LeoGrrrrl1982
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2005
- Messages
- 136
The players
Me: 22, so-so-SO thrilled to be back in Disney
DF: 26, wonderful fiancee, very supportive of Disney mania
February 14th, Valentine's Day, also our anniversary (sweet right?)
The alarm clock was set as were BOTH of our cell phone's clocks to ensure we were up bright and early. As a child, I went to Disney every September with my parents and remember us usually arriving early, but not in time to see the gate opening ritual. From what I recall we usually got there a bit before 10am. On my first trip with my Fiancee to Disney (August 2003), we never arrived to a park before 10am which frustrated me to my core. At the time, we were both working evening shifts, I can be a very heavy sleeper, and my fiancee would convienently shut off the alarm, reset it for an hour later and set us behind schedule (could've KILLED him for those stunts!).
Fast forward to this trip: we'd arrived back to our hotel arround 11pm and Id fallen asleep pretty quickly. DF said he watched a movie until around midnight and fell asleep. All three alarms were set for 7am (only two of us, and would still give nearly an hour and a half to get going). At 6:30am I was up, wide awake, no alarm neccessary, and hopped out of bed for the shower. DF didn't even stir, just mumbled and turned over toward the wall (I wondered for a minute if he was going to be a problem, but let that thought pass and bounded towards the bathroom).
The shower head was exquisite! ONe of those perfect pressured, oversized deals...very relaxing! Still, I limited my shower to 15 minutes (just long enough to wash my hair, noxzema my face, shave my legs and underarms so as not to frighten small children.) By 7 am, our original wakeup time, I was showered, teeth brushed, dressed, had packed our backpack for the day with all of our essentials from my checklist, and was moving on to dry my hair. Before I started this, I crept over to the mound of sleeping flesh that was DF and sweetly said "Honey, time to get ready.....we're going to Magic Kingdom!" He groaned "five more minutes!" and flopped around a little bit like a 3 year old throwing a tantrum, so I left him figuring my early wakeup could make up for his infantile behavior (but once he was alert and oriented today he would be made aware this behavior wouldnt be tolerated throughout our trip, no siree!). So, first attempt at waking DF failed, I went to dry my hair and put on my minimal park make-up. It was nearly 7:30am by this time, and I decided to give DF one more chance at a pleasant waking...no go...his response this time was to cut his eyes at me and "inform" me that it was only 7:30am. At this point, I did what any good woman would do...I set in with the guilt trip, letting him know that I had logged in many hours figuring out which day to go to which park, which dinner shows to do, setting up a budget, etc, etc...and ALL I expected from him was to get out of bed and have a good time. He sighed, swung blankets aside, and said his first pleasant statement of the day "Wow, beautiful day out there!"
I was happy now, DF was out of his foul morning mood and was being his sweet, kind self again. My problem was not over yet though, I knew Id have to keep an eye on DF during his shower. As I do at home, I forbid him from locking the bathroom door during the shower (he falls asleep in there, his record of bein in the shower, laying in the tub, fast asleep is nearly 3 hours as recorded by his dad). He was informed that he had 20 minutes (hey it was 5 more then me and I had alot more to shave!) He wasnt happy with this news, but I dont think he wanted to mess with me anymore for fear of guilt trips.
I fixed breakfast for us to eat in the room (pop tarts, yummy) and had them ready as DF staggered at of the bathroom. We ate, watched the Disney info channel again and were out of there by 8:15a (YAY!) We headed toward I4 west when DF informs me he has forgotten his wallet and the tickets. I was fuming inside (I was going to pack this item in the backpack but he INSISTED I did not, telling me how he NEVER would forget his wallet) but I remained calm as we had to turn around, park, and I waited while he rode up the 16 flights, located his wallet, and rode back down. This time it was 8:25am and we headed to Magic Kingdom AGAIN.
We arrived shortly before 9am, and by the time we'd parked, taken the tram, walked up the ramp, rode the monorail...it was about 9:20am. The bag check line and admission lines were minimal though and I felt some happiness with knowing we'd arrived early enough to avoid the masses, if not early enough to see the gates open.
So we were off! I was back home...Magic Kingdom, my favorite park! I beelined to frontierland with DF tagging on my heels. Standby lines for both Splash and BTMRR were both 5 minutes but I knew they would clog quickly and the fastpass return for BTMRR was already 11am-12pm so I grabbed fastpasses for this (I find that Splash line moves quicker).
