d-r
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- May 31, 2000
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Hi,
this is a trip report from last weekend, we arrived back home on Monday the 10th, and then after Tuesday I didn't really feel like writing anything.
You hosts are me, D.R., I am an asst. professor at MSU, and my wonderful wife, Melissa, who is a fields claims adjuster. We think that we are pretty savvy Disney travelers - I grew up in Florida, and Melissa's family made a gazillion trips and her mom was a cast member for a while. We've been lucky enough to make frequent trips in the past couple of years.
This was a bonus trip for us - we hadn't made long term plans for it, but we saw some really cheap airline tickets ($108 round trip from Flint) and All stars rates ($54 with tax). Our APs ran out after our May trip, but we had a couple of days left on old hoppers. So we decided to jump in and have a bonus trip with the condition that it had to be under $600 - this was our goal, and we called it the george w. bush jr. trip. Do you think we made it?
We arrived Friday afternoon. The most amazing thing was that the trip down on air tran was flawless. It was a great trip. I was amazed. Air Tran gave us upgrades to busines class for the legs form Flint to Atlanta (and return from Atlanta to Flint) but not between Atlanta and Orlando (more busy legs). We arrived in Atlanta on time, and had just enough time to swing by popeyes for lunch - I had red beans and rice and Melissa had chicken nuggets and she gave me her biscuit - I told you she was wonderful. The business class seats were nice, because I had brought along a laptop and I got a couple of pages typed during the flight - a good bit of work for a Friday afternoon I'd say. We arrived at MCO on time, and we were going to take Mear's to save a buck or two (remember, we have a goal). I had looked through some old guide books and found an old mears coupon that they had sent with a room reservation. But the mears line was really big. So Melissa ran to transtar, who didn't have a line, and got two round trip adult tickets for $54. The transtar trip was fine, it was what you would expect from an airline shuttle anywhere, and I don't have a lot to say about it really, except that we shared the shuttle with a Canadian family with 6 adult daughters, and a nice lady from Australia (the trip back to the airport was memorable as very nice, we were the only ones on the shuttle).
So we arrive to check in at the All stars music. OK. We hadn't been at the All Stars before, but we did have some idea what to expect from what we've read, and it was pretty accurate. They were playing one of the Disney classics CD's, and it was on the point of the main street electrical parade during the circus segent when we walked in, and that will always sum up all stars music for us. Check in took approximately 1/2 hour - the line was long, and there were a lot of people there for the Night of Joy checking in and asking lots, and lots of questions so it was taking a while. The cast member who checked us in was friendly, and so was the cm in the next line who we talked to while our cm was running in the back to do whatever she was doing. We noted that the cm asked to see our yellow sheets or ID - we'd never been asked for that before, and didn't have our yellow sheets of course, though we noticed many people in line did. It took her three times to get our room assignment, but then we were off. It wasn't unpleasant or anything. We traveled light, with only a rolling carry on a piece, so we took our own luggage. We had requested calypso, king size room, we got jazz, double rooms. This was OK, because it was non-smoking. The room was on the ground floor, on the back corner facing melody hall. This was a great location. It was probably better than calypso, because I think Calypso probably gets loud with the pool right there. It was a short walk from the room in jazz to melody hall and the bus stop.
All stars music was pretty much exactly as it has been described. There were some negatives - the rooms really are small, the beds really are tiny, the decor really is tacky, the rooms really are loud and you really can hear everyone else's plumbing. But there were also some good sides: it really was clean, the cms really were pleasant, the food court really did hop (we didn't eat there but I got a coke once, and it seemed nice enough), and there really were a lot of people having a wonderful time at the pool and around the resort which was great.
About the transportation. Busses really were full, but they were frequent. We stood up several times, or gave our seats to someone, which was not a big deal. The trips often seemed long, especially to down town disney, which we always seemed to end up at. The lines to get on the buses at all stars were amazingly orderly, more than I've ever seen at a disney resort - people lined up by the sign to where they were going and stayed in line as they got on, unlike other resorts where our experience has been more of a mob of whoever gets to the door first. They have a clearly marked area for each bus, and it is really orderly.
