Uncle Albert
"I love to laugh"
- Joined
- Aug 20, 1999
- Messages
- 183
PamNCs Trip Report Day 2 Magic Kingdom and MGM Extra Magic Hours
Cast: Me, the wife and my DH, Uncle Albert (DIS name)
Recap of Day 1 Arrival Day: In case you missed the first report heres a quick recap in the style of Ellens Energy Adventure:
Im PamNC. Hi! Im visiting Disney with my wonderful DH, a.k.a. Uncle Albert. We arrived yesterday, bought APs and checked into the Beach Club. We were amazed with the CMs they were top notch. Art the Greeter and our check-in CM were wonderful. The greeting was warm and genuine! Good thing too, we had visited DL in May and found the CMs to be less than stellar. Were quickly learning that well never take the CMs @ WDW for granted. We had a great dinner at Blue Zoo, strolled the Boardwalk and watched Illuminations from our balcony. As we lay down to sleep, my DH discovered an awful looking rash on my lower extremities. With the help of childrens benadryl, I fell asleep like never before, hoping it would cure my allergic reaction. Whatever it was.
ON TO DAY #2:
The phone rings @ 6:30 a.m. its our Mickey Wake-Up call. DH answers the phone and to his surprise it was Stitch, not Mickey. We dont like Stitch, let me make that perfectly clear. Good news is Mickey interrupts this little monster. My DH says he doesnt like change and they should leave the wake-up call alone. I was glad I didnt answer the phone.
We had taken our showers the night before so we dashed out to our car to head for the Poly for our 7:30 PS at Kona Café. Its a tradition for us to eat @ Kona on our first full day of the trip. We left the room by 7:00 and parked in the MK parking lot. Since it was early, we got a great spot and it was a short walk to the Poly. The Poly is actually our favorite resort, well, were actually torn between the Poly and the Beach Club. Anyway, it was nice walking into the GCH and feeling the magic of the Poly again. We were seated right away and ordered tonga toast, just one order because we split it. Its too rich for one person to eat. DH ordered a side of eggs. Of course we got Kona coffee and we always look forward to the fresh squeezed pineapple juice. The waitress brings the juice it looks like concentrate. Guess what? It tastes like concentrate. It WAS concentrate. We asked the CM what happened to the fresh pineapple juice and her explanation was that someone got sick off of fresh squeezed juices and Disney was now afraid to serve it. People! Good Grief. I was filled with bitterness because we look forward to this wonderful beverage. The only good thing I can say about it is they lowered the price. The food was great and they were playing Elvis music in the background. Uncle Albert was shaking and dancing to You aint nothin but a hound dog and giving me a good morning laugh. It really woke me up. I hate to admit this because weve always loved the Kona Café, but it wasnt as good as usual. Not just the pitiful pineapple juice. The tonga toast was lacking something I cant put my finger on it. Service was excellent though. As was the atmosphere. On a scale of 1-10, Ill give it a 6.5 for food and a 10 for service.
After a quick bathroom break, we headed for the monorail. Have you ever noticed that the inside of the monorails sometimes smell like bandaids? It happens when the air is pumping. We arrived around 8:30, in time for the opening celebration which we love! What a great kick-off to your first park visit. We headed straight for splash mountain, grabbed a fastpass and then got in line to ride it. The wait was about 2 minutes we walked right on. Then we rode Big Thunder Mountain which was about a 5 minute wait. After the wildest ride in the wilderness, it was time for our fastpass @ Splash. We got in line and just as we were rounding the corner to load they announced that they were having technical difficulties. It sounded pretty indefinite, so we opted to leave. We asked the CM if we could have our fastpass back, but instead she gave us a rider switch pass. That little gem came in awful handy later in the trip. Since we couldnt do Splash, we decided to take in another favorite, Pirates of the Caribbean. Again, no wait. Ill tell you, the folks on the boards had us scared to death talking about the crowds and the heat. We were prepared for the worst but it seemed as if we were getting the best instead. The force was definitely with us. We cut through to Frontierland and the Country Bears were just letting people in. We hooped, hollered, stomped and sang along with the bears. Im sure we looked silly, being the sophisticated childless couple that we are, but we didnt care. Next we did another classic, the Haunted Mansion. We didnt want to go back to Splash, so we decided to check out Small World to see how it was since the rehab. While in DL in May, we fell in love with Small World. Its much better at DL. The outside of the building had a cool clock that opens up on the hour. Well, to our surprise they had renovated it to look like the DL version. Clock and all. Our timing was perfect. Right as we were getting on the boat, the clock went off so I snapped a picture. I think they did a great job with it. It was fresher and brighter and there were some new scenes.
