lilladelilla
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jan 21, 2008
- Messages
- 19
Hi everyone. I didn't post much but got a lot of helpful information by reading your posts. So I wanted to share my lloonngg review in the hope that it would help others. Enjoy!
Day 1: We woke up at 3:30 in the morning. We were both extremely tired but we had an early flight to get the most of our time. We played with the kitty as she continued to get into our luggage, begging for a big mouse to catch. At 4 am we left for the airport, kitty pressed up against the window to the side of our front door, our hearts breaking a bit as we drove off.
Once at the airport Mike got breakfast, I got coffee. We had a bumpy but otherwise uneventful flight down. We landed in Orlando a little after 10 am. We were using the Magical Express and as corny as this sounds were so excited to watch the little video they had playing for us. More so because it was closed captioned for me to watch. We arrived at our resort, the Port Orleans French Quarter Resort. Online it appeared to be a lot larger than it was in person. Very beautiful on the inside though. We checked in and our room was ready. We went to our room, dropped off our stuff and headed off to the Magic Kingdom.
First stop at the Magic Kingdom was to get the hand held captioning device for me. The staff were very nice but unfortunately all the units werent full charged. We were only planning on being at the Magic Kingdom for a couple of hours so it wasnt much of a big deal. We got our Anniversary pins (and did not realize how large they were!) and headed off to explore some of the park.
Neither one of us had been to Disney since we were teens and we both remembered the layout completely different. For some reason we thought the castle was right at the beginning of Main Street USA, not behind. We set off towards Frontier land and went on a few rides, walked through the shops, and got our Disney legs wet.
At 4 pm we left Magic Kingdom and headed off to the Animal Kingdom. We were told the best route was to take the monorail to the transportation center and then a bus to Animal Kingdom. As a child I loved the monorail and was rather excited to hop on. In about a half hour we were walking into the Animal Kingdom for the first time.
We ate dinner at the Rainforest Café, something we have back at home but had never eaten at. We wont be going back any time soon. The atmosphere was nice, the food was ok, but there was nothing special and it felt like a waste of time. Once finished we entered the park. First we had to grab our extended magic hours wristband since the park was closing at 6 pm, but since we were a resort guest we had until 9 pm. We didnt realize this meant that half the park would be closed. This was our only time to visit Animal Kingdom and we werent prepared for a partially closed park. We walked around and ended up at Expedition Everest. Mike was going to go on it with me but took one look at the top of the ride and chickened out. Im a roller coaster fan, but his weak knees were making me nervous and it had been quite some time since I was on one. I handed him my belongings and headed off to the single passenger line. About 10 minutes later I was on the ride. If you like roller coasters this is a must see! I have never been on one with so many twists and turns and a story line. Once off the ride Mike teased me since the picture they took of the ride has me with a stone face. What can I say, Im not a screamer, Im a quiet enjoyer.
We caught a few more rides and Mike won a stuffed dragon at the arcade in Dino land. By 8:30 we were on our way out and back to our hotel. We unpacked and went to sleep.
Day 2: Bright and early our alarm went off. We both rolled over and went back to sleep. The downside to this trip is that we were both sleep deprived before we even arrived. A little while later we got up and got ready to go back to Magic Kingdom. We ate breakfast at our resort and then waited for the bus. Once at the park we picked up a full charged hand held captioning device and set out for our day. We backtracked our steps from the day before, catching anything we had previously missed or missed with captioning. At lunch we had reservations for Tonys Town Square. This was the best meal we had. The atmosphere was wonderful, the food was good, and the service was fast and good. We ended our day at the park in Tomorrow Land and remarked on how the older rides appeared to be rather old and dated, and had some error delays. We made it onto Space Mountain and I was worried it was too much for Mike but he did enjoy it, though was certainly not expecting what it was!
We finished early and didnt want to waste a night so we headed off to explore Downtown Disney. This involved waiting by the dock for a boat where I apparently fed a family of mosquitoes for a week. As I sit here writing I have 10 rather large bites begging to be itched on my legs and feet. Hopefully I wont hear any reports of West Nile virus being found in Florida.
We walked around Downtown Disney and shopped. The problem was two fold: I was exhausted and my feet were yelling at me at every step of the way. There is one Disney merchandise store in the downtown area that is huge; our heads were spinning just being in the store, it was much too large!