So it was Friday afternoon about 5 and we decided to go to downtown disney. We had pizzas at wolfgang pucks express - we've been here at least twice before, and it is usually pretty good. The cast members were a lot of fun. Melissa didn't care for her pizza much this trip, mine was OK. If you are keeping track of the expenses to see if we pulled it off, this was $23.00.
We spend the rest of the evening wondering through the marketplace shops, we hit all of them pretty much and just browsed. We bought a poster Melissa has been wanting, but I'm not counting it against the $600 total by golly, because she's been wanting it for a while
Then we bussed back to all stars, and had a beer at the singing spirits pool side bar. I remarked that had waffle house efficiency - the main building, melody hall, housed check in, the food court, the shop, this bar that opened to the outside - it just seemed very efficient. Melissa had a pina colada, I had a shot of beam and another of tequilla and we spent around $20. The bar tenders were professional and fine but not overly friendly or anything. There were lots of people having fun around the pool area and so on.
Saturday we woke up and looked at the weather report. They thought that it was going to be pouring, so we made a call to just not bother with parks that day - we figured that MK would be crowded with the night of joy and saturday crowds anyway. So we called and canceled our ps for rose and crown that night, maybe someone else could get it, and we slept in a little - did you know that the abc station in Orlando doesn't carry the 1 Saturday Morning cartoons? and caught a bus to the Magic Kingdom, where we boarded a monorail to the polly and enjoyed a late breakfast at Kona Cafe - I had tonga toast, Melissa had pancakes and breakfast stuff - she gave me her eggs, I told you she was wonderful. Anyway, we really enjoyed being back at the polly. We hadn't stayed here since last Sept. and so we used the chance to check out the new pool and the grounds. Very cool.
It was still a beautiful morning, so we jumped on the boat back to the MK and decided what to do - we enjoyed that ride, so we jumped on another boat to the wilderness lodge. Except the boat stopped at ft. wilderness first (we noticed last May that the boats now have orange and green stripes and go to both ft. wilderness and wilderness lodge instead of one or the other). Well, we hadn't been to ft. wilderness in a long time - a couple of years - so we jumped off to take a look around. We went to the settlement trading post and got a coke. We walked by the petting zoo and took our time, and we walked on the trail back to the wilderness lodge. Still a nice morning - it was about noon by now. It is a pretty good walk - at one point there was no one we could see in front of us, and no one we could see behind us. How often does that happen on wdw property? Well, outside of your hotel room.
So we arrived at the wonderful wilderness lodge. I found the best deal on property, bass beer in the little store there for $2. Melissa got a sprite and we enjoyed our drinks in the lobby, then talked to some of the cms, because we had some questions about how the concierge worked and about the honey moon rooms. They are still tweaking the concierge floor, and it isn't going right now while they get everything worked out. It was pretty interesting. When we had our fill of the lodge, we went caught a boat to the contempoary and a monorail to MK and caught a bus for the boardwalk. Actually, the bus to the swan was right there so we hopped on it.
On our way to ESPN club we stopped in at Big River and had a beer. I am so happy to report that Big River seems to keep getting better and better. I had an Amber Ale, which was pretty good, but to be honest too hoppy for me - it was a little green tasting - but I could see that it would be much liked by someone who likes aggressivley hoppy beers. Melissa had a wheat which she thought was very good.
Our plan was to go to ESPN club and watch the Auburn-Ole Miss game. I had called before to make sure they were going to play the game there, of course they were, but be sure to arrive early for a good seat. So we arrived early, and told the hostess stand that we would like a seat for the Auburn - Ole Miss game, which we were lead to with very little wait.
