Crowds...But No Lines! (Okay, maybe a few lines) - PRESIDENTS WEEK 2011 TR

[heathsf]

Wow!! I must have been reading the "L" and the "T" together, because I COMPLETELY missed that!! That's so funny! Did you know about this before going or did you just happen upon it??

I read about it

 

[ChattaAlley]

Love your TR so far. I would love to take a Disney trip with just my mom.

 

[heathsf]

Love your TR so far. I would love to take a Disney trip with just my mom.

Thank you!

It was the first time we'd ever gone anywhere just the two of us and we had such a nice time.

 

[heathsf]

At 4:30 we headed over to Mama Melrose's Ristorante Italiano, not completely sure whether or not we had an ADR.

We gave our name and they didn't have any trouble finding our reservation at all. I still don't know why or how my email confirmation had the wrong date and time. Either way, the restaurant was pretty empty so I don't think we would've had a problem being seated either way.

Our buzzer buzzed after only a few minutes but DM had gone to the bathroom so I had to wait for her to come back before we were seated. In the meantime I took this picture:

and also some pictures of the menu:

We were seated towards the back of the restaurant. All of the tables around us were empty. The design of the restaurant and the ambiance did remind me of Italian restaurants at home except that Mama Melrose's is much bigger. And it did fill up before we left at the end of our meal.

After we ordered they brought us fresh bread and olive oil. It was yummy.

DM ordered a garden salad which wasn't officially on the menu but our server (and I suppose the chefs as well) were very accommodating. $5.99
DM enjoyed her salad and loved the bread. She ate more than a basket's worth on her own. I only had one little piece DM also ordered a glass of Pinot Grigio. $9

For dinner, I ordered the Penne alla Vodka:
with pancetta and sweet onion finished with tomato-basil sauce, cream, vodka, and pecorino romano. I requested it without pancetta though. $16.99

DM ordered the Chicken Pipette:
wood grilled chicken over pipette pasta tossed with artichokes, peas, roasted peppers, and sweet onions in a basil four-cheese cream sauce. $17.99
DM's substitutions were more significant than mine. She hates any and all cream sauces so she requested tomato sauce instead. And also no artichokes.

So how did we like our food? I was honestly disappointed. My pasta looked sooooo good and it just didn't meet that expectation. It wasn't bad by any means but I was really really really expecting it to be better than it was. I've had much better penne alla vodka at restaurants at home. It was very filling and I was only able to eat about half of it.

DM really liked her pasta and was very happy with her sauce substitution. But what she really loved was her dessert, vanilla gelato. $4.49

My dessert was, unfortunately, also disappointing. I had the Chocolate Cannoli Cake:
chocolate cake filled with cannoli filling and nutella served with a chianti red wine sauce and garnished with a hazelnut florentine. $5.99

I know it looks great and my mouth was watering when our server put it down in front of me and I wish I had better things to say about it. I thought the cake was dry and the "cannoli filling" did not taste like a cannoli filling in my opinion. The wafer thing sticking out of it was yummy though!

I drank coke and DM ordered a seltzer in addition to her wine. They were $2.69 each. We used one dining credit for this meal and paid the difference for the salad and wine that wasn't included. The total with tax and without tip was $69.94

Even though I didn't love my food, we still had an overall good experience here. Again, the food wasn't BAD, it just wasn't as good as I expected it to be. Perhaps last night's dinner at Teppan Edo set the bar too high because that was one crazy good meal. DM really liked her food and had no complaints whatsoever. Our server was great and very friendly. The quality of the food was good but the tastes just weren't to my liking. So basically, I think the problem is me and not the restaurant.

With that said, I'm in no hurry to eat here again. There are just too many places I haven't been to yet. Next time I'm in the World and want some Italian, I'd like to try Tutto Italia or Via Napoli. Or both.

 

[heathsf]

We left the restaurant at 6pm and went next door to Muppet Vision 3D where, happily, we were able to walk right in to the preshow. Even though I've already seen it several times, it still gave me a few good laughs. DM really enjoyed it because she hadn't seen it in 8 years and that's way too long! I'm not sure if this had to do with wearing glasses but at some points during the show I had double vision with the 3D glasses on and I can't remember that ever happening before. It really wasn't a big deal though.