We then rode SM 3 times, followed by 2 rides on BTMRR.....after the second ride it was as if someone had flipped a switch! The line from BTMRR now was filled with people and the standby was 25 minutes! I whipped out our FP and we rode for the third time with barely a minutes wait.
By this time I could see that people were majorly moving into Frontierland. SO we decided to see the Country Bears and then move on out. CB was cute, but cornier then i remember (Havent seen this show since I was about 11). We doublebacked to Pirates which had a 10 minutes standby, so we hopped in. As we were waiting in the grotto a little boy slithered his way past us as we were moving along. My fiancee and I looked at eachother quizzically, thinking perhaps he was confused...UNTIL..he made a "come on" gesture with his hand and his family of 6 tried to cut in front of us as well! I guess he was their decoy..if we didnt yell at him they figured we'd let them pass as well. My DF and I have a secret code between us for this sort of situation (WHY do people try to cut in Disney??) and we stonewalled it, using our bodies, horizontal, to block them. The little boy finally went back to his group but not before shooting us a burning glare. I was glad this group didnt end up on our boat! POTC was great as always and once it was over, we decided to head to HM. Once again, we encountered grouchy people...the line for HM said 10 minutes and we were fine with this since Hm line usually moves faster because of the conveyer belt system they use. A couple walking towards the attraction in front of us wasnt so happy....the man said in a loud voice "See?? This is what I hate! You pay all this ****** money and all you do is wait!" THe GF said "its only 10 minutes, John". To this John said "Yeah! Then add that to the 15 minutes we just stood in, and the 15 minutes we'll stand in later, and its a ****** rip off, come on...lets get past these *****!" I wont go into the words he used, but lets just say they werent welcome so close to fantasyland!
John then proceeded to nearly knock over and older gentleman as he barrelled towards the mansion. DF and I were happy to let him get farther away from us.
HM was a hoot as always and we came out and looked around for the ring but without success. Crowds by this time had picked up and our trek through fantasyland was a nightmare. SmW was closed for refurb (much to DFs delight), but we had wanted to ride PP. The standby line said 45 minutes but this line always moves slow as molasses so we passed and headed straight for tomorrowland.
Tomorrowland is where we spent the next few hours, riding SM several times, the TTA, Stitch, and COP which was open ALL WEEK! We stopped around 1:30pm at Cosmic Rays for lunch which was pretty tasty. Our time in tomorrowland was very pleasant...no "Johns" being nasty and frightening older gentleman and no swarmy little kids trying to smuggle their large families around us in line. We continued here until about 3:30pm when we headed back to Frontierland with a FP we'd picked up for Splash.
Before we left though we got a FP for Space Mountain which as always had a longer wait (45 minutes I believe). The line for Splash had died down to 15 minutes so we did one ride through standby and one with our FP.
It was about 430pm by this time and we had PS at the Plaza for an early dinner at 5:40, so we decided we could get in our Space Mountain ride before dinner.
We rode Space Mountain for about the 6th time that day and headed over to the Plaza for dinner. When we arrived, they aknowledged it was an anniversary, but that was it for the special attention. No wish of happy anniversary by our server, no mickey confetti, no comped dessert. Still, the meal was excellent. We each had a rueben which was probably one of the best sandwiches Ive ever had. We then had sundaes which were HUGE and to-die-for. They numbed the pain of no special attention for our anniversary!
We got out of the plaza around 7:30pm. We went over to Tomorrowland to ride Buzz which had been closed earlier, and to our delight it was open with a 15 minute wait. We hopped in, the line moved quickly...until we were ready to load and it broke down for 10 minutes. They fixed it, we hopped on...and were doing GREAT until midway the score reset itself! So we just manually doubled our end score
It was a little after 8pm when we got out of Buzz and we decided by the looks of people on the sidewalk we better grab our spot for Spectromagic. We found a good seat on the sidewalk by mainstreet and sat down. About 30 minutes later a man comes up with his wife and kid and says he was sitting there! I know what your thinking..he had part of his party saving the seat???? NO...he didnt...he just "was sitting there". I was extremely confused...did he think that because they WANTED to sit there that this was now their seat??? Well, yes....yes they did. They had a daughter so we scooched over as much as we could to allow them a spot but still got dirty looks from the parents. The little girl smiled at us though and said thank you (maybe she shouldve talked to her parents about manners!).