Now, let me tell you, I'd been in the ESPN club once before for a quick beer, but never to watch a whole game. We told our server that we were going to watch the whole game, and I could see she was a little disapointed looking and she said that her shift wouldn't go the whole game. I told her to make sure to check out with us before she left, so that we could tip her, and that picked her up some. The ESPN club SHOULD be a great place to watch a football game - for a while I felt like I was in heaven, there are TV's everywhere! But, it wasn't that great. The food was only mediocre, even for bar food. We had the wings, which were only OK, we had to order extra hot sauce because they were so timid. The sauce was interesting, but only OK. We also each had pork barbecue, which was poor. Although the menu said it was pulled daily, it sure seemed pre-packaged or frozen. Very unremarkable. The beer selection was very main-stream and uninspired, with the bass on tap being the only viable selection.
But here is the rub. Remember that we had asked about the AU-UM game. Let me put this in perspective for you. I live in East Lansing, Michigan, home of Michigan State University. This is 100% big ten country. Last year, I watched this same game, AU-UM, at a local sports bar (Reno's East for you locals). They put it on a TV for us. On that day, MSU had a game that started during the 3rd quarter. Although every other tv in the place was on the MSU game, they patiently waited until the AU-UM game was over before switching over to the MSU game. That is an example of a sports bar.
At ESPN club, our table was directly in front of one tv, and on that side of the room there were three other tvs around it, plus in the main room there were four big screen tvs and lots of other small ones. Heaven right? The three tvs around the tv we are all tuned to the Michigan-Washington game. Three times in the first half, the one tv that we were wathing was also changed to the UM-UW game, despite the three tvs around it. Basically, whenever anyone came in to that side they asked them what they wanted to watch, and they were all from Michigan, so they changed that channel - even though the other three screens were alredy on it! Invariably, this happened when eli manning dropped back to pass, or it was third and long, or both. Unbelievable. So we get this settled out three times, and it is half time, and the servers change. I told our new server that his responsibility was to not let this channel change, and he put a message in the control area not to change it. But then in the 3rd quarter the game between florida and the naia south central lousiana state in monroe came on, and there went the Auburn game. There were some other Tigers in there, so they came over to our table and we got it back on. One more time they changed it, to the UF game. It was pretty unbelievable. While we were in ESPN came the deluge for a couple of hours - it was a pretty rough rain.
My theory is that the espn club is so used to running tourists through there who want to go to parks and stuff anyway that they aren't used to people watching whole games. ESPN is themed as a sports bar, but it isn't really a sports bar anymore than the adventurer's club is a club for victorian traveler's - so my advice is if you really want to watch a game, go to a real sports bar off property, espn doesn't know how to handle it. If you want to show your preshoolers what a sports bar is like without having to actually go to one, then this is the place.
After the game, we caught the bus to dtd and then back to all stars, we got hungry later and ordered a pizza, which was OK.
Mickey called and woke us up on Sunday morning. We went to MK, were there for the rope drop. During our excursions around the bay on Saturday, we could see how packed the MK was - it was a mob. Sunday was wonderful - it wasn't early entry day, it wasn't night of joy, the locals hadn't shown up yet. We were the first people on Aladan's magic carpet - which I thought was well themed and pretty, but not that great - astro oribiter seems more fun. We walked on jungle cruise, pirates, and big thunder - splash mountain was down or we would have ridden it or gotten a fast pass. By 11:30, we had also ridden haunted mansion, space montain, buzz lightyear, and time keeper. At 11:30 we stopped in cosmic ray's, which is a traditional place for lunch for us. They still didn't have any hot fixin's - mushrooms, onions - to put on my veggie burger. In May they said it was temporary because of something wrong in the kitchen. This time they said they had no idea that there had ever been hot things on the fixins bar. That is how things slip away. They also didn't have hot wing sauce anymore. Cosmic Ray's was fine though, and Sonny Eclipse was doing the same old routine. When we left, we asked a CM to call about splash mountain, it was still down, so we made one last visit to pirates and headed off to Epcot.