We then grabbed a fastpass for Peter Pan. We rode the carousel and my DH took pictures of me on my horse. Next, we saw Philharmagic. That attraction is a 10!! Then, it was time for Peter Pan so we dashed over and got on within minutes. All the CMs we encountered on this magical morning were nothing less than magical. Unlike DL in California. There the CMs arent at their posts, so to speak. You walk up and there is nobody directing guests and they have personal conversations if they are even at their posts. Again, well never take the Florida CMs for granted. They are the BEST and I tip my hat to them.
Okay remember my rash? It was still there and now it was starting to itch and sting. We stopped at the shop they have @ Winnie the Pooh and asked if they had benadryl cream or something that might help and they directed us to first aid over by Caseys. We headed over there and there was a woman in there all upset. She too had a rash on her lower legs. Hers was redder and much worse than mine. The CM gave her some clear gel to put on it and told her that this was very common in Florida. I told her I had the same thing, yet in more private places so she sent me and my DH to the restroom with that wonderful clear gel. Its call Calagel. It was so cooling to the touch!!! I asked the CM on the way out to explain this common rash to me. She said the strangest thing, its real common around here. We get it all the time. Its something that just comes up from the ground. Ive never heard of such a thing, but I was a bit relieved to know that others were having the problem. Perhaps I wasnt having an allergic reaction to the antibiotic after all.
At this point 2e were hungry and HOT. So we decided to take the monorail to one of our favorite places, Concourse Steakhouse. I use to call this place a hidden gem. What a disappointment we had this trip. My DH ordered a salad that was suppose to have field greens and they brought out wilted lettuce. No field greens, no onions, no nothing just iceberg wilted lettuce. He sent it back and they brought out another one with the same lack of field greens but at least this one wasnt wilted. I ordered a steak burger, which until this fine day I considered the best burger on property. I had it twice last year and loved it. Well, she brought out this dried up pathetic burger. I took about 4 bites, couldnt stomach any more. The place didnt look that clean either. My DH also got a pasta dish and he said it was just adequate. On a scale of 1-10, Id give the food a 1 and the service an 8. NEVER AGAIN. The Concourse Steakhouse, once one of our favorites, is now officially off our list of choices. Permanently. It was that bad.
We drove to CVS to buy some of that wonder gel for my rash. Then we headed back to the Beach Club to partake in Stormalong Bay. We hadnt stayed at the BC in 3 years and I forgot how wonderful the pool is. We have a spot its hard to explain but its behind the hot tob in a corner there are two waterfalls. We had a great time swimming and playing, and it was quite a reprieve from the heat. It was nice and sunny and suddenly a storm came up. Not a huge one, so we stayed in the pool while it rained which was about an entire 5 minutes. Ive never been in a pool during a rain shower.
Our plan for the evening was to go to Brown Derby for dinner, we had 5:00 PS. Then we were going to partake in extra magic hours @ MGM. We were running behind so my DH called the Brown Derby to see if we could change it to 5:30, which they did with no problem. We took quick showers and decided to walk to MGM. Its a pleasant walk, but a hot one!!! It took about 20 minutes. We arrived just as the parade was started so we had to meander through the crowd to get to the Brown Derby. We had a wonderful meal. I got a salad with oranges and candied pecans and DH got the Thai Noodle Bowl. The salad was one of the best Ive ever had. We got two desserts, usually we split one but we were feeling greedy. I got my favorite, the grapefruit cake and DH got a chocolate torte thing. Mine was wonderful but DH didnt like his. He said it was dried up and lacked sugar. Desserts shouldnt lack sugar. Even with the one bad dessert, I would give the food a 9 and the service a 4. The service was very very slow!!!! It took forever to get our dessert, our check and they didnt keep our waters full. This is the first time this has happened to us at Brown Derby. The food was delicious though. My DH went on and on about the Thai Noodle Bowl. It comes with tofu, edamame and noodles.
