DisneyJedi
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2001
- Messages
- 39
Here we are on our last full Disney day and honeymoon (Boy did it go fast!). It is Sunday May 13th and we gave ourselves a little extra sleep, arriving in the parks sometime around 10:00am. This was our checkout day at Buena Vista Suites, so we spent more time than usual packing our 'junk' in the car before leaving.
In an effort to catch what we missed, we stopped at MGM Studios first. This was my first opportunity at a Star Wars weekend. Right at the gate we saw a a sign that said the signature queue for the Star Wars celebrities (Carrie Fisher and Peter Mayhew) were all full, so it wasn't possible to get their autograph. What a bummer! That's ok because I met Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) a number of years ago at a sci-fi convention in Cincinnati, so I wasn't missing much. On the ticket line to enter the park, we picked the wrong line with people that didn't know how to use their park tickets. I always pick the wrong line. grr.. Anyway, during the 10 minute wait at the gate I noticed the fellow in front of me had some strange earrings on. They completely stretched out his bottom lobes of his ears into the size of a quarter and mashed it that way. That's the weirdest thing I have ever seen a person do to themselves. I guess you really do see everything at Disney.
As we first entered, we noticed the hat under construction in front of the Chinese theater had made great progress since we had been at MGM on tuesday. Just one more little piece to add at the top and the point would be complete! About 2 more sections had been added since we were there last. Cool!
My wife and I headed to the left side of the park to be entertained with the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular -- just as I had rememebered it in '94. I knew the one guy had to be acting that was eventually revealed to be a cast member. He was really funny (i.e 'Charlie' from NY). The extras did a good job also.
After a great show, we walked towards Star Tours and I saw Peter Mayhew walk out from behind the gate. He passed right by me. By the time I realized who the 7-foot+ tall dude was, I was looking at his back and didn't get a chance to stop him and say hello. The weird part was that of all the tons and tons of people scattered around me, no one recognized who he was. To me, even if I didn't know what Peter looked like, how often do you see a towering person like that walking amongst average-sized people?
Anyway, after a quick turn at the lagoon, we grabbed a bucket of pop corn and another Sprite and sat down on a bench adjacent to the water. In no time, Jafarr pops out again! We've seen him at parades and other parks and now we saw him again. I'd say out of all Disney characters we saw, we saw him 65% of the time. Weird!
Following our little break, we barely had enough time to get a seat for the Beauty and Beast show. We both really enjoyed the show. I had read that the costumes were starting to fade, but we couldn't tell from our positions way up the seating area.
As the day progressed I don't remember what we ate for lunch, but it sure wasn't hamburgers! I think all the popcorn we ate protected us from being hungry, so we may have skipped it.
I do remember galavanting around the Star Tours section again, looking for souvenirs. About 2 years ago I was obsessed with Star Wars collecting anything related to it in full force. When it got too expensive I slowly quit. I admit I started to feel the Star Wars buzz at MGM. I bought a couple of the limited-edition pins, but refrained from much else, other than a couple T-shirts for my wife and I. I noticed Carrie Fisher should have been signing autographs for another 15 minutes, but she was totally gone when we moved into that area. Why couldn't she stay the whole time they had alloted for her and have her sign autographs until the time expired? Anyway I had a bunch of fun in this area getting my picture with a Tusken Raider and later a Rodean and a couple droids.
It was time to say goodbye to MGM. We had seen what we wanted to see and that wrapped it up. It was back to Magic Kingdom for us!
We made it over to the Magic Kingdom early enough to find an empty bench in front of the train station to watch the Magical Moments Parade in the shade. That didn't last.. a CM stopped at our bench to ask us lots of questions about the parks. This was one long survey (about 15 minutes), but during so, an Indian family slowly invaded our space. Read about thatHERE .
Regardless, we still enjoyed the parade.
We spent the rest of the day going over some of our favorite attractions again like Pirates of the Carribean and the Haunted Mansion. We also found Dole Whip in Adventureland. Hot dang.. it does exist!! I had read all the excitement and hoolpa here, so we first bought a couple plain Dole whips with vanilla swirl. Why didn't someone just say it is soft serve pinapple icecream? Regardless I finished off my wife's because she couldn't eat it all. I didn't think I had enough, so I bought the version that comes with pinapple juice below the icecream. Yummy, yummy!
I'll have to find a local substitute now.
After a few attractions and gorging myself with Dolewhip I just wanted to roll, but instead we left the park and headed to Olive Garden for a quick dinner. Eggplant parm for me and spaghetti for my wife! Amaisingly I didn't feel too bad after dinner.
