The Cast: Me, 26 year old Disney fanatic from New Jersey
Kristen, my long time girlfriend who I gave the Disney bug years ago
Special Appearance: My parents who relocated to Florida 4 years ago (Lucky!)
Let me preface this trip report by saying this was not just an ordinary weekend at Disney. It was an extremely well planned adventure where I would propose to Kristen. I did this with the help of Jane at Gifts of a Lifetime. If you ever have a special event planned at Disney, please give them a call because they are well worth the price and extremely imaginative and helpful.
Day 2 (The big day)
Morning came and I was super anxious to get going. I barely slept, partly because I was excited and nervous all at the same time. To Kristens surprise my mom decided to stay home because she did not feel well, this of course was planned. OK, I had to get all our luggage in the car without Kristen knowing it because in reality we were not coming back to the parents pad that night. Thinking on my feet, I waited until Kristen was all ready to go and then I innocently asked her to take the dog outside. Fortunately this gave me enough time to scramble all our stuff together and throw it in the trunk. She was in the back for a while with the dog so I was home scott free. Hurdle number two was passed successfully. We jump in the car and take the trek to Disney. It is about 50 minutes away, but the time went by quickly because we talked about all the fun stuff we had planned. All this time I had the ring tucked away in my fanny pack along with our very cool new video camera. That fact was very nerve racking; I was constantly checking it. The first stop was Animal Kingdom. We were dying to check out the new whirling roller coaster. They opened the gates to the park a little early, but stopped us in front of the tree of life. Instead of just waiting there impatiently like most of the people we went shopping. If you love Disney as much as we do, you want everything. Kristen tried out our new video camera filming me trying on silly hats. We used to do this by taking stills, but moving pictures are a whole lot more expressive. After some browsing and dreaming of a complete Disney wardrobe, the ropes dropped and we were off to Dino land. Usually everyone makes a beeline to the safari ride so Dino land was relatively empty. The new carnival atmosphere is cute and I guess helps sell Animal Kingdom to the younger crowd, but I would have liked to see more interactive stuff with accurate looking dinosaurs instead of a cartoon world. Oh well, the ride was a blast and they let us stay on again for a second ride. I actually filmed the first ride and it came out pretty well despite all the spinning. Next stop was Dinosaur! We love this ride and once again there was no wait and we walked into the pre-show area. Kristen forgot how dark and scary this ride was. I tried to videotape it and it turned out too dark. Next time I will just enjoy the ride. It is still one of my favorites at Disney. We accomplished everything we wanted to do at Animal Kingdom and we were only there for an hour.
We made a mad dash for the car and headed to MGM. This park houses Kristens favorite ride, the Tower of Terror. I used to dread going on this ride because I am not a big fan of free fall rides, but have since overcome my fears. We had priority seating at Prime Time at 12:00 so we had to plan our adventure accordingly. The wait for Tower of Terror was over an hour so we got the FAST PASS (The greatest thing Disney ever thought of) and headed to some shops and the other side of the park. The wait for Star Tours was only 5 minutes and since I am also a Star Wars nut, we just had to ride it. The ride is still fun, but needs to be updated big time. I would love to see some footage from the new movies, plus the film used on the ride has gotten really grainy over time. Please Disney, update this attraction! Ah, the Star Wars gift shop. Good thing for my wallet, it was packed or I would have spent a fortune there. It was about our Fast Pass time so we headed back to TOT and walked by all the poor people waiting in the regular line. We did have to wait about 10 minutes, but it was a whole lot better than the 75 the stand-by people had to wait. I was a little nervous on the ride again because it has been a couple of months and Kristen tortured me on a free fall ride at Dorney Park about a month previous. I did fine and lifted my hands above my head with the rest of the crazies on the ride. Now this gift shop is Kristens favorite stop and she just had to purchase one the beach towels with the ride on it. It is a very cool towel, check them out if you have a need for them. Before heading over to Prime Time to get lectured about eating veggies, we got Fast Passes for Rock and Roll Rollercoaster at 1:30. I was a little nervous about this because we had to be at Epcot at 2:30 for the beginning of the Engagement event, which Kristen did not know about. OK, lunch time. We walked right into Prime Time a little early and laughed at their usual antics. They usually make fun of my earring, but this time they picked on my tattoo. No big deal, I love to play along. Our mom was good, but not great. We were a little disappointed she did not mess around with us a little more. I had the meat loaf and Kristen had the turkey sandwich. Both were excellent. We were determined to not stuff ourselves so we had room for Smores! Well, I ate mine and half of Kristens sandwich. We split an order and they were good, but the chocolate was not melted enough so it was a little hard. Kristen enjoyed them more than I did, I think next time I will get an appetizer and skip the dessert. I was never a big sweet eater. We decided to walk around a little bit before heading over to something that was going to blast our lunch from 0-60 in less than 3 seconds. I wanted to get some video footage of the gang from Toy Story so we walked over to Pizza Planet and I got some good shots of the crew. I wish they had an attraction for Toy Story, we both love those movies! If you are over there, walk to New York street or whatever it is called and check out Stitch climbing the big building in what seems like the distance. We were disappointed to learn that the armored car that you used to be able to pick up is no longer working. I almost threw my back out trying, it was pretty funny. I am glad we did not get that on camera. It was about time to head over to my favorite ride for our Fast Pass appointment. Once again, I love this system. We just walked right into the pre-show, zero waiting! The ride was as fast and as smooth as ever. We sat near the back and got a little air on a bump or two. The gift shop has the same old stuff; it is definitely time they got some new merchandise there. Ok it was around 1:45 now so we headed out to Epcot. Kristen thought the reason I wanted to get there in a such a hurry was to make reservations to see Shockwave, little did she know the big plan I had in store for her.