Day 3: Another early day being dragged out of bed to head over to Epcot. We arrived shortly after opening and the park was rather dead. We headed off towards Imagination both being big Figment fans. We literally walked right on the ride and traveled through. It was certainly nothing like the ride it used to be but it was still cute. Then we played with the imagination products after the ride, got a fun Disney picture taken, and I got my Figment stuffed animal.
From there we wandered around, trying to get Future World finished before dinner. The Land Pavilion was crowded! The rest of the area was somewhat quiet, the Land was mobbed. The line for Soarin was 70 minutes, we grabbed a fast pass and headed off to find lunch. Lunch is not easy to find in Future World when you are picky eaters. We ended up waiting in line for a good 20 minutes just for some fries and fruit. We finished our tour of Future World and missed two of the more popular attractions, but we were already planning our next trip by now so we were catching our must see sites. We did make it back to Soarin and were rather glad we got the fast pass. It was a just a quick wait for a fun ride.
We left Epcot and headed back to Downtown Disney to eat at Planet Hollywood. Unfortunately Mike wasnt impressed with the food but I thought it was fine. We walked through Paradise Island and back to the shops to get a few souvenirs we needed for the family back home. Then we took the ferry back to the resort where I got a few great sunset pictures (and possible more bites, its hard to say). We dropped off our gifts at the room and hopped back on the bus to Epcot.
Again, we were there for the extended Magic Hours. We arrived shortly after the fire works and felt like we were swimming upstream as we tried to head over amongst the crowd. A decent amount of the Worlds were closed, but we did get to shop around, go on a few rides, and have my feet completely collapse on me. We made it back to the resort close to midnight. The line for our bus was huge and I almost broke down and cried since I was so tired and just wanted to get some rest. They doubled up our buses and we got back in a good time.
Day 4: Last day. In the morning we threw all our belongings into a suitcase, checked out, and headed off to Hollywood Studios. We had planned out our trip the night before to make sure we caught everything we really wanted to do. We were there early and the place was pretty empty until about noon. We ate lunch at Pizza Planet and it was another good meal. In the end we finished the park early, missing a few attractions but getting the main ones in. Noteworthy is the new Toy Story ride. We found out later that this was the first day it was open to the public. This ride is a must see. Just waiting in line is enjoyable. The surroundings are all kid toys and there is a talking Mr. Potato Head interacting with the audience. He saw our Anniversary Buttons and asked us if we wanted to renew our vows. In talking he took his ear off and couldnt quite get it back. As the ear fell he looked around at his audience, raised his hands into the air, and froze. We were all laughing. A few minutes later a tech came out, put his ear back on and he picked up where he left off, which was renewing our vows. We were halfway down the line by now but after one year of marriage a potato head renewed our vows!
The ride is basically a 3D arcade game and a lot of fun. We got to go around twice since the captioning wasnt working the first time but they got it working for our second round. In case you are wondering Mike won the first time but I won the second round.
I also got Mike on the Tower of Terror. The poor man was shaking, since he doesnt like drops. But I knew he would enjoy the storyline before the actual drops. After we dropped (three times) he was laughing and shaking! Poor guy. He said he would go on it again, just not in this trip.
We set off to get our last minute souvenirs for ourselves and headed back to the resort. Then it was time to board the bus to go back home. We were sad to leave but happy to get home to our kitty. Hopefully well be able to come back next year to do a full week or longer.
Communication Access: Disney did really well with the communication access. The rear view captioning they have works very well, except for the one place (Philharmonica) where they thought we needed to sit at the back of the theater. It was too close to read the words. The rest had us in the front and it worked beautifully. The hand held captioning device was great. On some of the rides it receives the signal either too soon or too late, but would catch up with itself eventually. The only issue I had was that the Epcot website listed some rides as having communication access when it didnt. We only used the interpreters once, for the Monsters Inc attraction. The interpreters were wonderful, the staff a little confused as to what we were asking for, especially since I speak clear English.
French Quarter: the main areas were very beautiful. It wasnt until we drove around Riverside that we realized how small French Quarter was. The rooms werent exactly our style though so well be staying someplace else next time.
All in all you can do Disney in 4 days. You have to prioritize, have very good walking shoes, and either plenty of sleep or survive well on caffeine. Of course now the New England weather has greeted me again and caused my throat to instantly act up, I have a flat tire to take care of, and a very needy kitty in my lap. Ahh, its good to be home. When can I go back?