We both felt like meat that was being looked over as the time for Spectro neared....everyone who walked by would look at the area we were sitting in, scanning it for a spot. Many people were complaining about the crowds, about not being able to find a place to sit. I even heard some parents talking about those sitting down being "greedy" I guess because now they couldnt find a seat. As the 5 minutes until Spectro passed, the guards had fights with many guests who couldnt understand they couldnt walk across mainstreet at this time. Many guests also hostily asked the guards where they could find a seat and the guards had to be honest and tell them that with it being so close to showtime there was probably standing room only for the parade. One man and his wife got up in a guards face screaming "THe program says 9 OCLOCK! It doesnt say be here at 7 or else there will be no seats!!!!" DF leaned towards me and said "I cant believe people are acting like this at Disney!" I just shook my head.
Spectro was fabulous...it was my first time seeing this parade and I loved it..I quickly forgot all of the hateful people and hostile attitudes as I watched my favorite Dis characters covered in those beautiful lights.
After the parade had passed in our area, DF and I headed over to Frontierland and actually were cut off and able to see the end of the parade allover again. As soon as the rope dropped though we headed for our mission: SPLASH MOUNTAIN. We were able to walk right on (it was about 9:45 by this time) and experience one more wonderful ride before close. As we walked out, they announced wishes would be starting.
We found a great little bench in Adventureland next to a fry stand and were ale to have a nice view of Wishes over the trees. The best part..no crowds and they pump the audio allover the park so we actually got to hear everything instead of just hearing people talk over it. It was very private and I remember thinking that THIS was romantic
After Wishes, we knew we'd have a hard time getting back to our car. It actually took us about an hour and we arrived to our car about 11:30pm. We were both exhausted! We finally go to our hotel and settled in by midnight, setting the alarm for 7am again.
I actually didnt have to nag DF about the alarms for tomorrow because tomorrow was HIS day...EPCOT!
Even though we both had a wonderful time at Magic Kingdom.....13 hours of it is EXHAUSTING!!
Me: 22, so-so-SO thrilled to be back in Disney
DF: 26, wonderful fiancee, very supportive of Disney mania
February 14th, Valentine's Day, also our anniversary (sweet right?)
The alarm clock was set as were BOTH of our cell phone's clocks to ensure we were up bright and early. As a child, I went to Disney every September with my parents and remember us usually arriving early, but not in time to see the gate opening ritual. From what I recall we usually got there a bit before 10am. On my first trip with my Fiancee to Disney (August 2003), we never arrived to a park before 10am which frustrated me to my core. At the time, we were both working evening shifts, I can be a very heavy sleeper, and my fiancee would convienently shut off the alarm, reset it for an hour later and set us behind schedule (could've KILLED him for those stunts!).
Fast forward to this trip: we'd arrived back to our hotel arround 11pm and Id fallen asleep pretty quickly. DF said he watched a movie until around midnight and fell asleep. All three alarms were set for 7am (only two of us, and would still give nearly an hour and a half to get going). At 6:30am I was up, wide awake, no alarm neccessary, and hopped out of bed for the shower. DF didn't even stir, just mumbled and turned over toward the wall (I wondered for a minute if he was going to be a problem, but let that thought pass and bounded towards the bathroom).
The shower head was exquisite! ONe of those perfect pressured, oversized deals...very relaxing! Still, I limited my shower to 15 minutes (just long enough to wash my hair, noxzema my face, shave my legs and underarms so as not to frighten small children.) By 7 am, our original wakeup time, I was showered, teeth brushed, dressed, had packed our backpack for the day with all of our essentials from my checklist, and was moving on to dry my hair. Before I started this, I crept over to the mound of sleeping flesh that was DF and sweetly said "Honey, time to get ready.....we're going to Magic Kingdom!" He groaned "five more minutes!" and flopped around a little bit like a 3 year old throwing a tantrum, so I left him figuring my early wakeup could make up for his infantile behavior (but once he was alert and oriented today he would be made aware this behavior wouldnt be tolerated throughout our trip, no siree!). So, first attempt at waking DF failed, I went to dry my hair and put on my minimal park make-up. It was nearly 7:30am by this time, and I decided to give DF one more chance at a pleasant waking...no go...his response this time was to cut his eyes at me and "inform" me that it was only 7:30am. At this point, I did what any good woman would do...I set in with the guilt trip, letting him know that I had logged in many hours figuring out which day to go to which park, which dinner shows to do, setting up a budget, etc, etc...and ALL I expected from him was to get out of bed and have a good time. He sighed, swung blankets aside, and said his first pleasant statement of the day "Wow, beautiful day out there!"