In the car, out of the car and walk/jog to Epcot because we hate waiting for the trams. First stop was Spaceship Earth since we had some time. This ride is special for both of us, we have so many great memories of Disney visits and this attraction just sort of culminates them all. I cant really explain it, but it is just magic to us. After the ride, we want to check Test Track for fast passes. It was only around 2:10 and they were gone for the day. Disney definitely needs to do something about this attraction; there is always a huge wait. It is out of control! Well, we slowly walked over to the Pass Holders lounge, which I knew to be the beginning of our little adventure. After only sitting for maybe a minute, a cast member approached us with a bag and a Polaroid camera and asked us if we could help him out. He then went on to describe a program they are trying out in the park for couples where they would go on sort of a scavenger hunt in order to win a prize. The prizes he mentioned were dinner for two, gift certificates and a grand prize of a trip. We would have to complete all the tasks in 90 minutes if we were to win a prize. I played it off not showing much interest, but let Kristen decide if she wanted to do it. Thank god she said yes. They gave us the camera and a globe-sized ball made out of tissue paper. The instructions were to unwrap layers of the ball and do what it said on cards inside. The first card instructed us to go to England and buy a flag with the enclosed Disney dollars. Of course we walked right past the little cart that sells the flags and panicked going through all the main stores in England until I remembered seeing them outside. OK, flag bought onto the next task. It was fun unwrapping the globe because we got some pretty funny stares from passing people. Next task was to buy candy made from maple syrup in Canada. We high tailed it over to Canada and waited in a frustratingly long line and bought the candy. By this time I was a little worried about the time, it was taking longer than I originally thought for the tasks and it was brutally hot. Oh well, must press on! Next on the list was to head over to Norway to get a picture in front of the giant troll. This was fun to do because we have pictures of each of us in front of the troll from past trips, but not us together. Next stop was Germany; we had to buy candy for $3.50. This was easy, we got the little soda gummy bottles. Another layer unwrapped and we hurried over to Mexico to get a picture taken with 2 sombreros (Spelling??) That was another good shot. Next task was to head over to China to buy a fan. This one was pretty comical because it did not say China on the card and it only had a picture of the country. Well China was in the picture but so were a lot of other countries. We actually asked one of the cast members from China if that was her country. OK, we got the fan. Next layer instructed us to go to Italy and have someone take a picture of us kissing. This was also fun; the cast members really had a good laugh on our account. Another layer, another task, this time was to go to the US pavilion and buy a Mickey flag pin. This was an easy one. The ball was now quite small so I knew we were getting close to the end. We were then off to Japan to buy a figurine of the lucky cat. We got a cute white one. Finally, we got to the end of the ball and it said to go to France and look for someone with a Chinese umbrella. I made some excuse to use the rest rooms even though we were both dying to find out what we won I took the ring out of the fanny pack and placed it in my pocket for easy access. We made it to France all sweaty and tired with 15 minutes to spare. We spotted the woman and she instructed us to go sit by the fountain and what for the cast member to arrive to check our loot. He came out in a second or two and methodically went over our stuff and offered us 3 envelopes with prizes in them. Kristen wanted me to pick which was pretty funny, but I used an excuse of never having good luck and she picked and read, Now that we traveled the world together, the next time we do it lets go as husband and wife I then got on one knee and proposed. She was in shock. She must have said yes six times. There were tears and everything. The best thing about it was the woman with the Chinese umbrella was shooting pictures the whole time. She took a whole role of film that came out great! We were both so happy and I want to thank Jane at Gifts of a Lifetime again for making it such a magical moment. Kristen had no idea the whole time; it was a great big surprise for her. Now my final surprise was to tell Kristen that we were not going back to my parents, but spending the night at the Animal Kingdom lodge. She was thrilled which in turn made me happy that all my planning paid off. Well the big surprise was over, but the day wasnt. After much hugging and kissing, we walked back to Future world to check out the redone Imagination ride. Well, it is