Day 1: We woke up at 3:30 in the morning. We were both extremely tired but we had an early flight to get the most of our time. We played with the kitty as she continued to get into our luggage, begging for a big mouse to catch. At 4 am we left for the airport, kitty pressed up against the window to the side of our front door, our hearts breaking a bit as we drove off.
Once at the airport Mike got breakfast, I got coffee. We had a bumpy but otherwise uneventful flight down. We landed in Orlando a little after 10 am. We were using the Magical Express and as corny as this sounds were so excited to watch the little video they had playing for us. More so because it was closed captioned for me to watch. We arrived at our resort, the Port Orleans French Quarter Resort. Online it appeared to be a lot larger than it was in person. Very beautiful on the inside though. We checked in and our room was ready. We went to our room, dropped off our stuff and headed off to the Magic Kingdom.
First stop at the Magic Kingdom was to get the hand held captioning device for me. The staff were very nice but unfortunately all the units werent full charged. We were only planning on being at the Magic Kingdom for a couple of hours so it wasnt much of a big deal. We got our Anniversary pins (and did not realize how large they were!) and headed off to explore some of the park.
Neither one of us had been to Disney since we were teens and we both remembered the layout completely different. For some reason we thought the castle was right at the beginning of Main Street USA, not behind. We set off towards Frontier land and went on a few rides, walked through the shops, and got our Disney legs wet.
At 4 pm we left Magic Kingdom and headed off to the Animal Kingdom. We were told the best route was to take the monorail to the transportation center and then a bus to Animal Kingdom. As a child I loved the monorail and was rather excited to hop on. In about a half hour we were walking into the Animal Kingdom for the first time.
We ate dinner at the Rainforest Café, something we have back at home but had never eaten at. We wont be going back any time soon. The atmosphere was nice, the food was ok, but there was nothing special and it felt like a waste of time. Once finished we entered the park. First we had to grab our extended magic hours wristband since the park was closing at 6 pm, but since we were a resort guest we had until 9 pm. We didnt realize this meant that half the park would be closed. This was our only time to visit Animal Kingdom and we werent prepared for a partially closed park. We walked around and ended up at Expedition Everest. Mike was going to go on it with me but took one look at the top of the ride and chickened out. Im a roller coaster fan, but his weak knees were making me nervous and it had been quite some time since I was on one. I handed him my belongings and headed off to the single passenger line. About 10 minutes later I was on the ride. If you like roller coasters this is a must see! I have never been on one with so many twists and turns and a story line. Once off the ride Mike teased me since the picture they took of the ride has me with a stone face. What can I say, Im not a screamer, Im a quiet enjoyer.
We caught a few more rides and Mike won a stuffed dragon at the arcade in Dino land. By 8:30 we were on our way out and back to our hotel. We unpacked and went to sleep.
Day 2: Bright and early our alarm went off. We both rolled over and went back to sleep. The downside to this trip is that we were both sleep deprived before we even arrived. A little while later we got up and got ready to go back to Magic Kingdom. We ate breakfast at our resort and then waited for the bus. Once at the park we picked up a full charged hand held captioning device and set out for our day. We backtracked our steps from the day before, catching anything we had previously missed or missed with captioning. At lunch we had reservations for Tonys Town Square. This was the best meal we had. The atmosphere was wonderful, the food was good, and the service was fast and good. We ended our day at the park in Tomorrow Land and remarked on how the older rides appeared to be rather old and dated, and had some error delays. We made it onto Space Mountain and I was worried it was too much for Mike but he did enjoy it, though was certainly not expecting what it was!
We finished early and didnt want to waste a night so we headed off to explore Downtown Disney. This involved waiting by the dock for a boat where I apparently fed a family of mosquitoes for a week. As I sit here writing I have 10 rather large bites begging to be itched on my legs and feet. Hopefully I wont hear any reports of West Nile virus being found in Florida.
We walked around Downtown Disney and shopped. The problem was two fold: I was exhausted and my feet were yelling at me at every step of the way. There is one Disney merchandise store in the downtown area that is huge; our heads were spinning just being in the store, it was much too large!
