlier, just in case, but I’m not sure would have needed it. The “ride” is very smooth.

We cut a cd next of our new hit single “My Dog Gets More Dates Than I Do” and decided next trip, I want to wait in line, no matter how long it takes, and do the animation instruction class where you draw a Disney character on a computer screen. Joe wants to make a mixed up toy to take home and torture the cat with, with a cat head and hot wheels legs and a dinosaur body.

We took the boat (kind of sorry we did as I was COLD!!!) over to the Marketplace side, to do some shopping. Our first stop was the Art of Disney store. Years ago, I’d seen copies of the WDW attraction posters that are in the tunnels at the Magic Kingdom, up front as you go under the railroad tracks. I think they were around $25 then, unframed, but a fairly large size. Too large for anywhere I’d want to put them, at the time. But now we have our new condo, and we have a long hallway that’s perfect for five or six of them. Joe’s plan is to get a couple each time we go, and put spot track lighting down the hall ceiling. It will be our own “tunnel”! But, alas, I could not find them for sale anywhere where they used to be! Queries to cast members led nowhere, until finally we had found a lady in the fine art shop at Epcot who knew to send us here.

It seems that Disney is experimenting with going to print-to-order posters, and we had a fine selection to choose from on a computer kiosk here at the Art of Disney store. They didn’t have all of them, but the cast member helping us seemed sure that they would be adding more designs soon. We ordered a Splash Mountain and Pirates of the Caribbean, and were told they’d be ready for us to pick up in about an hour and a half.

We were sad to find that there’s no more Disney at Home store here! Booo!!!! The home goods selection now is really paltry, just a corner of the World of Disney store. All the cool stuff is gone. We decided on a salt & pepper set, finally, Mickey and Minnie in a car. No napkin holders of any type for sale.

Then we stopped at Ghiradelli’s and fought a capacity crowd for a dirty table to eat a couple of sundaes at. Joe loves their cookie dough flavor, and I love their hot fudge! The waiter said on cold nights like this, all the seating gets filled up. It really wasn’t as bad as it was last May/June when we were here. That was nuts, how crowded it was. I think late night it’s always packed, and they could expand to be about twice the size they are.

A trawl through the “under $10” discount store yielded a Mickey hand bathrobe holder for the back of our bathroom door, that’s all done up in the “scattered” pattern that’s been around for a long time. We call it “Severed Mickey”.

Picked up our finished posters, nicely rolled for us in a sturdy tube, and waited for fifteen minutes on a COLD COLD COLD and windy dock for the last boat of the night back over to the West Side.

Back at the room we had our usual routines and were asleep by 2 a.m.

Sunday, Feb. 5

We never ever get out of the room on checkout day by the proper checkout time. Usually there’s maids banging on our door five minutes after. Today we got a break from feeling like hotel criminals, as no one seemed to notice that we waltzed out at 11:28 instead of 11:00 a.m.

We wanted to check in for our Southwest flights online, because otherwise you get crappy boarding passes. I knew there was a convention facility at Coronado Springs, so I figured they’d have a business center with internet and a printer. We drove over there, looking forward to seeing this resort for the first time, and a quick ask at the front desk confirmed they had what we needed right down the hall past the food court.

We were delighted to discover that anything travel related is free of charge at the Coronado’s business center! I was able to check us in and print out our boarding passes at no cost, in about two minutes. Sweet! I wish every resort would offer this, as all the airlines are starting to go to online check-in, though if you have an airline that offers assigned seating, it isn’t that big of a deal to utilize it.

It’s getting to the point where internet access and a PRINTER (that’s really the issue) are as much of a hotel guest need as ice.

We decided to give the Pepper Market food court a try for lunch, and Joe proclaimed, over a hand-made non-frozen crust pizza with no garlic in the sauce that this was the best food court on Disney property. He said he doesn’t mind the 10% surcharge for the “waitress” if it means the food doesn’t suck. My fajitas were just ok, tasted like something I could make at home, and I’m not that great of a cook. The Chinese food looked absolutely horrid. The best offerings I think, and what I’d get next time, were at the salad station.

There were few fellow guests while we dined, because the lunch hour had just started. So I was surprised at how long of a wait it was for our food and for the “waitress” to bring our drinks. We barely managed to ever get one drink refill out of her. If the place had been slammed with guests, or even half-full, I think it would have taken 45 minutes or maybe even an hour to eat lunch there, which, for a food court is unacceptable in my book.

Still, a quick look out at the pretty lake and the better-than-Joe-expected architecture of the Casitas section, with the nice lobby and free business center access and the good pizza, plus the fact that Miles is dying to swim in the pool with the pyramid and jaguar water slide, I think we have bumped up Coronado Springs to the top of our new-resorts-to-try list!