I was happy now, DF was out of his foul morning mood and was being his sweet, kind self again. My problem was not over yet though, I knew Id have to keep an eye on DF during his shower. As I do at home, I forbid him from locking the bathroom door during the shower (he falls asleep in there, his record of bein in the shower, laying in the tub, fast asleep is nearly 3 hours as recorded by his dad). He was informed that he had 20 minutes (hey it was 5 more then me and I had alot more to shave!) He wasnt happy with this news, but I dont think he wanted to mess with me anymore for fear of guilt trips.
I fixed breakfast for us to eat in the room (pop tarts, yummy) and had them ready as DF staggered at of the bathroom. We ate, watched the Disney info channel again and were out of there by 8:15a (YAY!) We headed toward I4 west when DF informs me he has forgotten his wallet and the tickets. I was fuming inside (I was going to pack this item in the backpack but he INSISTED I did not, telling me how he NEVER would forget his wallet) but I remained calm as we had to turn around, park, and I waited while he rode up the 16 flights, located his wallet, and rode back down. This time it was 8:25am and we headed to Magic Kingdom AGAIN.
We arrived shortly before 9am, and by the time we'd parked, taken the tram, walked up the ramp, rode the monorail...it was about 9:20am. The bag check line and admission lines were minimal though and I felt some happiness with knowing we'd arrived early enough to avoid the masses, if not early enough to see the gates open.
So we were off! I was back home...Magic Kingdom, my favorite park! I beelined to frontierland with DF tagging on my heels. Standby lines for both Splash and BTMRR were both 5 minutes but I knew they would clog quickly and the fastpass return for BTMRR was already 11am-12pm so I grabbed fastpasses for this (I find that Splash line moves quicker).
We then rode SM 3 times, followed by 2 rides on BTMRR.....after the second ride it was as if someone had flipped a switch! The line from BTMRR now was filled with people and the standby was 25 minutes! I whipped out our FP and we rode for the third time with barely a minutes wait.
By this time I could see that people were majorly moving into Frontierland. SO we decided to see the Country Bears and then move on out. CB was cute, but cornier then i remember (Havent seen this show since I was about 11). We doublebacked to Pirates which had a 10 minutes standby, so we hopped in. As we were waiting in the grotto a little boy slithered his way past us as we were moving along. My fiancee and I looked at eachother quizzically, thinking perhaps he was confused...UNTIL..he made a "come on" gesture with his hand and his family of 6 tried to cut in front of us as well! I guess he was their decoy..if we didnt yell at him they figured we'd let them pass as well. My DF and I have a secret code between us for this sort of situation (WHY do people try to cut in Disney??) and we stonewalled it, using our bodies, horizontal, to block them. The little boy finally went back to his group but not before shooting us a burning glare. I was glad this group didnt end up on our boat! POTC was great as always and once it was over, we decided to head to HM. Once again, we encountered grouchy people...the line for HM said 10 minutes and we were fine with this since Hm line usually moves faster because of the conveyer belt system they use. A couple walking towards the attraction in front of us wasnt so happy....the man said in a loud voice "See?? This is what I hate! You pay all this ****** money and all you do is wait!" THe GF said "its only 10 minutes, John". To this John said "Yeah! Then add that to the 15 minutes we just stood in, and the 15 minutes we'll stand in later, and its a ****** rip off, come on...lets get past these *****!" I wont go into the words he used, but lets just say they werent welcome so close to fantasyland!
John then proceeded to nearly knock over and older gentleman as he barrelled towards the mansion. DF and I were happy to let him get farther away from us.
HM was a hoot as always and we came out and looked around for the ring but without success. Crowds by this time had picked up and our trek through fantasyland was a nightmare. SmW was closed for refurb (much to DFs delight), but we had wanted to ride PP. The standby line said 45 minutes but this line always moves slow as molasses so we passed and headed straight for tomorrowland.