It seems I didn't take any pictures here. That's not like me. Oh well.

Now, I had 2 Tower of Terror FPs to use! But I decided to only use one for two reasons. First of all, I felt bad making DM wait around for me when I knew we would be leaving the park after this. I figured riding twice would take about 30 minutes and she would have just been waiting around for me. Secondly, it just wasn't as fun by myself. If I had a riding partner I would've been riding twice for sure. Or three times. Or four. I didn't think I could ever get enough of this ride but there's just something lacking when I'm riding alone.

Here are some pictures I took as we walked across the park.

As we walked down Sunset Boulevard DM said, "The wait for Tower of Terror is only 13 minutes now!" I told her that couldn't be right because the wait times are always posted in increments of 5 minutes but she insisted that it said 13. I zoomed in with my camera and caught this:

But it was blurry! So I tried again:

Can you tell what's going on here? I took the picture while the numbers were flipping. It stopped here:

DM was right after all! How cool is that!?!? I'm not sure how long the wait time was posted as 13 minutes or how often they do that but I'd never seen it before! Just add this to the long list of things that I love about this ride!

So since I already decided to ride only once, DM used the second FP to walk through the queue with me again. Here's that sign I love so much, this time at night when it's at its best!

It took 30 minutes to ride once with the FP. I really can't figure out where all that time went because it certainly didn't feel like a half hour. From here we left the park to head to Downtown Disney which is not a very straight-forward thing to do. We took a bus to the Hilton and walked from there. There was a nice group of people who helped us find our way because we'd never done this before. The bus driver told us that Disney stopped running buses directly between DTD and the parks because people were parking at DTD to avoid having to pay for parking at the parks. We got on the bus at 7:40 pm.

The bus ride was fairly quick and the walk wasn't too bad. This was DM's first time at DTD. Holy moly was it crowded!!!! I wasn't expecting DTD to be as crazy busy as the parks! We went right into the World of Disney store which was also very very crowded.

We had some fun before we started shopping.

I was looking for some comfortable pajamas and was disappointed in their very small selection and limited sizes. I wonder if they don't restock until the end of the day because most of the clothes I looked at only had XL and XXL left.

DM really wanted a Tigger sweatshirt. She requested one the last two times I went to WDW and I disappointed her both times. The first time I got her a t-shirt with Pooh holding a magnifying glass up to a tiger and saying, "Tigger, is that you?" I absolutely love that shirt. I saw that they still sell it at Animal Kingdom.

On my most recent trip I got her a sweatshirt with Mickey and the gang on the back which she wears all the time so I guess I didn't fail too badly there. But she was DETERMINED to find a Tigger sweatshirt. And she did fail at the World of Disney. After a while we left with no purchases.

DM wanted some water so we went into the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company next door. She bought her water and I tried a free sample of a chocolate with caramel. Yum!

We were super tired after our first full park day and decided to go back to the hotel. We hadn't walked very far when DM noticed the girl walking in front of us was wearing a Tigger sweatshirt! I ran up to her to ask if she had bought it in WDW on this trip. She sure did, and guess from where!

Yup, back to the World of Disney we went! She said she found it in the men's section and that's exactly where we found it. The problem was that the smallest size was a medium and it was huge on DM. We asked a cast member but she said these were the only sizes they had left. So we left the store disappointed once again. This time we really did leave DTD. It was just too crowded and we were too tired to walk around any more. We were on a bus at 9 and back at POP at 9:15. We could see some of the higher fireworks from Illuminations while we were on the bus.

We were so exhausted by the end of the night. We spent 11 hours at Hollywood Studios and a total of 13 hours out for the day. I do love Disney but it's definitely not a relaxing vacation. DM told me the next morning that I was asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow.

Up next: Animal Kingdom for Rope Drop

 

[Leshaface]

How disappointing about your meal..I hate when that happens! And your food looked so good too!!

The ToT sign is AWESOME! I've never seen that before so that's neat!

A question about the bus to DTD. So they no longer serve to DTD from the parks only from the resorts? Is this the only way to get to DTD is to board a Hilton bus? That's very strange and hope it's not too confusing for when we go..