better, but not as good as the original. You can see parts of both the first and second attraction thrown in there for good measure and I am sure to save on the budget. We walked through the imagination station afterwards and decided we wanted one of those cool glass cubes with our pictures on them to commemorate the day. The cast member that helped us was awesome. We hung out and talked to him for around a half an hour about the whole little scavenger hunt and how his girlfriend wants a ring like Kristens. The bad news is we did not get to the take the cube home, it will be shipped to us. It was around dinnertime and we had priority seating at Italy. We havent been there in 3 years and despite some bad reviews on the net, we were determined to give it another chance. I hate to say that most of the reviews are right, the food is OK at best and the seating is very cramped. The Alfredo sauce is very good, but you definitely dont want to have a whole meal of it. We will probably continue to skip this one on future visits. You cant blame us for trying. After dinner, we saw Shockwave. The show was very well done and Kristen really enjoyed it, but it gave me a headache. Instead of staying for the fireworks we wanted to check out the lodge so we left Epcot around 8:30. The lodge is breath taking and huge! We pulled up and got valet parking and headed to the counter for check-in. I was a little disappointed that they did not even congratulate us or keep a king size room aside for us because I had called twice for the request and to make a note that we got engaged. Oh well, not going to ruin a trip. We had room 3264 that is on one of the off shoots of the horseshoe. I also dont recommend this room; the view is not great and limited. A rule of thumb is if you want a good room, try to check in early. We were going to take a dip in the pool, but it was a zoo so we got a snack from the counter service restaurant and called it a night.
Kristen, my long time girlfriend who I gave the Disney bug years ago
Special Appearance: My parents who relocated to Florida 4 years ago (Lucky!)
Let me preface this trip report by saying this was not just an ordinary weekend at Disney. It was an extremely well planned adventure where I would propose to Kristen. I did this with the help of Jane at Gifts of a Lifetime. If you ever have a special event planned at Disney, please give them a call because they are well worth the price and extremely imaginative and helpful.
Day 2 (The big day)
Morning came and I was super anxious to get going. I barely slept, partly because I was excited and nervous all at the same time. To Kristens surprise my mom decided to stay home because she did not feel well, this of course was planned. OK, I had to get all our luggage in the car without Kristen knowing it because in reality we were not coming back to the parents pad that night. Thinking on my feet, I waited until Kristen was all ready to go and then I innocently asked her to take the dog outside. Fortunately this gave me enough time to scramble all our stuff together and throw it in the trunk. She was in the back for a while with the dog so I was home scott free. Hurdle number two was passed successfully. We jump in the car and take the trek to Disney. It is about 50 minutes away, but the time went by quickly because we talked about all the fun stuff we had planned. All this time I had the ring tucked away in my fanny pack along with our very cool new video camera. That fact was very nerve racking; I was constantly checking it. The first stop was Animal Kingdom. We were dying to check out the new whirling roller coaster. They opened the gates to the park a little early, but stopped us in front of the tree of life. Instead of just waiting there impatiently like most of the people we went shopping. If you love Disney as much as we do, you want everything. Kristen tried out our new video camera filming me trying on silly hats. We used to do this by taking stills, but moving pictures are a whole lot more expressive. After some browsing and dreaming of a complete Disney wardrobe, the ropes dropped and we were off to Dino land. Usually everyone makes a beeline to the safari ride so Dino land was relatively empty. The new carnival atmosphere is cute and I guess helps sell Animal Kingdom to the younger crowd, but I would have liked to see more interactive stuff with accurate looking dinosaurs instead of a cartoon world. Oh well, the ride was a blast and they let us stay on again for a second ride. I actually filmed the first ride and it came out pretty well despite all the spinning. Next stop was Dinosaur! We love this ride and once again there was no wait and we walked into the pre-show area. Kristen forgot how dark and scary this ride was. I tried to videotape it and it turned out too dark. Next time I will just enjoy the ride. It is still one of my favorites at Disney. We accomplished everything we wanted to do at Animal Kingdom and we were only there for an hour.