We drove over to the Wyndham Palace and Spa for our final night check-in. We had never been a 4-star hotel before. This was weird. The hotel was designed for bellhops to take your luggage, but I insisted on carrying our own stuff up and got the royal bellhop stare-down entering the hotel. I carried the luggage in from the parking lot(really light since we'd only be there one night). Those bellhop eyes were like knives aimed to stab at me. Check-in with the Priceline was easy enough, except they stuck me with an $8.50 charge. That was rude! They said they charge all the guests that fee. Uh huh! This hotel was much classier than what we are used to. The staff definitely had some attitude that we didn't feel comfortable with. We felt like peons having the privaledge to stay in the lord's castle for an evening. Talk about the caste system! I may have gotten a bargain at priceline, but I would have preferred a less classy hotel because the people are more on my level. 4-star or not, we are not snobs. We were on our last pocket money and didn't really need the bellhop assistance anyway. I did really have to save every bit of money we had left and a bell hop was totally unnecessary for what we needed in our room (bare essentials). To top it off, the hotel knew nothing about the Wyndham by Request we had put in a couple weeks ago. They did try to make accomidations by giving us a high floor facing kinda to Disney. Later we found pretzels and a bottle of imported water. Is this the standard welcome package for Wyndham-by-Request. We had a nice sleep here, but lesson learned we don't like the snobbish atmosphere of 4-star hotels... ok back to Disney..
We soon left the hotel..
My wife and I decided that we wanted to see Fantasmic at MGM again, so that's exactly what we did. We almost didn't make it back in time to get a seat it was so crowded this time. We got a seat on the very end, all the way on the left side. We had a mom and daughter next to us that had just arrived to Disney after a long flight from California (I think). Her travel agent had screwed up her reservations and transport and she would have had to pay like $70 everytime she stepped in a taxi to get from her hotel to the parks. That was crazy! She did get it sorted out and was really happy to be starting their adventure at the parks. Sadly it was our last night there, but we knew exactly how excited she and her daughter must have felt. We had a great Fantasmic show too.
The night was complete, so we headed for our car after a fairly long souvenir stop. We bought more souvenirs than you'd think. The back seat in my wife's car was non-existant.. Totally covered by layers and layers of bags of souvenirs. I should have taken a picture. It looked crazy! We looked even crazier for buying all the stuff we did.
Next day: Monday May 14th..
After a cozy sleep at Wyndham (with no blinds or shades on the glass doors to the patio), we spent the entire day driving back to Lexington. It took us probably 14 hours straight on the way back because of bad traffic in Atlanta. We also stopped to buy Florida oranges and Georgia peaches.
So we're left with a wonderful Disney taste in our mouths after our honeymoon at Disney. So when can we go back?
In an effort to catch what we missed, we stopped at MGM Studios first. This was my first opportunity at a Star Wars weekend. Right at the gate we saw a a sign that said the signature queue for the Star Wars celebrities (Carrie Fisher and Peter Mayhew) were all full, so it wasn't possible to get their autograph. What a bummer! That's ok because I met Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) a number of years ago at a sci-fi convention in Cincinnati, so I wasn't missing much. On the ticket line to enter the park, we picked the wrong line with people that didn't know how to use their park tickets. I always pick the wrong line. grr.. Anyway, during the 10 minute wait at the gate I noticed the fellow in front of me had some strange earrings on. They completely stretched out his bottom lobes of his ears into the size of a quarter and mashed it that way. That's the weirdest thing I have ever seen a person do to themselves. I guess you really do see everything at Disney.
As we first entered, we noticed the hat under construction in front of the Chinese theater had made great progress since we had been at MGM on tuesday. Just one more little piece to add at the top and the point would be complete! About 2 more sections had been added since we were there last. Cool!
My wife and I headed to the left side of the park to be entertained with the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular -- just as I had rememebered it in '94. I knew the one guy had to be acting that was eventually revealed to be a cast member. He was really funny (i.e 'Charlie' from NY). The extras did a good job also.
After a great show, we walked towards Star Tours and I saw Peter Mayhew walk out from behind the gate. He passed right by me. By the time I realized who the 7-foot+ tall dude was, I was looking at his back and didn't get a chance to stop him and say hello. The weird part was that of all the tons and tons of people scattered around me, no one recognized who he was. To me, even if I didn't know what Peter looked like, how often do you see a towering person like that walking amongst average-sized people?
Anyway, after a quick turn at the lagoon, we grabbed a bucket of pop corn and another Sprite and sat down on a bench adjacent to the water. In no time, Jafarr pops out again! We've seen him at parades and other parks and now we saw him again. I'd say out of all Disney characters we saw, we saw him 65% of the time. Weird!
Following our little break, we barely had enough time to get a seat for the Beauty and Beast show. We both really enjoyed the show. I had read that the costumes were starting to fade, but we couldn't tell from our positions way up the seating area.