 

[BMC423]

I'm baaaack! Sorry about your food I hate when that happens and it happened a few times during this trip =/. I LOVE that Pooh shirt too its very cute. I saw your post on my PTR we had a good time it was a completely different experience since it was the first time we went with a child...exhausting! Anyway I'm planning to start my TR later on today.

 

[chica622]

Great TR! Subscribing!

 

[heathsf]

A question about the bus to DTD. So they no longer serve to DTD from the parks only from the resorts? Is this the only way to get to DTD is to board a Hilton bus? That's very strange and hope it's not too confusing for when we go..

You can still take a DTD bus from any of the resorts. It's only tricky when you want to go directly from a park to DTD (or vice versa I guess). There really weren't any signs clearly marking this so we found out from other people who were going to DTD. We had to wait by the "chartered buses" area.

Maybe it would be easier to take a Disney bus to the nearest resort and catch a DTD bus from there? That would save you from having to walk from the DTD hotel to DTD itself. I think I may have just made that even more confusing.

I'm baaaack! Sorry about your food I hate when that happens and it happened a few times during this trip =/. I LOVE that Pooh shirt too its very cute. I saw your post on my PTR we had a good time it was a completely different experience since it was the first time we went with a child...exhausting! Anyway I'm planning to start my TR later on today.

WOW! That was so fast! I hope you had an amazing time. Can't wait to read your TR and hear all about it!

Great TR! Subscribing!

Thank you and welcome! Glad to have you here!

 

[m2zjj]

I'm trying to get caught up. After being out of town for the weekend and then having no internet when I got back I'm way out of the loop around here.

Love the last couple posts and can't wait to read more.

 

[heathsf]

Once again, we were awake before the wake-up call! With 7 1/2 hours of sleep, we were awake at 5:30am. This is about the time that I usually wake up for work but still...I was expecting to at least sleep until the alarm! I laid in bed until 6:15 then got up to shower. We were at the food court at 7:15 for breakfast. I didn't make it down yesterday for breakfast but DM said that it was much more crowded yesterday at 7:30.

We paid for breakfast OOP. We bought three 1/2 pint skim milks ($1.49 each), OJ ($2.39), a banana ($1.29), a cup of hot water for tea ($2.19 - which was irritating because DM brought her own tea bag and she still had to pay that ridiculous price for water), and for me: french toast w/ cinnamon sugar and sausage ($5.29). The total with tax was $11.02. Does anyone notice something funny here? We didn't until later on in the day when I looked at the receipt again. Our cashier forgot to charge us for the french toast! We didn't realize it until we had already left and I felt kind of bad. I'm usually very honest in situations like that but it was already too late

Here is DM's breakfast including a bag of cereal brought from home: a mixture of Wheat Chex, Go Lean, and Shredded Wheat & Bran. Yuck! I don't like even one of those cereals so I can't imagine them all mixed together.

And my yummy breakfast which happily did not include anything wheat, shredded, or bran!

After breakfast we went back to the room to finish getting ready for the day and to grab our things. I can't emphasize enough how nice it was to be so close to the main building. None of the rooms are THAT far away but it was great to be so so so close. Now I'm wondering if we were in a preferred room but just didn't know it. Wouldn't they have told us if we had been "upgraded"? Regardless, the location was perfect!

After a short wait, we boarded an Animal Kingdom bus at 8:10 and were walking towards the turnstiles at 8:25.

This was the same time that we had arrived at HS yesterday but there weren't nearly as many people lined up ahead of us as there were yesterday. They let us through the turnstiles at around 8:45 and we waited all the way to the left near the bathrooms. We really couldn't see the opening show but that was okay. The ropes dropped and the CM led different groups of people through different routes towards Kilimanjaro Safari and Expedition Everest. We headed toward the safari to grab FP for later. There were plenty of people running and even doing a little bit of pushing We arrived at KS at 8:54 and the FP machines weren't on yet. We had to wait 1 minute, until 8:55 before we could get our FP. I didn't write down the return time but I'm pretty sure it was for 9:30.

Next we walked from Africa to Asia and the walkways were nearly empty. While I was excited to ride EE, it was so nice to enjoy a leisurely stroll and take in the scenery before the park filled up.

