Cast: Husband (Timon), age 44; wife (writer of this report), age 42; daughter, age 14; daughter's friend, age 14. This was DD's friend's first trip, so that was fun showing her around. Our other daughter, age 19, is in college now, so she couldn't join us for this trip.
This was our 4th trip to Disney, but my first trip report, so will try to summarize our highlights the best I can!
We stayed at All Star Movies (our second time there) and were happy with it again. Everything clean. Got first floor corner 101 Dalmations room, just yards from Mighty Ducks pool, which was very convenient. Didn't take long at all to walk to food court. Food was okay at food court, nothing special. This was our first trip buying the mugs, though -wished we had done it before. Very nice to be able to get drinks whenever you want. We enjoyed hot chocolate before bed every night. DD's friend got to be a lemonade junkie!
Bought 5-day hopper pass because we planned to take two days to go to Sea World and Universal Studios.
Day 1: Got picked up at airport by Tiffany Town Car. Our driver was "Junior". We enjoyed him very much. (He also took us to Sea World and Universal Studios so got to know him quite well. Felt like we had our own personal chauffeur!) Got settled in room; ate at Food Court; and went shopping at Downtown Disney. Used American Express White Glove Treatment plan and received 15% discount at World of Disney, which was very nice! Weather was rainy, but the forecast was sun for our first full day.
Day 2: (Sunday) Beautiful day! Started at Animal Kingdom. Did Safari, Tough to Be a Bug; Lion King show; walked both exploration trails and especially enjoyed the tigers and gorillas. Had lunch reservations at RainForest Cafe. Food was great and we were stuffed leaving there! Did Kali River Rapids and enjoyed the parade. Then headed over to Epcot for the evening. Fast passes were out for Test Track, so enjoyed a few other park highlights, watched the parade, and Illuminations. Great first day!
Day 3: (Monday) Our first day at Magic Kingdom, our favorite park. All rides a 5 to 10 minute wait in morning; about 30 minutes by afternoon. Splash Mountain is our all time favorite attraction. Watched afternoon parade. Later headed over to Hoop-De-Doo dinner. We enjoyed that very much. Food was great. Got seats in center, very near front of stage. Our family was introduced as from Wisconsin. DH got picked on later by red-headed cast member teasing him and sitting on his lap. I enjoyed looking around that evening and noticing how even the small kids were enjoying the show and were laughing at the jokes. This was our second time at Hoop-De-Doo. The last time it was quite a feat getting back to our hotel. This year we were extremely happy to see an All Stars bus waiting for us after the show!
Day 4: (Tuesday) Junior picked us up to go to Sea World today. Enjoyed the new water ride and DH and kids went on the roller coaster. I was too chicken! The shows were very good. When we got back to the hotel the girls and I headed over to the pool for a nice swim.
Ate dinner at the All Stars food court. The girls had their caricatures drawn at the food court They really liked how they turned out. After that we crashed in our room for the evening. The girls logged the days' events in their journals every night, which I think is a great idea for remembering their trip in the years ahead.
Day 5: (Wednesday) We were warned the weather was going to dip today, and it sure did! from 70's the day before to 43 degrees in the a.m. We headed out to MGM with our jeans, sweatshirts and jackets on. It was a gorgeous sunny day, though, and the cold did not bother us, being from northern Wisconsin, that's a heat wave in the winter! It warmed up to the 60's by afternoon. Enjoyed TOT, RNR, Hunchback, Muppets 3d, Beauty and the Beast, Walt's Dream; and Millionaire (was a little disappointed in that one). Missed the parade unfortunately, because our fast pass for Millionaire fell during that time period and we had dinner reservations for 4:30 at Prime Time 50's Cafe. Enjoyed our dinner very much, was served by Uncle Tim; DH got pot roast; girls got chicken, and I had the steak dinner (excellent!). The chocolate malts are about the best you can get anywhere, in our opinion!
Later went to Fantasmic show; I was leery it was going to be cold sitting in the evening air, but it was surprisingly comfortable. For one thing, we couldn't feel any winds in the auditorium. The show was even better than I remembered, very impressive.