We made a mad dash for the car and headed to MGM. This park houses Kristens favorite ride, the Tower of Terror. I used to dread going on this ride because I am not a big fan of free fall rides, but have since overcome my fears. We had priority seating at Prime Time at 12:00 so we had to plan our adventure accordingly. The wait for Tower of Terror was over an hour so we got the FAST PASS (The greatest thing Disney ever thought of) and headed to some shops and the other side of the park. The wait for Star Tours was only 5 minutes and since I am also a Star Wars nut, we just had to ride it. The ride is still fun, but needs to be updated big time. I would love to see some footage from the new movies, plus the film used on the ride has gotten really grainy over time. Please Disney, update this attraction! Ah, the Star Wars gift shop. Good thing for my wallet, it was packed or I would have spent a fortune there. It was about our Fast Pass time so we headed back to TOT and walked by all the poor people waiting in the regular line. We did have to wait about 10 minutes, but it was a whole lot better than the 75 the stand-by people had to wait. I was a little nervous on the ride again because it has been a couple of months and Kristen tortured me on a free fall ride at Dorney Park about a month previous. I did fine and lifted my hands above my head with the rest of the crazies on the ride. Now this gift shop is Kristens favorite stop and she just had to purchase one the beach towels with the ride on it. It is a very cool towel, check them out if you have a need for them. Before heading over to Prime Time to get lectured about eating veggies, we got Fast Passes for Rock and Roll Rollercoaster at 1:30. I was a little nervous about this because we had to be at Epcot at 2:30 for the beginning of the Engagement event, which Kristen did not know about. OK, lunch time. We walked right into Prime Time a little early and laughed at their usual antics. They usually make fun of my earring, but this time they picked on my tattoo. No big deal, I love to play along. Our mom was good, but not great. We were a little disappointed she did not mess around with us a little more. I had the meat loaf and Kristen had the turkey sandwich. Both were excellent. We were determined to not stuff ourselves so we had room for Smores! Well, I ate mine and half of Kristens sandwich. We split an order and they were good, but the chocolate was not melted enough so it was a little hard. Kristen enjoyed them more than I did, I think next time I will get an appetizer and skip the dessert. I was never a big sweet eater. We decided to walk around a little bit before heading over to something that was going to blast our lunch from 0-60 in less than 3 seconds. I wanted to get some video footage of the gang from Toy Story so we walked over to Pizza Planet and I got some good shots of the crew. I wish they had an attraction for Toy Story, we both love those movies! If you are over there, walk to New York street or whatever it is called and check out Stitch climbing the big building in what seems like the distance. We were disappointed to learn that the armored car that you used to be able to pick up is no longer working. I almost threw my back out trying, it was pretty funny. I am glad we did not get that on camera. It was about time to head over to my favorite ride for our Fast Pass appointment. Once again, I love this system. We just walked right into the pre-show, zero waiting! The ride was as fast and as smooth as ever. We sat near the back and got a little air on a bump or two. The gift shop has the same old stuff; it is definitely time they got some new merchandise there. Ok it was around 1:45 now so we headed out to Epcot. Kristen thought the reason I wanted to get there in a such a hurry was to make reservations to see Shockwave, little did she know the big plan I had in store for her.