While walking we heard some pretty crazy bird calls but there were no birds to be seen. We stopped to talk to a CM and she told us that the birds were actually on the other side of the park and they do this every morning. They were SO loud, it was actually pretty funny.

Then, we had arrived:

The standby wait was posted as 10 minutes but it was definitely less. DM walked through the queue with me with zero intentions of riding. Since the line was moving so fast we didn't get to spend much time looking at all the artifacts but DM appreciated how detailed the theming was. At the front of the line, she exited and I sat in the second to last row with a stranger. The very first time I rode EE I was placed in the very first row (without requesting it) and the view at the top of the tracks right before going backwards was a-maz-ing! Sitting at the very back was a little disappointing because I knew I was missing out on that spectacular view. But other than that small detail, the ride was fantastic. It was even better than I remembered! The yeti is still amazing (and pretty scary) even though it doesn't move anymore. I wish they could fix it though.

While DM waited for me, she took pictures of each train as it came down the mountain. She had no idea which one I was on but after taking the pictures and zooming in on each one, we found me! I'm in the 2nd to last row on the left (looking at the picture) in the white shirt, sitting right in front of the person in the red shirt.

I left the ride feeling totally exhilarated and wanting to ride again. I figured I could either FP it later or ride the single rider line. Then off we went to FP and ride Dinosaur. It was 9:30 and our FP return time was for 10:10am. After grabbing the FP we rode it. I had warned DM about how realistic the dinosaurs are and how I find the ride to be pretty scary. I screamed my head off at the end of the ride and DM made me feel pretty bad by saying "That was it? That wasn't scary at all!"

I know it's hard to see in the picture but we're in the middle row. I'm not screaming here but I'm clearly trying to get as far away as possible from the hungry dinosaur. DM looks bored. Now, I wasn't quite as scared as the girl in the front row!

Next we went to catch the first showing of the Festival of the Lion King at 10am because I read it's the least crowded. We had no problem there, the show wasn't even close to full when they closed the doors. I had seen it once 5 years ago and it was another first for DM. We both loved it! The music and the acts are great. It's such a fun show!

Continued in the next post...

 

[heathsf]

After Festival of the Lion King, we went back to Africa to use our Kilimanjaro Safari FP. I absolutely love the theming in Africa and I'm upset because I really didn't take any pictures of the architecture. I need to make sure that I do that on my next trip. I read that every building in Africa was either imported from the real Africa or is an exact replica of an existing building in the real Africa. WDW Imagineers are amazing!

At KS, we waited about 10 minutes on the FP return line and were off for our two week safari at 10:45 am.

Here is my attempt at an artistic picture. DM kept asking me what I was taking a picture of.

Okapi

Black Rhino

I have usually seen a lot of hippos but on this trip there were only a few under the water so I have no pictures.

The people behind me probably thought I was a pervert, taking a picture of our driver's hairy leg, but I was actually trying to get a picture of the card NEXT to his leg. It came out kind of blurry but at the top it says "10 Stops for 5 Seconds Each" and underneath that it goes into detail about what those stops are. I was really hoping to be able to zoom in and read it at home but it's just too blurry. Oh well, I'm sure it's not meant for us to read anyway

Eland (I think)

Crocodiles

This is when we got to the area where I've usually seen quite a few giraffes and there were none! I was pretty disappointed. Even more disappointing was the amount of traffic we were stuck in! I've never seen so many safari trucks at once. I should have taken a picture but didn't. We were all lined up and crawling along the road. I wouldn't have minded at all if there were animals to see but this area was totally empty! This went on for about 10 minutes before the traffic finally broke up and we were able to move on to a new area with animals!

Thompson's Gazelle

More Thompson's Gazelles. They are so cute!

Ankole Cattle and Wildebeests

And Closer...

Then we finally got to see a giraffe

Elephant

I didn't notice the baby elephant in this picture until after I took it!

White Rhino

The lions were sleeping. Sorry this picture is blurry, it was super zoomed-in

Ostrich with a camouflaged head

I'm not sure what this is.