Our next destination was Epcot, because Joe wanted a pin that was being released today. It commemorates the original Epcot Future World, with all of the symbols from the original pavilions on it (very cool pin!).

I remembered that the Fountain View Café, one of my old-time favorites, closes daily at 1 p.m., and that I’ve been trying to get there before they close for like two years. Joe looked at his watch and figured that if he sped over there and dropped me up close to the front before parking, I could run in ahead of him and get there with about five minutes to spare.

The parking lot attendant looked disgusted when Joe rolled down his window and said he wanted to drop me off up front, but she grudgingly pointed to the handicapped covered bench area next to the monorail track up ahead and we took off in that direction. We got to where we had to turn down the last row of non-handicapped parking spots, to make a loop and come back to the drop-off, and there were like dozens of open parking spots! So I said, screw it, just park, and Joe said you run ahead, I’ll catch up. I took off, but he caught up with me before bag check, and we ended up making it into the Fountainview about ten minutes before it closed.

I shouldn’t have bothered. The coffee now is Nescafe, the people working the counter were the rudest, most unhappy cast members I saw the whole trip, and they were cleaning up long before closing, they were out of almost everything, and they couldn’t wait to tell people “we’re closed” right at 1 p.m. They refused to sell a drink to a lady who was just joining a couple who had *just* purchased lunch there, like 1 minute after 1 p.m.

Why does a coffee shop close at 1 p.m. anyway? I told Joe, I know exactly how I could take this place, expand it, and keep it open until midnight daily, and make the unit a BOAT full of money. Even with the horrid Nescafe. That location, especially if it took over about a quarter of the seating area below and behind it, is so prime! There’s no way guests wouldn’t stop all day and especially all night long for coffee and pastries, and they need a “big salad” lunch place so badly here.

Anyways, enough ranting, but let’s just say Joe’s comment when we left was “That place sucks.”

We had a great time talking to a cast member at the pin stand, bought a couple of pins, and spent fifteen minutes looking through the pin guide they had up at the register, with me showing Joe things I had in my collection already, things I want, and talking about pricing and the whole now-burst pin “bubble” that was around a couple of years ago.

Joe has gone from “I hate pins” to “Would you please buy that one and put it on your board?” which means, I can’t admit that I want to collect pins now, totally, so can you please pretend it’s yours, but it’s really mine? LOL I actually love the idea that it’s our collection now, because it turns out Joe’s collecting parameters are just about the same as mine! The pin has to be about an actual attraction, resort, event, etc., that we’ve experienced on a trip. No character pins. It’s such a thrill to have a pin buddy! Miles is into them, too, so I guess we’re a pin-crazy family. Next time we come, Joe wants to load up a lanyard with extra Disneyland Moonliner pins he bought years ago, and trade with cast members. I can’t wait! Pins are really fun if you can stay away from the speculators.

Soarin’ seemed to be down, at least it wasn’t showing up on the wait time marquee at all, and we didn’t feel like staying at Epcot for hours waiting for a Fastpass, so, we just gave up on seeing it this trip.

I badly wanted to hear the music from Ellen’s Energy Adventure, I love love love it!! The best way I know to do that is to ride it, so away we went. A Japanese tourist in line behind me, waiting to get into the pre-show, worriedly asked me how long of a wait it would be. I explained that they would let everyone in at once in just a minute or two, into a large theater, and then from there it would be about a 45 minute ride. She said, “You could be the tour guide!” I said, “You should tell them that, here, but tell them to pay me some real money to do it, too!”

We sat right over the wheel mechanism and it was the only time I’ve ever felt any vibration or shimmy. I’ll avoid the vehicle’s corners next time, as one of my favorite things about these are they way they glide so silently and smoothly through the dark.

There was nothing left here we wanted to do, so we drove over to the Polynesian and went to their gift shop. I also wanted Joe to check out the menu at Ohana, and see if he’d want to ever eat there. He seemed decidedly uninterested.

We took the monorail to the Magic Kingdom next, determined to do some kind of attraction here, and lucked out with our timing. We got onto the train right at 3 p.m., and got off at Splash Mountain just as the tail of the afternoon parade was pulling away, which meant we could literally walk right onto the attraction! I’m sure within 15 minutes there was a wait again, so that worked out great.

By the time we got out of Splash, Big Thunder had a 30 minute wait, no thanks, and we wanted to save our Fastpasses for The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, which was on the top of Joe’s must-see list for here, today. He loves it as much as Miles and I do! It really is an awesome attraction. Joe asked me to put the t.v. special it’s based on in our Netflix queue, so he can better understand the storyline in the ride.