In the car, out of the car and walk/jog to Epcot because we hate waiting for the trams. First stop was Spaceship Earth since we had some time. This ride is special for both of us, we have so many great memories of Disney visits and this attraction just sort of culminates them all. I cant really explain it, but it is just magic to us. After the ride, we want to check Test Track for fast passes. It was only around 2:10 and they were gone for the day. Disney definitely needs to do something about this attraction; there is always a huge wait. It is out of control! Well, we slowly walked over to the Pass Holders lounge, which I knew to be the beginning of our little adventure. After only sitting for maybe a minute, a cast member approached us with a bag and a Polaroid camera and asked us if we could help him out. He then went on to describe a program they are trying out in the park for couples where they would go on sort of a scavenger hunt in order to win a prize. The prizes he mentioned were dinner for two, gift certificates and a grand prize of a trip. We would have to complete all the tasks in 90 minutes if we were to win a prize. I played it off not showing much interest, but let Kristen decide if she wanted to do it. Thank god she said yes. They gave us the camera and a globe-sized ball made out of tissue paper. The instructions were to unwrap layers of the ball and do what it said on cards inside. The first card instructed us to go to England and buy a flag with the enclosed Disney dollars. Of course we walked right past the little cart that sells the flags and panicked going through all the main stores in England until I remembered seeing them outside. OK, flag bought onto the next task. It was fun unwrapping the globe because we got some pretty funny stares from passing people. Next task was to buy candy made from maple syrup in Canada. We high tailed it over to Canada and waited in a frustratingly long line and bought the candy. By this time I was a little worried about the time, it was taking longer than I originally thought for the tasks and it was brutally hot. Oh well, must press on! Next on the list was to head over to Norway to get a picture in front of the giant troll. This was fun to do because we have pictures of each of us in front of the troll from past trips, but not us together. Next stop was Germany; we had to buy candy for $3.50. This was easy, we got the little soda gummy bottles. Another layer unwrapped and we hurried over to Mexico to get a picture taken with 2 sombreros (Spelling??) That was another good shot. Next task was to head over to China to buy a fan. This one was pretty comical because it did not say China on the card and it only had a picture of the country. Well China was in the picture but so were a lot of other countries. We actually asked one of the cast members from China if that was her country. OK, we got the fan. Next layer instructed us to go to Italy and have someone take a picture of us kissing. This was also fun; the cast members really had a good laugh on our account. Another layer, another task, this time was to go to the US pavilion and buy a Mickey flag pin. This was an easy one. The ball was now quite small so I knew we were getting close to the end. We were then off to Japan to buy a figurine of the lucky cat. We got a cute white one. Finally, we got to the end of the ball and it said to go to France and look for someone with a Chinese umbrella. I made some excuse to use the rest rooms even though we were both dying to find out what we won I took the ring out of the fanny pack and placed it in my pocket for easy access. We made it to France all sweaty and tired with 15 minutes to spare. We spotted the woman and she instructed us to go sit by the fountain and what for the cast member to arrive to check our loot. He came out in a second or two and methodically went over our stuff and offered us 3 envelopes with prizes in them. Kristen wanted me to pick which was pretty funny, but I used an excuse of never having good luck and she picked and read, Now that we traveled the world together, the next time we do it lets go as husband and wife I then got on one knee and proposed. She was in shock. She must have said yes six times. There were tears and everything. The best thing about it was the woman with the Chinese umbrella was shooting pictures the whole time. She took a whole role of film that came out great! We were both so happy and I want to thank Jane at Gifts of a Lifetime again for making it such a magical moment. Kristen had no idea the whole time; it was a great big surprise for her. Now my final surprise was to tell Kristen that we were not going back to my parents, but spending the night at the Animal Kingdom lodge. She was thrilled which in turn made me happy that all my planning paid off. Well the big surprise was over, but the day wasnt. After much hugging and kissing, we walked back to Future world to check out the redone Imagination ride. Well, it is better, but not as good as the original. You can see parts of both the first and second attraction thrown in there for good measure and I am sure to save on the budget. We walked through the imagination station afterwards and decided we wanted one of those cool glass cubes with our pictures on them to commemorate the day. The cast member that helped us was awesome. We hung out and talked to him for around a half an hour about the whole little scavenger hunt and how his girlfriend wants a ring like Kristens. The bad news is we did not get to the take the cube home, it will be shipped to us. It was around dinnertime and we had priority seating at Italy. We havent been there in 3 years and despite some bad reviews on the net, we were determined to give it another chance. I hate to say that most of the reviews are right, the food is OK at best and the seating is very cramped. The Alfredo sauce is very good, but you definitely dont want to have a whole meal of it. We will probably continue to skip this one on future visits. You cant blame us for trying. After dinner, we saw Shockwave. The show was very well done and Kristen really enjoyed it, but it gave me a headache. Instead of staying for the fireworks we wanted to check out the lodge so we left Epcot around 8:30. The lodge is breath taking and huge! We pulled up and got valet parking and headed to the counter for check-in. I was a little disappointed that they did not even congratulate us or keep a king size room aside for us because I had called twice for the request and to make a note that we got engaged. Oh well, not going to ruin a trip. We had room 3264 that is on one of the off shoots of the horseshoe. I also dont recommend this room; the view is not great and limited. A rule of thumb is if you want a good room, try to check in early. We were going to take a dip in the pool, but it was a zoo so we got a snack from the counter service restaurant and called it a night.
Krissy