Before riding, DM had this notion that the safari wasn't anything great. But she was very happily surprised at how much she enjoyed it. After returning from our two-week adventure, we were pretty hungry. We walked from Africa back to Asia again. This was the same exact walk we had taken this morning right after getting the FP for KS. Remember how nice and empty it was at 9 am? It was 11:30 now and a different story. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

While walking we kept an eye out for a place where we could grab lunch. We decided to eat at the Yak & Yeti Quick Service restaurant. But first I grabbed 2 FP for EE for later. The return time was for 1:35 pm. I don't think I looked at the standby wait time but if I did, I didn't make a note of it.

We went back to Yak & Yeti for lunch.

I ordered the Sweet & Sour chicken ($9.99) and DM ordered the Mandarin Chicken Salad ($8.99). We each got a bottle of water ($2.50 each) and a frozen lemonade ($3.49 each). We used 2 Quick Service credits for the meals.

My meal still in the box. It was SO hot! (temperature-wise, not spicy)

The chicken was served with white rice and bell peppers

DM's salad

The frozen lemonade wasn't anything special. DM didn't like it at all and I had a little bit of hers. Since mine was unopened I gave it away to the girls sitting next to us. I think the frozen lemonade at MK is way better.

But we both really loved our lunch. I thought my meal was excellent.

Up next: Something at Animal Kingdom that's new for *both* of us and new sneakers for DM

 

[BMC423]

I had that problem with the alarm too I was always up before it went off...it was unbelievable and very annoying. You had a great weather for your AK day (at least it looks that way in your pics)! Your mom is hilarious... "what are you trying to take a picture of" Is dinosaur really that scary? I have never been we didn't even get to that side of the park...

 

[Leshaface]

Your mom looks like she's totally chilling in the Dinosaur pic! And you know what's funny...I LOVE all those 3 cereals, never thought about mixing them together like that!!

I love EE! Prob one of the best rides! I've never rode in the front, but will prob request it next time!

 

[heathsf]

I had that problem with the alarm too I was always up before it went off...it was unbelievable and very annoying. You had a great weather for your AK day (at least it looks that way in your pics)! Your mom is hilarious... "what are you trying to take a picture of" Is dinosaur really that scary? I have never been we didn't even get to that side of the park...

We had amazing weather every day. It was unbelievable. Sunny and mid 80s every day we were there. Oh how I miss it!!

Your mom looks like she's totally chilling in the Dinosaur pic! And you know what's funny...I LOVE all those 3 cereals, never thought about mixing them together like that!!

I love EE! Prob one of the best rides! I've never rode in the front, but will prob request it next time!

Hahaha you described it perfectly. She is totally just chillin.

If you decide to mix them together...well good luck with that. I still stand by my "yuck"!

And you should definitely request the front row. When you're stopped at the top of the broken tracks for those good few seconds, the view is incredible!

 

[Leshaface]

Haven't heard from you in a while! Hope everythings okay and you return soon to update!!

 

[heathsf]

Haven't heard from you in a while! Hope everythings okay and you return soon to update!!

I'm here and everything's fine I've just been really busy and haven't had time to update. I'm home sick from work today so I'm catching up on reading TRs but not really feeling up to doing an update myself. Hopefully this weekend!

 

[heathsf]

I was hoping to write an update this weekend but unfortunately my aunt became ill on Friday. She had emergency surgery yesterday which was successful but she is not yet stable and has a long road of recovery ahead of her. I have been babysitting my cousin's 3 month old daughter so that my cousin could be at the hospital with her mom.

I promise I have not given up on this TR and will continue it as soon as I can.

 

[m2zjj]

I was hoping to write an update this weekend but unfortunately my aunt became ill on Friday. She had emergency surgery yesterday which was successful but she is not yet stable and has a long road of recovery ahead of her. I have been babysitting my cousin's 3 month old daughter so that my cousin could be at the hospital with her mom.

I promise I have not given up on this TR and will continue it as soon as I can.

I'm so sorry to hear about your aunt. That's great that you can baby sit so your cousin can be with her.

As much as I want to hear more about your trip I understand that you have much more important things to deal with right now. I promise I'll be here reading along when you get back.

 

[jdd]

Great report! Trying to figure out when we can go in 2012, so it's good to know that this is a crazy crowded week!

Hope all is well with your aunt.