Day 3: Another early day being dragged out of bed to head over to Epcot. We arrived shortly after opening and the park was rather dead. We headed off towards Imagination both being big Figment fans. We literally walked right on the ride and traveled through. It was certainly nothing like the ride it used to be but it was still cute. Then we played with the imagination products after the ride, got a fun Disney picture taken, and I got my Figment stuffed animal.
From there we wandered around, trying to get Future World finished before dinner. The Land Pavilion was crowded! The rest of the area was somewhat quiet, the Land was mobbed. The line for Soarin was 70 minutes, we grabbed a fast pass and headed off to find lunch. Lunch is not easy to find in Future World when you are picky eaters. We ended up waiting in line for a good 20 minutes just for some fries and fruit. We finished our tour of Future World and missed two of the more popular attractions, but we were already planning our next trip by now so we were catching our must see sites. We did make it back to Soarin and were rather glad we got the fast pass. It was a just a quick wait for a fun ride.
We left Epcot and headed back to Downtown Disney to eat at Planet Hollywood. Unfortunately Mike wasnt impressed with the food but I thought it was fine. We walked through Paradise Island and back to the shops to get a few souvenirs we needed for the family back home. Then we took the ferry back to the resort where I got a few great sunset pictures (and possible more bites, its hard to say). We dropped off our gifts at the room and hopped back on the bus to Epcot.
Again, we were there for the extended Magic Hours. We arrived shortly after the fire works and felt like we were swimming upstream as we tried to head over amongst the crowd. A decent amount of the Worlds were closed, but we did get to shop around, go on a few rides, and have my feet completely collapse on me. We made it back to the resort close to midnight. The line for our bus was huge and I almost broke down and cried since I was so tired and just wanted to get some rest. They doubled up our buses and we got back in a good time.
Day 4: Last day. In the morning we threw all our belongings into a suitcase, checked out, and headed off to Hollywood Studios. We had planned out our trip the night before to make sure we caught everything we really wanted to do. We were there early and the place was pretty empty until about noon. We ate lunch at Pizza Planet and it was another good meal. In the end we finished the park early, missing a few attractions but getting the main ones in. Noteworthy is the new Toy Story ride. We found out later that this was the first day it was open to the public. This ride is a must see. Just waiting in line is enjoyable. The surroundings are all kid toys and there is a talking Mr. Potato Head interacting with the audience. He saw our Anniversary Buttons and asked us if we wanted to renew our vows. In talking he took his ear off and couldnt quite get it back. As the ear fell he looked around at his audience, raised his hands into the air, and froze. We were all laughing. A few minutes later a tech came out, put his ear back on and he picked up where he left off, which was renewing our vows. We were halfway down the line by now but after one year of marriage a potato head renewed our vows!
The ride is basically a 3D arcade game and a lot of fun. We got to go around twice since the captioning wasnt working the first time but they got it working for our second round. In case you are wondering Mike won the first time but I won the second round.
I also got Mike on the Tower of Terror. The poor man was shaking, since he doesnt like drops. But I knew he would enjoy the storyline before the actual drops. After we dropped (three times) he was laughing and shaking! Poor guy. He said he would go on it again, just not in this trip.
We set off to get our last minute souvenirs for ourselves and headed back to the resort. Then it was time to board the bus to go back home. We were sad to leave but happy to get home to our kitty. Hopefully well be able to come back next year to do a full week or longer.
Communication Access: Disney did really well with the communication access. The rear view captioning they have works very well, except for the one place (Philharmonica) where they thought we needed to sit at the back of the theater. It was too close to read the words. The rest had us in the front and it worked beautifully. The hand held captioning device was great. On some of the rides it receives the signal either too soon or too late, but would catch up with itself eventually. The only issue I had was that the Epcot website listed some rides as having communication access when it didnt. We only used the interpreters once, for the Monsters Inc attraction. The interpreters were wonderful, the staff a little confused as to what we were asking for, especially since I speak clear English.
French Quarter: the main areas were very beautiful. It wasnt until we drove around Riverside that we realized how small French Quarter was. The rooms werent exactly our style though so well be staying someplace else next time.
All in all you can do Disney in 4 days. You have to prioritize, have very good walking shoes, and either plenty of sleep or survive well on caffeine. Of course now the New England weather has greeted me again and caused my throat to instantly act up, I have a flat tire to take care of, and a very needy kitty in my lap. Ahh, its good to be home. When can I go back?