We arrived to an empty future world - anyone who was there had moved over to world showcase when it opened. We stopped in guest services to find out where our dinner would be, and decided on Tappanyaki. We walked on to spaceship earth, grabbed a fast pass for the land and arrived just in time to living seas to see Mariah and Lydia eating lunch, enjoyed the land, spent some time in innoventions, went to Ellen's energy thing, and then headed to world showcase. We caught the movie in Canada and France, and rode el rio del tiempo. The boat in Norway was backed up, so we skipped it, and made our way to Japan. We enjoyed some of the entertainment as we made our way. At Japan, we hung out on the steps and enjoyed the TON parade - there were some changes to it, I think they are getting prepared for TOD, there were some new puppets, and the voice overs had changed some. This was one of the last shows of TON so we wanted to see it. Then we had dinner at Tappenyaki, which was really, really good. I had fun watching all the people in there, sometimes I worried about some of the toddlers/ preschoolers and the hot grills, but everyone was fine. When we finished, we went back to Norway as the second parade came through. This was a lot of fun, we were down on the ground level and just went slowly and enjoyed the two parade sections as we went by and through them - I really enjoyed this. Then we walked on to the boat ride in Norway. We thought about where we were going to see illuminations from, and decided that we should just go ride test track really quick. We went and got in the singles line at 8:30, there were three people ahead of us. But then test track went down. By 8:45 it hadn't cae up, and we realized that we couldn't ride it and see illuminations.
So we went and enjoyed illuminations form the future world side of the lagoon - it was a great show as always and our spot was actually pretty good and not crowded. We thought about going back to test track, but instead went to the bus. I guess because we were on the future world side, we walked on to a bus that was parked and waiting, and there were still seats on it, and the driver left before there was anyone standing. I had been afraid it would be packed, but this was pretty incredible. We had a direct trip back to all stars music (sometimes the busses would stop at sports or movies first). We had thought about adventurers club, but we were pretty tired.
The next morning, transtar picked us up in our own van, and the flight back was pleasant - we walked right on the second flight in atlanta, and we had business class again, and I got a little work done again, pretty good for a Monday morning I thought.
All in all, it was a great trip. All of the cast members were 100% friendly and helpful and wonderful - cms would often just smile and say hi. Everything seemed clean and well maintained. I had a great time.
DR
this is a trip report from last weekend, we arrived back home on Monday the 10th, and then after Tuesday I didn't really feel like writing anything.
You hosts are me, D.R., I am an asst. professor at MSU, and my wonderful wife, Melissa, who is a fields claims adjuster. We think that we are pretty savvy Disney travelers - I grew up in Florida, and Melissa's family made a gazillion trips and her mom was a cast member for a while. We've been lucky enough to make frequent trips in the past couple of years.
This was a bonus trip for us - we hadn't made long term plans for it, but we saw some really cheap airline tickets ($108 round trip from Flint) and All stars rates ($54 with tax). Our APs ran out after our May trip, but we had a couple of days left on old hoppers. So we decided to jump in and have a bonus trip with the condition that it had to be under $600 - this was our goal, and we called it the george w. bush jr. trip. Do you think we made it?
We arrived Friday afternoon. The most amazing thing was that the trip down on air tran was flawless. It was a great trip. I was amazed. Air Tran gave us upgrades to busines class for the legs form Flint to Atlanta (and return from Atlanta to Flint) but not between Atlanta and Orlando (more busy legs). We arrived in Atlanta on time, and had just enough time to swing by popeyes for lunch - I had red beans and rice and Melissa had chicken nuggets and she gave me her biscuit - I told you she was wonderful. The business class seats were nice, because I had brought along a laptop and I got a couple of pages typed during the flight - a good bit of work for a Friday afternoon I'd say. We arrived at MCO on time, and we were going to take Mear's to save a buck or two (remember, we have a goal). I had looked through some old guide books and found an old mears coupon that they had sent with a room reservation. But the mears line was really big. So Melissa ran to transtar, who didn't have a line, and got two round trip adult tickets for $54. The transtar trip was fine, it was what you would expect from an airline shuttle anywhere, and I don't have a lot to say about it really, except that we shared the shuttle with a Canadian family with 6 adult daughters, and a nice lady from Australia (the trip back to the airport was memorable as very nice, we were the only ones on the shuttle).