We left the Derby and grabbed a fastpass for Little Mermaid. We rode the Great Movie Ride, go the western show which is my favorite. The ride got stuck in the Casablanca scene. They turned off the sound but Humphrey Bogarts mouth was still moving. It went on for awhile, and all of a sudden 2 or 3 CMs went running past us. Who knows what happened???? It seemed rather urgent because they were frantic. I guess we were stuck a good 10 minutes and when we got to my favorite scene, the Wizard of OZ, the whole show was off. It just never got back on track. Our vehicle was way up towards the beginning of the scene while the witch was talking. It didnt work very well because the witch is suppose to be talking to the CM. Well, she was talking to nobody. Oh well. I just hoped nobody got hurt and that caused all the commotion. As we came out, a beautiful rainbow had appeared right over the hat. I took a great picture. Everyone was stopping to look at it. It was spectacular in color.
We took in the Little Mermaid, with a little help from the ol Fastpass. I love Fastpass. We hadnt seen the show in years. I really enjoyed it but it seemed like they had taken away some of the effects. King Triton didnt appear on the stones like he usually does. You know, when hes screaming @ Sebastian about keeping an eye on Ariel. Anyone remember that part? Well, its not there anymore, or at least not during our show. After Mermaid we walked through the Walt One Mans Dream exhibit, but we skipped the film. Then we went on Star Tours walked right on. We had hoped to see Lights Motors Action but the last show was over. So, we headed for RnR and Tower of Terror. RnR was a 40 minute wait so we skipped it. TOT was a 13 minute wait. We rode that and then came to the conclusion that we were totally out of energy and couldnt hang any longer extra magic hours or not.
We decided not to hoof it back to the Beach Club. As we walked out of MGM we noticed the Friendship had docked. We RAN like crazy people and just did catch the boat. What a wonderful first day at the parks. I checked my rash before bed still there but a bit better. I slathered on the calagel and we quickly drifted into a deep Disney sleep.
Stay tuned for Day 3 July the 4th @ Epcot.
PamNC
Cast: Me, the wife and my DH, Uncle Albert (DIS name)
Recap of Day 1 Arrival Day: In case you missed the first report heres a quick recap in the style of Ellens Energy Adventure:
Im PamNC. Hi! Im visiting Disney with my wonderful DH, a.k.a. Uncle Albert. We arrived yesterday, bought APs and checked into the Beach Club. We were amazed with the CMs they were top notch. Art the Greeter and our check-in CM were wonderful. The greeting was warm and genuine! Good thing too, we had visited DL in May and found the CMs to be less than stellar. Were quickly learning that well never take the CMs @ WDW for granted. We had a great dinner at Blue Zoo, strolled the Boardwalk and watched Illuminations from our balcony. As we lay down to sleep, my DH discovered an awful looking rash on my lower extremities. With the help of childrens benadryl, I fell asleep like never before, hoping it would cure my allergic reaction. Whatever it was.
ON TO DAY #2:
The phone rings @ 6:30 a.m. its our Mickey Wake-Up call. DH answers the phone and to his surprise it was Stitch, not Mickey. We dont like Stitch, let me make that perfectly clear. Good news is Mickey interrupts this little monster. My DH says he doesnt like change and they should leave the wake-up call alone. I was glad I didnt answer the phone.