Day 6: (Thursday) Junior picked us up again! He was always there exactly on time and mostly a few minutes early. He entertained us again telling stories of his experiences and telling us things about the area we didn't know about. It was a little bit warmer today. Enjoyed our day at Universal Studios (but it's not Disney!). Asked Junior to pick us up at 4:30 and when we arrived at Universal parking lot at 4:20, there he was waiting for us! After resting a bit in our room, we headed to Downtown Disney to eat at the Rainforest Cafe there (we love that place!). This time I had the mixed grill plate which was excellent (combination ribs, shrimp, and chicken). DH had the ribs, which were so tender they just fell right off the bone. Kids opted for grilled cheese sandwiches, we they made up for them even though they weren't on the menu (they used to have Gorilla Grilled Cheese sandwiches on the menu!).
Day 7: (Friday) Cloudy, windy, and warmer today, but we never got rained on! Started our morning back at Epcot. Got to do Test Track first thing today, which was great. Headed over to World Showcase. The girls had been collecting autographs from the characters all during this trip, and were thrilled to see a whole caravan of them in the area. We enjoyed World Showcase more than we ever have before because it wasn't too hot and not crowded in the least. We enjoyed things such as the Fife and Drum Corp in America and some Mexican singers in Mexico. We did Honey, I Shrunk the Audience and then hopped on the monorail to go back to Magic Kingdom again. The lines for the rides were running about a 30 to 45 minute wait that afternoon. Later though, we discovered that no one was on Splash Mountain. It was fun riding in the evening - the lights were beautiful from on top "the mountain". Don't know if people were afraid of getting wet in the evening or what, but we did Splash 7 times in a row! (and it was fairly warm out) It felt like we were having our own E-night! After we had enough of Splash we walked back to Main Street to watch the Spectromagic parade and fireworks, which were beautiful. Headed back to the buses. Went back to room and ordered in pizza. Another great day at Disney!
Day 8: (Saturday) Our last full day at Disney!
We went back to the Animal Kingdom in the a.m. because we didn't have time to do DinoLand last Sunday. Did Dinosaur ride twice and then saw Tarzan Rocks, which we enjoyed. Decided to take walks on the exploration trails again, hoping to see the tigers and gorillas again. Since it had hit about 80 degrees, we didn't see as much of the animals as last Sunday. Got a pretty good view of the gorillas, though. They are fascinating. Headed back to our hotel room for a rest, and then it was on to the Magic Kingdom again for one last time (can you tell it's our favorite park??) Today the crowds were busier, being a weekend, but we took advantage of the Fastpasses and got to do all our favorites again. We walked on Thunder Mountain several times during the parade (which we had already seen Friday night) and Splash again, of course! The park was open an hour later tonight. We watched the fireworks from Main Street again. I love how the castle changes colors; it is so beautiful. Then on to the buses for the ride "home". That night was the ONLY time we had to wait any length of time for a Disney bus. Maybe it was because Epcot was closing at the same time, but we had about a 25-minute wait or so. Otherwise, my family got sick of me saying every day "I can't believe we never have to wait more than 5 minutes for a bus!" Anyway, it was sadly time to start packing up for trip home the next day.
Day 9: (Sunday) We were glad our bags were packed the night before, so it wasn't too much to get them organized for the luggage porter to pick them up. We had breakfast at the food court and then went back to our room for one last time. Then hopped a bus to Animal Kingdom and transferred to Dolphin/Swan bus to go play mini-golf at Fantasia Gardens. We enjoyed this very much. Got discount using our American Express again. Got back to hotel; had lunch at food court; and then there was Junior ready to take us to the airport. Had a nice flight back to Milwaukee. Checked in at Super 8 (very convenient-right across from airport and they only charged us $12 for the week to park our car) for the night. Had a very late supper at 11:00 p.m. and then hit the hay. On Monday we had a six-hour drive back home.
Well, that's it folks! If you have any questions we will be happy to answer them here or you can e-mail us at kgrasso@chartermi.net. We were overall very pleased with our trip. We were hoping to avoid the Presidents' week crowd and the spring breakers and it worked very nicely. Hope you enjoyed our trip report!