So we arrive to check in at the All stars music. OK. We hadn't been at the All Stars before, but we did have some idea what to expect from what we've read, and it was pretty accurate. They were playing one of the Disney classics CD's, and it was on the point of the main street electrical parade during the circus segent when we walked in, and that will always sum up all stars music for us. Check in took approximately 1/2 hour - the line was long, and there were a lot of people there for the Night of Joy checking in and asking lots, and lots of questions so it was taking a while. The cast member who checked us in was friendly, and so was the cm in the next line who we talked to while our cm was running in the back to do whatever she was doing. We noted that the cm asked to see our yellow sheets or ID - we'd never been asked for that before, and didn't have our yellow sheets of course, though we noticed many people in line did. It took her three times to get our room assignment, but then we were off. It wasn't unpleasant or anything. We traveled light, with only a rolling carry on a piece, so we took our own luggage. We had requested calypso, king size room, we got jazz, double rooms. This was OK, because it was non-smoking. The room was on the ground floor, on the back corner facing melody hall. This was a great location. It was probably better than calypso, because I think Calypso probably gets loud with the pool right there. It was a short walk from the room in jazz to melody hall and the bus stop.
All stars music was pretty much exactly as it has been described. There were some negatives - the rooms really are small, the beds really are tiny, the decor really is tacky, the rooms really are loud and you really can hear everyone else's plumbing. But there were also some good sides: it really was clean, the cms really were pleasant, the food court really did hop (we didn't eat there but I got a coke once, and it seemed nice enough), and there really were a lot of people having a wonderful time at the pool and around the resort which was great.
About the transportation. Busses really were full, but they were frequent. We stood up several times, or gave our seats to someone, which was not a big deal. The trips often seemed long, especially to down town disney, which we always seemed to end up at. The lines to get on the buses at all stars were amazingly orderly, more than I've ever seen at a disney resort - people lined up by the sign to where they were going and stayed in line as they got on, unlike other resorts where our experience has been more of a mob of whoever gets to the door first. They have a clearly marked area for each bus, and it is really orderly.
So it was Friday afternoon about 5 and we decided to go to downtown disney. We had pizzas at wolfgang pucks express - we've been here at least twice before, and it is usually pretty good. The cast members were a lot of fun. Melissa didn't care for her pizza much this trip, mine was OK. If you are keeping track of the expenses to see if we pulled it off, this was $23.00.
We spend the rest of the evening wondering through the marketplace shops, we hit all of them pretty much and just browsed. We bought a poster Melissa has been wanting, but I'm not counting it against the $600 total by golly, because she's been wanting it for a while
Then we bussed back to all stars, and had a beer at the singing spirits pool side bar. I remarked that had waffle house efficiency - the main building, melody hall, housed check in, the food court, the shop, this bar that opened to the outside - it just seemed very efficient. Melissa had a pina colada, I had a shot of beam and another of tequilla and we spent around $20. The bar tenders were professional and fine but not overly friendly or anything. There were lots of people having fun around the pool area and so on.
Saturday we woke up and looked at the weather report. They thought that it was going to be pouring, so we made a call to just not bother with parks that day - we figured that MK would be crowded with the night of joy and saturday crowds anyway. So we called and canceled our ps for rose and crown that night, maybe someone else could get it, and we slept in a little - did you know that the abc station in Orlando doesn't carry the 1 Saturday Morning cartoons? and caught a bus to the Magic Kingdom, where we boarded a monorail to the polly and enjoyed a late breakfast at Kona Cafe - I had tonga toast, Melissa had pancakes and breakfast stuff - she gave me her eggs, I told you she was wonderful. Anyway, we really enjoyed being back at the polly. We hadn't stayed here since last Sept. and so we used the chance to check out the new pool and the grounds. Very cool.