Tomorrowland is where we spent the next few hours, riding SM several times, the TTA, Stitch, and COP which was open ALL WEEK! We stopped around 1:30pm at Cosmic Rays for lunch which was pretty tasty. Our time in tomorrowland was very pleasant...no "Johns" being nasty and frightening older gentleman and no swarmy little kids trying to smuggle their large families around us in line. We continued here until about 3:30pm when we headed back to Frontierland with a FP we'd picked up for Splash.
Before we left though we got a FP for Space Mountain which as always had a longer wait (45 minutes I believe). The line for Splash had died down to 15 minutes so we did one ride through standby and one with our FP.
It was about 430pm by this time and we had PS at the Plaza for an early dinner at 5:40, so we decided we could get in our Space Mountain ride before dinner.
We rode Space Mountain for about the 6th time that day and headed over to the Plaza for dinner. When we arrived, they aknowledged it was an anniversary, but that was it for the special attention. No wish of happy anniversary by our server, no mickey confetti, no comped dessert. Still, the meal was excellent. We each had a rueben which was probably one of the best sandwiches Ive ever had. We then had sundaes which were HUGE and to-die-for. They numbed the pain of no special attention for our anniversary!
We got out of the plaza around 7:30pm. We went over to Tomorrowland to ride Buzz which had been closed earlier, and to our delight it was open with a 15 minute wait. We hopped in, the line moved quickly...until we were ready to load and it broke down for 10 minutes. They fixed it, we hopped on...and were doing GREAT until midway the score reset itself! So we just manually doubled our end score
It was a little after 8pm when we got out of Buzz and we decided by the looks of people on the sidewalk we better grab our spot for Spectromagic. We found a good seat on the sidewalk by mainstreet and sat down. About 30 minutes later a man comes up with his wife and kid and says he was sitting there! I know what your thinking..he had part of his party saving the seat???? NO...he didnt...he just "was sitting there". I was extremely confused...did he think that because they WANTED to sit there that this was now their seat??? Well, yes....yes they did. They had a daughter so we scooched over as much as we could to allow them a spot but still got dirty looks from the parents. The little girl smiled at us though and said thank you (maybe she shouldve talked to her parents about manners!).
We both felt like meat that was being looked over as the time for Spectro neared....everyone who walked by would look at the area we were sitting in, scanning it for a spot. Many people were complaining about the crowds, about not being able to find a place to sit. I even heard some parents talking about those sitting down being "greedy" I guess because now they couldnt find a seat. As the 5 minutes until Spectro passed, the guards had fights with many guests who couldnt understand they couldnt walk across mainstreet at this time. Many guests also hostily asked the guards where they could find a seat and the guards had to be honest and tell them that with it being so close to showtime there was probably standing room only for the parade. One man and his wife got up in a guards face screaming "THe program says 9 OCLOCK! It doesnt say be here at 7 or else there will be no seats!!!!" DF leaned towards me and said "I cant believe people are acting like this at Disney!" I just shook my head.
Spectro was fabulous...it was my first time seeing this parade and I loved it..I quickly forgot all of the hateful people and hostile attitudes as I watched my favorite Dis characters covered in those beautiful lights.
After the parade had passed in our area, DF and I headed over to Frontierland and actually were cut off and able to see the end of the parade allover again. As soon as the rope dropped though we headed for our mission: SPLASH MOUNTAIN. We were able to walk right on (it was about 9:45 by this time) and experience one more wonderful ride before close. As we walked out, they announced wishes would be starting.
We found a great little bench in Adventureland next to a fry stand and were ale to have a nice view of Wishes over the trees. The best part..no crowds and they pump the audio allover the park so we actually got to hear everything instead of just hearing people talk over it. It was very private and I remember thinking that THIS was romantic
After Wishes, we knew we'd have a hard time getting back to our car. It actually took us about an hour and we arrived to our car about 11:30pm. We were both exhausted! We finally go to our hotel and settled in by midnight, setting the alarm for 7am again.
I actually didnt have to nag DF about the alarms for tomorrow because tomorrow was HIS day...EPCOT!
Even though we both had a wonderful time at Magic Kingdom.....13 hours of it is EXHAUSTING!!