This was our 4th trip to Disney, but my first trip report, so will try to summarize our highlights the best I can!
We stayed at All Star Movies (our second time there) and were happy with it again. Everything clean. Got first floor corner 101 Dalmations room, just yards from Mighty Ducks pool, which was very convenient. Didn't take long at all to walk to food court. Food was okay at food court, nothing special. This was our first trip buying the mugs, though -wished we had done it before. Very nice to be able to get drinks whenever you want. We enjoyed hot chocolate before bed every night. DD's friend got to be a lemonade junkie!
Bought 5-day hopper pass because we planned to take two days to go to Sea World and Universal Studios.
Day 1: Got picked up at airport by Tiffany Town Car. Our driver was "Junior". We enjoyed him very much. (He also took us to Sea World and Universal Studios so got to know him quite well. Felt like we had our own personal chauffeur!) Got settled in room; ate at Food Court; and went shopping at Downtown Disney. Used American Express White Glove Treatment plan and received 15% discount at World of Disney, which was very nice! Weather was rainy, but the forecast was sun for our first full day.
Day 2: (Sunday) Beautiful day! Started at Animal Kingdom. Did Safari, Tough to Be a Bug; Lion King show; walked both exploration trails and especially enjoyed the tigers and gorillas. Had lunch reservations at RainForest Cafe. Food was great and we were stuffed leaving there! Did Kali River Rapids and enjoyed the parade. Then headed over to Epcot for the evening. Fast passes were out for Test Track, so enjoyed a few other park highlights, watched the parade, and Illuminations. Great first day!
Day 3: (Monday) Our first day at Magic Kingdom, our favorite park. All rides a 5 to 10 minute wait in morning; about 30 minutes by afternoon. Splash Mountain is our all time favorite attraction. Watched afternoon parade. Later headed over to Hoop-De-Doo dinner. We enjoyed that very much. Food was great. Got seats in center, very near front of stage. Our family was introduced as from Wisconsin. DH got picked on later by red-headed cast member teasing him and sitting on his lap. I enjoyed looking around that evening and noticing how even the small kids were enjoying the show and were laughing at the jokes. This was our second time at Hoop-De-Doo. The last time it was quite a feat getting back to our hotel. This year we were extremely happy to see an All Stars bus waiting for us after the show!
Day 4: (Tuesday) Junior picked us up to go to Sea World today. Enjoyed the new water ride and DH and kids went on the roller coaster. I was too chicken! The shows were very good. When we got back to the hotel the girls and I headed over to the pool for a nice swim.
Ate dinner at the All Stars food court. The girls had their caricatures drawn at the food court They really liked how they turned out. After that we crashed in our room for the evening. The girls logged the days' events in their journals every night, which I think is a great idea for remembering their trip in the years ahead.
Day 5: (Wednesday) We were warned the weather was going to dip today, and it sure did! from 70's the day before to 43 degrees in the a.m. We headed out to MGM with our jeans, sweatshirts and jackets on. It was a gorgeous sunny day, though, and the cold did not bother us, being from northern Wisconsin, that's a heat wave in the winter! It warmed up to the 60's by afternoon. Enjoyed TOT, RNR, Hunchback, Muppets 3d, Beauty and the Beast, Walt's Dream; and Millionaire (was a little disappointed in that one). Missed the parade unfortunately, because our fast pass for Millionaire fell during that time period and we had dinner reservations for 4:30 at Prime Time 50's Cafe. Enjoyed our dinner very much, was served by Uncle Tim; DH got pot roast; girls got chicken, and I had the steak dinner (excellent!). The chocolate malts are about the best you can get anywhere, in our opinion!
Later went to Fantasmic show; I was leery it was going to be cold sitting in the evening air, but it was surprisingly comfortable. For one thing, we couldn't feel any winds in the auditorium. The show was even better than I remembered, very impressive.