We had taken our showers the night before so we dashed out to our car to head for the Poly for our 7:30 PS at Kona Café. Its a tradition for us to eat @ Kona on our first full day of the trip. We left the room by 7:00 and parked in the MK parking lot. Since it was early, we got a great spot and it was a short walk to the Poly. The Poly is actually our favorite resort, well, were actually torn between the Poly and the Beach Club. Anyway, it was nice walking into the GCH and feeling the magic of the Poly again. We were seated right away and ordered tonga toast, just one order because we split it. Its too rich for one person to eat. DH ordered a side of eggs. Of course we got Kona coffee and we always look forward to the fresh squeezed pineapple juice. The waitress brings the juice it looks like concentrate. Guess what? It tastes like concentrate. It WAS concentrate. We asked the CM what happened to the fresh pineapple juice and her explanation was that someone got sick off of fresh squeezed juices and Disney was now afraid to serve it. People! Good Grief. I was filled with bitterness because we look forward to this wonderful beverage. The only good thing I can say about it is they lowered the price. The food was great and they were playing Elvis music in the background. Uncle Albert was shaking and dancing to You aint nothin but a hound dog and giving me a good morning laugh. It really woke me up. I hate to admit this because weve always loved the Kona Café, but it wasnt as good as usual. Not just the pitiful pineapple juice. The tonga toast was lacking something I cant put my finger on it. Service was excellent though. As was the atmosphere. On a scale of 1-10, Ill give it a 6.5 for food and a 10 for service.
After a quick bathroom break, we headed for the monorail. Have you ever noticed that the inside of the monorails sometimes smell like bandaids? It happens when the air is pumping. We arrived around 8:30, in time for the opening celebration which we love! What a great kick-off to your first park visit. We headed straight for splash mountain, grabbed a fastpass and then got in line to ride it. The wait was about 2 minutes we walked right on. Then we rode Big Thunder Mountain which was about a 5 minute wait. After the wildest ride in the wilderness, it was time for our fastpass @ Splash. We got in line and just as we were rounding the corner to load they announced that they were having technical difficulties. It sounded pretty indefinite, so we opted to leave. We asked the CM if we could have our fastpass back, but instead she gave us a rider switch pass. That little gem came in awful handy later in the trip. Since we couldnt do Splash, we decided to take in another favorite, Pirates of the Caribbean. Again, no wait. Ill tell you, the folks on the boards had us scared to death talking about the crowds and the heat. We were prepared for the worst but it seemed as if we were getting the best instead. The force was definitely with us. We cut through to Frontierland and the Country Bears were just letting people in. We hooped, hollered, stomped and sang along with the bears. Im sure we looked silly, being the sophisticated childless couple that we are, but we didnt care. Next we did another classic, the Haunted Mansion. We didnt want to go back to Splash, so we decided to check out Small World to see how it was since the rehab. While in DL in May, we fell in love with Small World. Its much better at DL. The outside of the building had a cool clock that opens up on the hour. Well, to our surprise they had renovated it to look like the DL version. Clock and all. Our timing was perfect. Right as we were getting on the boat, the clock went off so I snapped a picture. I think they did a great job with it. It was fresher and brighter and there were some new scenes.
We then grabbed a fastpass for Peter Pan. We rode the carousel and my DH took pictures of me on my horse. Next, we saw Philharmagic. That attraction is a 10!! Then, it was time for Peter Pan so we dashed over and got on within minutes. All the CMs we encountered on this magical morning were nothing less than magical. Unlike DL in California. There the CMs arent at their posts, so to speak. You walk up and there is nobody directing guests and they have personal conversations if they are even at their posts. Again, well never take the Florida CMs for granted. They are the BEST and I tip my hat to them.
Okay remember my rash? It was still there and now it was starting to itch and sting. We stopped at the shop they have @ Winnie the Pooh and asked if they had benadryl cream or something that might help and they directed us to first aid over by Caseys. We headed over there and there was a woman in there all upset. She too had a rash on her lower legs. Hers was redder and much worse than mine. The CM gave her some clear gel to put on it and told her that this was very common in Florida. I told her I had the same thing, yet in more private places so she sent me and my DH to the restroom with that wonderful clear gel. Its call Calagel. It was so cooling to the touch!!! I asked the CM on the way out to explain this common rash to me. She said the strangest thing, its real common around here. We get it all the time. Its something that just comes up from the ground. Ive never heard of such a thing, but I was a bit relieved to know that others were having the problem. Perhaps I wasnt having an allergic reaction to the antibiotic after all.