It was still a beautiful morning, so we jumped on the boat back to the MK and decided what to do - we enjoyed that ride, so we jumped on another boat to the wilderness lodge. Except the boat stopped at ft. wilderness first (we noticed last May that the boats now have orange and green stripes and go to both ft. wilderness and wilderness lodge instead of one or the other). Well, we hadn't been to ft. wilderness in a long time - a couple of years - so we jumped off to take a look around. We went to the settlement trading post and got a coke. We walked by the petting zoo and took our time, and we walked on the trail back to the wilderness lodge. Still a nice morning - it was about noon by now. It is a pretty good walk - at one point there was no one we could see in front of us, and no one we could see behind us. How often does that happen on wdw property? Well, outside of your hotel room.
So we arrived at the wonderful wilderness lodge. I found the best deal on property, bass beer in the little store there for $2. Melissa got a sprite and we enjoyed our drinks in the lobby, then talked to some of the cms, because we had some questions about how the concierge worked and about the honey moon rooms. They are still tweaking the concierge floor, and it isn't going right now while they get everything worked out. It was pretty interesting. When we had our fill of the lodge, we went caught a boat to the contempoary and a monorail to MK and caught a bus for the boardwalk. Actually, the bus to the swan was right there so we hopped on it.
On our way to ESPN club we stopped in at Big River and had a beer. I am so happy to report that Big River seems to keep getting better and better. I had an Amber Ale, which was pretty good, but to be honest too hoppy for me - it was a little green tasting - but I could see that it would be much liked by someone who likes aggressivley hoppy beers. Melissa had a wheat which she thought was very good.
Our plan was to go to ESPN club and watch the Auburn-Ole Miss game. I had called before to make sure they were going to play the game there, of course they were, but be sure to arrive early for a good seat. So we arrived early, and told the hostess stand that we would like a seat for the Auburn - Ole Miss game, which we were lead to with very little wait.
Now, let me tell you, I'd been in the ESPN club once before for a quick beer, but never to watch a whole game. We told our server that we were going to watch the whole game, and I could see she was a little disapointed looking and she said that her shift wouldn't go the whole game. I told her to make sure to check out with us before she left, so that we could tip her, and that picked her up some. The ESPN club SHOULD be a great place to watch a football game - for a while I felt like I was in heaven, there are TV's everywhere! But, it wasn't that great. The food was only mediocre, even for bar food. We had the wings, which were only OK, we had to order extra hot sauce because they were so timid. The sauce was interesting, but only OK. We also each had pork barbecue, which was poor. Although the menu said it was pulled daily, it sure seemed pre-packaged or frozen. Very unremarkable. The beer selection was very main-stream and uninspired, with the bass on tap being the only viable selection.
But here is the rub. Remember that we had asked about the AU-UM game. Let me put this in perspective for you. I live in East Lansing, Michigan, home of Michigan State University. This is 100% big ten country. Last year, I watched this same game, AU-UM, at a local sports bar (Reno's East for you locals). They put it on a TV for us. On that day, MSU had a game that started during the 3rd quarter. Although every other tv in the place was on the MSU game, they patiently waited until the AU-UM game was over before switching over to the MSU game. That is an example of a sports bar.
At ESPN club, our table was directly in front of one tv, and on that side of the room there were three other tvs around it, plus in the main room there were four big screen tvs and lots of other small ones. Heaven right? The three tvs around the tv we are all tuned to the Michigan-Washington game. Three times in the first half, the one tv that we were wathing was also changed to the UM-UW game, despite the three tvs around it. Basically, whenever anyone came in to that side they asked them what they wanted to watch, and they were all from Michigan, so they changed that channel - even though the other three screens were alredy on it! Invariably, this happened when eli manning dropped back to pass, or it was third and long, or both. Unbelievable. So we get this settled out three times, and it is half time, and the servers change. I told our new server that his responsibility was to not let this channel change, and he put a message in the control area not to change it. But then in the 3rd quarter the game between florida and the naia south central lousiana state in monroe came on, and there went the Auburn game. There were some other Tigers in there, so they came over to our table and we got it back on. One more time they changed it, to the UF game. It was pretty unbelievable. While we were in ESPN came the deluge for a couple of hours - it was a pretty rough rain.