As the day progressed I don't remember what we ate for lunch, but it sure wasn't hamburgers! I think all the popcorn we ate protected us from being hungry, so we may have skipped it.
I do remember galavanting around the Star Tours section again, looking for souvenirs. About 2 years ago I was obsessed with Star Wars collecting anything related to it in full force. When it got too expensive I slowly quit. I admit I started to feel the Star Wars buzz at MGM. I bought a couple of the limited-edition pins, but refrained from much else, other than a couple T-shirts for my wife and I. I noticed Carrie Fisher should have been signing autographs for another 15 minutes, but she was totally gone when we moved into that area. Why couldn't she stay the whole time they had alloted for her and have her sign autographs until the time expired? Anyway I had a bunch of fun in this area getting my picture with a Tusken Raider and later a Rodean and a couple droids.
It was time to say goodbye to MGM. We had seen what we wanted to see and that wrapped it up. It was back to Magic Kingdom for us!
We made it over to the Magic Kingdom early enough to find an empty bench in front of the train station to watch the Magical Moments Parade in the shade. That didn't last.. a CM stopped at our bench to ask us lots of questions about the parks. This was one long survey (about 15 minutes), but during so, an Indian family slowly invaded our space. Read about thatHERE .
Regardless, we still enjoyed the parade.
We spent the rest of the day going over some of our favorite attractions again like Pirates of the Carribean and the Haunted Mansion. We also found Dole Whip in Adventureland. Hot dang.. it does exist!! I had read all the excitement and hoolpa here, so we first bought a couple plain Dole whips with vanilla swirl. Why didn't someone just say it is soft serve pinapple icecream? Regardless I finished off my wife's because she couldn't eat it all. I didn't think I had enough, so I bought the version that comes with pinapple juice below the icecream. Yummy, yummy!
I'll have to find a local substitute now. After a few attractions and gorging myself with Dolewhip I just wanted to roll, but instead we left the park and headed to Olive Garden for a quick dinner. Eggplant parm for me and spaghetti for my wife! Amaisingly I didn't feel too bad after dinner.
We drove over to the Wyndham Palace and Spa for our final night check-in. We had never been a 4-star hotel before. This was weird. The hotel was designed for bellhops to take your luggage, but I insisted on carrying our own stuff up and got the royal bellhop stare-down entering the hotel. I carried the luggage in from the parking lot(really light since we'd only be there one night). Those bellhop eyes were like knives aimed to stab at me. Check-in with the Priceline was easy enough, except they stuck me with an $8.50 charge. That was rude! They said they charge all the guests that fee. Uh huh! This hotel was much classier than what we are used to. The staff definitely had some attitude that we didn't feel comfortable with. We felt like peons having the privaledge to stay in the lord's castle for an evening. Talk about the caste system! I may have gotten a bargain at priceline, but I would have preferred a less classy hotel because the people are more on my level. 4-star or not, we are not snobs. We were on our last pocket money and didn't really need the bellhop assistance anyway. I did really have to save every bit of money we had left and a bell hop was totally unnecessary for what we needed in our room (bare essentials). To top it off, the hotel knew nothing about the Wyndham by Request we had put in a couple weeks ago. They did try to make accomidations by giving us a high floor facing kinda to Disney. Later we found pretzels and a bottle of imported water. Is this the standard welcome package for Wyndham-by-Request. We had a nice sleep here, but lesson learned we don't like the snobbish atmosphere of 4-star hotels... ok back to Disney..
We soon left the hotel..
My wife and I decided that we wanted to see Fantasmic at MGM again, so that's exactly what we did. We almost didn't make it back in time to get a seat it was so crowded this time. We got a seat on the very end, all the way on the left side. We had a mom and daughter next to us that had just arrived to Disney after a long flight from California (I think). Her travel agent had screwed up her reservations and transport and she would have had to pay like $70 everytime she stepped in a taxi to get from her hotel to the parks. That was crazy! She did get it sorted out and was really happy to be starting their adventure at the parks. Sadly it was our last night there, but we knew exactly how excited she and her daughter must have felt. We had a great Fantasmic show too.
The night was complete, so we headed for our car after a fairly long souvenir stop. We bought more souvenirs than you'd think. The back seat in my wife's car was non-existant.. Totally covered by layers and layers of bags of souvenirs. I should have taken a picture. It looked crazy! We looked even crazier for buying all the stuff we did.
Next day: Monday May 14th..
After a cozy sleep at Wyndham (with no blinds or shades on the glass doors to the patio), we spent the entire day driving back to Lexington. It took us probably 14 hours straight on the way back because of bad traffic in Atlanta. We also stopped to buy Florida oranges and Georgia peaches.
So we're left with a wonderful Disney taste in our mouths after our honeymoon at Disney. So when can we go back?