Fantasyland was a ZOO, with even a big wait for It’s a Small World, so we just got our Pooh passes, and walked over to ride the TTA.

Tried to go on Space Mountain next, but some time between our going through the show building and then, it had gone down, and they were sending all the people in line back out the front door. Oh well! Guess we’d only make it onto one of the three “Mountains of the Magic Kingdom” this trip!

Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin had a nasty wait, too, so we decided to head over to the Haunted Mansion. We went via the walkway behind the castle, stopping to make wishes at Cinderella’s wishing well. I realized on the down slope that the Cinderellabration show was about to begin, and that sharing one of the little black iron benches facing up the walkway would be a great place to watch it together. I got Joe to save our seat, and ran down for some caramel popcorn and a soda to split.

People kept crowding in in front of Joe and I, so we couldn’t see, but thankfully leaving within 45 seconds each time, until we figured out to just stretch our legs out and block the space, then we were left in peace. It was fun watching the fireworks shot from the castle turrets, which of course was the draw for Joe here, NOT the Princesses’ pretty dresses. I just like sitting on that walkway. Each side of it are on top of my list of favorite spots in all of Walt Disney World.

Haunted Mansion didn’t have too long of a wait, maybe 15 minutes, and we enjoyed that, as always. The Doom Buggies are good for spooning ;-) Exiting, Joe almost got dumped onto the floor when the buggy suddenly jerked to the right as he was climbing out. I’ve seen an older guest fall here. I think they must have a lot of problems in that area, with exiting safely. There’s not much room for error, as the moving walkway is very short in distance, and goes at a good pace.

We walked over to the Splash area to see if Big Thunder was open, and for some reason it had an even longer wait (40 minutes) but Splash was almost a walk-on at 10 minutes! Joe thinks it’s weather related. It was getting kind of chilly today, as the sun went down, and probably no one wants to get wet in the winter. I know in hot weather, Splash always has a longer wait than Big Thunder. We went for our second ride, which unfortunately was marred by Brer Bear making a commotion downstream like five times. It seemed like we stopped more than we ran.

Now it was time for Pooh, and we had a great ride in the front row of our honey pot. This is such a sweet natured attraction, and I adore the bouncing ride vehicle effect.

Next, I really still wanted to ride Buzz, so we headed that way, stopping at Cosmic Ray’s for dinner, first. Joe finally gave in and got his corn dog meal and made me eat the apple sauce, I had bbq ribs that were fairly good.

Buzz didn’t have a terrible wait anymore, I guess everyone had left the park to go watch the Superbowl. It was just after kickoff time, now, and the MK was emptying out. We saved the universe from Zurg, and I got a decent score (to me that means anything over Space Cadet).

It was now, sadly, time to leave!! No!!!! I don’t wanna!!! Joe stopped at Casey’s to get MORE corn dog nuggets, and then we were back on the monorail to the Poly and out to the car. The Superbowl was is full swing at this point, and the lounge outside Ohanas was jammed with men watching it. I didn’t see one woman, which seemed strange. Out of the two of us, I’m way more likely to want to watch football than Joe, and his mom is the biggest sports fan of all.

We got gas on property, always the cheapest, if you can believe it. The stations outside the park are the highest in the state, I think. But the prices at the Hess stations on property are absolutely discount prices, by any comparison, and they’re clean and efficient.

Flight was pretty uneventful, I think we got home by midnight.

This was also nearly the least number of attractions I’ve ever done on a trip. We did far more shopping than I usually would, and the Disney Quest visit ate into park time. But I’m not complaining. There was nothing I was sad about not doing by the time we left, except maybe It’s a Small World, and the draw-a-character area in Disney Quest, and I’m sure Joe would say he wished we’d got onto Space and Big Thunder mountains in the MK. Oh, and it’s been a while since we’ve seen just plain old Wishes, and not Hallowishes or Holiwishes.

Hey, that’s what AP’s are for, right? I guess we’ll just have to go back!

 

[heaven2dc]

Loved your report! Was always curious about CB resort and the layout - now I know what it means when a room has a lockout (that means you have adjoining doors to another room right?) I'm such a ditz sometimes

 

[tubachick]

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Minniespal]

Enjoyed reading your report ~ Thanx for sharing.

 

[TLinden16]

You sure fit a lot into your long weekend! Sounds like you had a great time! I love putting lots of upside downs in my coasters at cyber space mountain.

Thanks for posting.

 

[Ron from Michigan]

Thanks for the fun trip report. It sounds like you had a great weekend.