Day 6: (Thursday) Junior picked us up again! He was always there exactly on time and mostly a few minutes early. He entertained us again telling stories of his experiences and telling us things about the area we didn't know about. It was a little bit warmer today. Enjoyed our day at Universal Studios (but it's not Disney!). Asked Junior to pick us up at 4:30 and when we arrived at Universal parking lot at 4:20, there he was waiting for us! After resting a bit in our room, we headed to Downtown Disney to eat at the Rainforest Cafe there (we love that place!). This time I had the mixed grill plate which was excellent (combination ribs, shrimp, and chicken). DH had the ribs, which were so tender they just fell right off the bone. Kids opted for grilled cheese sandwiches, we they made up for them even though they weren't on the menu (they used to have Gorilla Grilled Cheese sandwiches on the menu!).
Day 7: (Friday) Cloudy, windy, and warmer today, but we never got rained on! Started our morning back at Epcot. Got to do Test Track first thing today, which was great. Headed over to World Showcase. The girls had been collecting autographs from the characters all during this trip, and were thrilled to see a whole caravan of them in the area. We enjoyed World Showcase more than we ever have before because it wasn't too hot and not crowded in the least. We enjoyed things such as the Fife and Drum Corp in America and some Mexican singers in Mexico. We did Honey, I Shrunk the Audience and then hopped on the monorail to go back to Magic Kingdom again. The lines for the rides were running about a 30 to 45 minute wait that afternoon. Later though, we discovered that no one was on Splash Mountain. It was fun riding in the evening - the lights were beautiful from on top "the mountain". Don't know if people were afraid of getting wet in the evening or what, but we did Splash 7 times in a row! (and it was fairly warm out) It felt like we were having our own E-night! After we had enough of Splash we walked back to Main Street to watch the Spectromagic parade and fireworks, which were beautiful. Headed back to the buses. Went back to room and ordered in pizza. Another great day at Disney!
Day 8: (Saturday) Our last full day at Disney!
We went back to the Animal Kingdom in the a.m. because we didn't have time to do DinoLand last Sunday. Did Dinosaur ride twice and then saw Tarzan Rocks, which we enjoyed. Decided to take walks on the exploration trails again, hoping to see the tigers and gorillas again. Since it had hit about 80 degrees, we didn't see as much of the animals as last Sunday. Got a pretty good view of the gorillas, though. They are fascinating. Headed back to our hotel room for a rest, and then it was on to the Magic Kingdom again for one last time (can you tell it's our favorite park??) Today the crowds were busier, being a weekend, but we took advantage of the Fastpasses and got to do all our favorites again. We walked on Thunder Mountain several times during the parade (which we had already seen Friday night) and Splash again, of course! The park was open an hour later tonight. We watched the fireworks from Main Street again. I love how the castle changes colors; it is so beautiful. Then on to the buses for the ride "home". That night was the ONLY time we had to wait any length of time for a Disney bus. Maybe it was because Epcot was closing at the same time, but we had about a 25-minute wait or so. Otherwise, my family got sick of me saying every day "I can't believe we never have to wait more than 5 minutes for a bus!" Anyway, it was sadly time to start packing up for trip home the next day. Day 9: (Sunday) We were glad our bags were packed the night before, so it wasn't too much to get them organized for the luggage porter to pick them up. We had breakfast at the food court and then went back to our room for one last time. Then hopped a bus to Animal Kingdom and transferred to Dolphin/Swan bus to go play mini-golf at Fantasia Gardens. We enjoyed this very much. Got discount using our American Express again. Got back to hotel; had lunch at food court; and then there was Junior ready to take us to the airport. Had a nice flight back to Milwaukee. Checked in at Super 8 (very convenient-right across from airport and they only charged us $12 for the week to park our car) for the night. Had a very late supper at 11:00 p.m. and then hit the hay. On Monday we had a six-hour drive back home.
Well, that's it folks! If you have any questions we will be happy to answer them here or you can e-mail us at kgrasso@chartermi.net. We were overall very pleased with our trip. We were hoping to avoid the Presidents' week crowd and the spring breakers and it worked very nicely. Hope you enjoyed our trip report!
), they get me a flight for later in the week(Wednesday Night/Thursday) so I can come down and spend some time. Most college students dont have Friday classes and can afford a few skipped classes every now and then(Although, I tend to push the envelope a little 
).