My theory is that the espn club is so used to running tourists through there who want to go to parks and stuff anyway that they aren't used to people watching whole games. ESPN is themed as a sports bar, but it isn't really a sports bar anymore than the adventurer's club is a club for victorian traveler's - so my advice is if you really want to watch a game, go to a real sports bar off property, espn doesn't know how to handle it. If you want to show your preshoolers what a sports bar is like without having to actually go to one, then this is the place.
After the game, we caught the bus to dtd and then back to all stars, we got hungry later and ordered a pizza, which was OK.
Mickey called and woke us up on Sunday morning. We went to MK, were there for the rope drop. During our excursions around the bay on Saturday, we could see how packed the MK was - it was a mob. Sunday was wonderful - it wasn't early entry day, it wasn't night of joy, the locals hadn't shown up yet. We were the first people on Aladan's magic carpet - which I thought was well themed and pretty, but not that great - astro oribiter seems more fun. We walked on jungle cruise, pirates, and big thunder - splash mountain was down or we would have ridden it or gotten a fast pass. By 11:30, we had also ridden haunted mansion, space montain, buzz lightyear, and time keeper. At 11:30 we stopped in cosmic ray's, which is a traditional place for lunch for us. They still didn't have any hot fixin's - mushrooms, onions - to put on my veggie burger. In May they said it was temporary because of something wrong in the kitchen. This time they said they had no idea that there had ever been hot things on the fixins bar. That is how things slip away. They also didn't have hot wing sauce anymore. Cosmic Ray's was fine though, and Sonny Eclipse was doing the same old routine. When we left, we asked a CM to call about splash mountain, it was still down, so we made one last visit to pirates and headed off to Epcot.
We arrived to an empty future world - anyone who was there had moved over to world showcase when it opened. We stopped in guest services to find out where our dinner would be, and decided on Tappanyaki. We walked on to spaceship earth, grabbed a fast pass for the land and arrived just in time to living seas to see Mariah and Lydia eating lunch, enjoyed the land, spent some time in innoventions, went to Ellen's energy thing, and then headed to world showcase. We caught the movie in Canada and France, and rode el rio del tiempo. The boat in Norway was backed up, so we skipped it, and made our way to Japan. We enjoyed some of the entertainment as we made our way. At Japan, we hung out on the steps and enjoyed the TON parade - there were some changes to it, I think they are getting prepared for TOD, there were some new puppets, and the voice overs had changed some. This was one of the last shows of TON so we wanted to see it. Then we had dinner at Tappenyaki, which was really, really good. I had fun watching all the people in there, sometimes I worried about some of the toddlers/ preschoolers and the hot grills, but everyone was fine. When we finished, we went back to Norway as the second parade came through. This was a lot of fun, we were down on the ground level and just went slowly and enjoyed the two parade sections as we went by and through them - I really enjoyed this. Then we walked on to the boat ride in Norway. We thought about where we were going to see illuminations from, and decided that we should just go ride test track really quick. We went and got in the singles line at 8:30, there were three people ahead of us. But then test track went down. By 8:45 it hadn't cae up, and we realized that we couldn't ride it and see illuminations.
So we went and enjoyed illuminations form the future world side of the lagoon - it was a great show as always and our spot was actually pretty good and not crowded. We thought about going back to test track, but instead went to the bus. I guess because we were on the future world side, we walked on to a bus that was parked and waiting, and there were still seats on it, and the driver left before there was anyone standing. I had been afraid it would be packed, but this was pretty incredible. We had a direct trip back to all stars music (sometimes the busses would stop at sports or movies first). We had thought about adventurers club, but we were pretty tired.
The next morning, transtar picked us up in our own van, and the flight back was pleasant - we walked right on the second flight in atlanta, and we had business class again, and I got a little work done again, pretty good for a Monday morning I thought.
All in all, it was a great trip. All of the cast members were 100% friendly and helpful and wonderful - cms would often just smile and say hi. Everything seemed clean and well maintained. I had a great time.
DR