At this point 2e were hungry and HOT. So we decided to take the monorail to one of our favorite places, Concourse Steakhouse. I use to call this place a hidden gem. What a disappointment we had this trip. My DH ordered a salad that was suppose to have field greens and they brought out wilted lettuce. No field greens, no onions, no nothing just iceberg wilted lettuce. He sent it back and they brought out another one with the same lack of field greens but at least this one wasnt wilted. I ordered a steak burger, which until this fine day I considered the best burger on property. I had it twice last year and loved it. Well, she brought out this dried up pathetic burger. I took about 4 bites, couldnt stomach any more. The place didnt look that clean either. My DH also got a pasta dish and he said it was just adequate. On a scale of 1-10, Id give the food a 1 and the service an 8. NEVER AGAIN. The Concourse Steakhouse, once one of our favorites, is now officially off our list of choices. Permanently. It was that bad.
We drove to CVS to buy some of that wonder gel for my rash. Then we headed back to the Beach Club to partake in Stormalong Bay. We hadnt stayed at the BC in 3 years and I forgot how wonderful the pool is. We have a spot its hard to explain but its behind the hot tob in a corner there are two waterfalls. We had a great time swimming and playing, and it was quite a reprieve from the heat. It was nice and sunny and suddenly a storm came up. Not a huge one, so we stayed in the pool while it rained which was about an entire 5 minutes. Ive never been in a pool during a rain shower.
Our plan for the evening was to go to Brown Derby for dinner, we had 5:00 PS. Then we were going to partake in extra magic hours @ MGM. We were running behind so my DH called the Brown Derby to see if we could change it to 5:30, which they did with no problem. We took quick showers and decided to walk to MGM. Its a pleasant walk, but a hot one!!! It took about 20 minutes. We arrived just as the parade was started so we had to meander through the crowd to get to the Brown Derby. We had a wonderful meal. I got a salad with oranges and candied pecans and DH got the Thai Noodle Bowl. The salad was one of the best Ive ever had. We got two desserts, usually we split one but we were feeling greedy. I got my favorite, the grapefruit cake and DH got a chocolate torte thing. Mine was wonderful but DH didnt like his. He said it was dried up and lacked sugar. Desserts shouldnt lack sugar. Even with the one bad dessert, I would give the food a 9 and the service a 4. The service was very very slow!!!! It took forever to get our dessert, our check and they didnt keep our waters full. This is the first time this has happened to us at Brown Derby. The food was delicious though. My DH went on and on about the Thai Noodle Bowl. It comes with tofu, edamame and noodles.
We left the Derby and grabbed a fastpass for Little Mermaid. We rode the Great Movie Ride, go the western show which is my favorite. The ride got stuck in the Casablanca scene. They turned off the sound but Humphrey Bogarts mouth was still moving. It went on for awhile, and all of a sudden 2 or 3 CMs went running past us. Who knows what happened???? It seemed rather urgent because they were frantic. I guess we were stuck a good 10 minutes and when we got to my favorite scene, the Wizard of OZ, the whole show was off. It just never got back on track. Our vehicle was way up towards the beginning of the scene while the witch was talking. It didnt work very well because the witch is suppose to be talking to the CM. Well, she was talking to nobody. Oh well. I just hoped nobody got hurt and that caused all the commotion. As we came out, a beautiful rainbow had appeared right over the hat. I took a great picture. Everyone was stopping to look at it. It was spectacular in color.
We took in the Little Mermaid, with a little help from the ol Fastpass. I love Fastpass. We hadnt seen the show in years. I really enjoyed it but it seemed like they had taken away some of the effects. King Triton didnt appear on the stones like he usually does. You know, when hes screaming @ Sebastian about keeping an eye on Ariel. Anyone remember that part? Well, its not there anymore, or at least not during our show. After Mermaid we walked through the Walt One Mans Dream exhibit, but we skipped the film. Then we went on Star Tours walked right on. We had hoped to see Lights Motors Action but the last show was over. So, we headed for RnR and Tower of Terror. RnR was a 40 minute wait so we skipped it. TOT was a 13 minute wait. We rode that and then came to the conclusion that we were totally out of energy and couldnt hang any longer extra magic hours or not.
We decided not to hoof it back to the Beach Club. As we walked out of MGM we noticed the Friendship had docked. We RAN like crazy people and just did catch the boat. What a wonderful first day at the parks. I checked my rash before bed still there but a bit better. I slathered on the calagel and we quickly drifted into a deep Disney sleep.
Stay tuned for Day 3 July the 4th @ Epcot.
PamNC
