Fozzie Bear's WOCKA! WOCKA! WOCKA! trip report w. lots of pics! (11/9 FINAL UPDATE!!)

[TigerLaw]

Everyone has a favorite character, be it mickey, goofy, or even their favorite villian. Last time we went to Disney in 2007, we took the keys to the kingdom tour, and they asked us what our favorite character was. I struggled with it for some reason and ultimately came up with Donald.

Later, after thinking it over, I realized the correct answer was Fozzie Bear, so I humbly dedicate this trip report to Fozzie Bear!





The Cast:

Michael, twelfth visit to WDW (Disney fanatic for years)

Melissa, wife of the fanatic, fellow lover of WDW, just nowhere near my level. This will be her eleventh visit (eleven visits together)

The Time:

Saturday, September 27, 2008 – Sunday, October 5, 2008.

The Resorts:

Polynesian Resort (just the first night of the trip)
Beach Club Villas – one bedroom room (nights two – eight).

The History:

Melissa and I first went to WDW in September, 2000. Since then we have gone every year at least once. Highlights of the different trips include Melissa surprised me with a mini-vacation to WDW for my 30th birthday and going to Disneyland for the 50th anniversary festivities. In the fall of 2007, I achieved a life-long dream (OK, it was a recent dream really) and talked Melissa into us buying into DVC. Unfortunately, various circumstances led to us not being able to use our points until now.

The Planning:

In November of 2007, we did up a major trip to WDW during my absolute favorite time of year to go to Disney – right after Thanksgiving. (Trip report is linked on my signature block). The plan was originally was to make that trip sorta like a big blow out and then to do some other stuff for awhile. Having said that, life led us back to WDW in both good and bad ways. First, Melissa’s job sent her to a conference in Orlando in Feb. 2008 at the Portofino Bay Resort at Universal. We ended up making a short week trip out of it, first staying at the Hard Rock Hotel for a few days, and then at the PBR. While at the HRH, we did universal and sea world on free passes, and then Melissa was doing her work stuff, I went over to Epcot and MK for a couple days and then we did together our first pirate and princess party. The second thing that happened was that my mother passed away right before my birthday in early july. Without getting into a sob story about everything that happened, Melissa knew I needed to get my mind off of the situation, and she offered to make a trip we were planning to dustin (her favorite childhood vacation) to a trip back to WDW so long as she could get a full day at blizzard beach and lots of pool time.

We originally started to plan for a trip in late August, but then Melissa started interviewing for a different job which led us to plan for a second possible trip time in late sept. Eventually, given that we were using DVC points, we had to come to a decision, and so the late sept. trip won out. As far as the actual planning details, the goal always was to stay in a DVC one bedroom at the beach club. Reaching that goal has been a real exercise. I have called 2-4 times a day to see if there are any room cancellations and so far, got us four nights in a one bedroom. (At various times, we had DVC room on cash instead of points and also had nights booked at Saratoga on points – lots of room changes along the way and well leave it at that). Airfare was higher b/c of oil prices, but not that much more. (One thing of note was that the flights were later this time a bit, so we get to sleep in a bit more on the travel day, but less time in Orlando).

Here is a quote from my last trip report: “For the purposes of this report you also need to know that while I obsessively plan, Melissa will just come up with ideas just out of nowhere - things that I never think of.” Once again, it was true. For awhile, we were going to stay the first night in a BCV studio room for cash (Saturday night, major point usage, etc). She decided one day that we should stay at the Polynesian instead and given the AP discount, it wasn’t that much more. She also wanted to go to the California grill, so our first night, we can do that, use the monorail, and then come back and watch the fireworks on the beach!: The last bit of planning scoop was I got a ford taurus car rental for $120 for the whole trip like two weeks before we left - what a deal!


COMING UP - THE PLAN OF ATTACK

 

[TigerLaw]

THE INITIAL PLANS:

Sat. 9/27

fly in – check in - poly pool afternoon
CA Grill dinner, then watch fireworks from poly beach

Sun. 9/28

Kona café breakfast
Epcot (9am - regular open time) (just doing mostly the big stuff)
lunch – san angel inn? SWITCH HOTELS
MGM – EMH night (park closes at 8, EMH-11 pm) )fantasmic at 8 (& 9:30?))
Dinner – cape may 5:45 pm

Mon 9/29

MGM (9am open) (see how much we like toy story)
breakfast snacks at MGM bakery - lunch at B&C?
afternoon – rest up for long night
MK EMH night (EMH 9-12, spectro 8, wishes 9)
Crystal palace 4:55pm

Tues 9/30

Typhoon Lagoon (10am open) or Animal Kingdom (9am open)
Cape may breakfast 7:35
Yak & Yeti 12:30
Epcot night – R & C 7:50

Wed 10/1

breakfast at spoodles?
Epcot (9am open)(longer day–walk around WS, do more stuff) LUNCH-ESPN??
AK EMH night – do shopping, dinner at rainforest 5pm

Thurs 10/2

MK EMH morning (8am open) - CP for breakfast 10:20
Halloween party Tony’s – 5:05 pm

Fri 10/3

Typhoon lagoon (10am open) or animal kingdom (9am open)
Early evening DTD shopping, then Ohana’s 8:25 wishes 9pm, MK closes at 9pm (remember, also a Epcot EMH night)

Sat 10/4

MGM EMH morning – got sci fi for 12:05
flying fish 6pm and then last illuminations?

Sun 10/5

cape may breakfast

 

[TigerLaw]

Saturday, September 27th

Parks: None
Dining: Kona Café, lunch and California Grill, Dinner

Our flight left at 8:15 am which for us was actually like an hour later than our usual flights, so we got to sleep in a bit before leaving. One interesting wrinkle to the night before was that it was the first TV presidential debate. (I promise not to ruin a trip report with politics, but both my wife and I are into politics, so while the debate put most people to sleep fast, we couldn’t let it do that us b/c we were both way behind in the packing game!) Anyway, flight was uneventful. Had little difficulty getting our bags or our rental so by noon Orlando we were on the road to WDW!

We drive up to the Poly and have to admit, I had some trouble figuring out their parking lot. Eventually, I dropped Melissa and our bags off at the front, self parked and checked us in. Upon check in, we got our first magical surprise when we were upgraded from a standard room to a lagoon view room in the Tahiti building (room 2016)!

Given that we were both starving by that point, we asked for a walk up at kona café for lunch (it was now about 1-1:30) and got in w/in 10 minutes or so. Truthfully, we would have been better off eating at the poly food court. The food was way overpriced (even for disney). I had the mix plate of meet and rice with a teriyaki sauce that actually wasn’t all that bad, and Melissa had a glorified turkey sandwich that had some kind of dressing on it that made her hate it. You could also tell that the place was way understaffed, so our service was bad, but our waitress was trying hard, she just had too many tables to deal with.

After lunch, we went to the luggage stand and actually got driven over with our luggage to our room. The driver was great, best CM we experienced the whole trip- talked with us the whole drive over, was funny, everything good. The drive made us realize just how far and away the building was to the center of the resort, but with our view, we could have cared less:

Our room was great (you could tell it had been rehabbed recently with the flat screen and all) our view was incredible (we could see the castle, space mtn. and the contemporary) - what more could you ask for?!? Simply put this was one of the best room we have ever had during all our trips at WDW. (and we got a towel design too!)

We talked about going swimming in the afternoon, but Melissa was tired, so she took a nap and I walked around and took some pictures given it was our only afternoon we would be staying at the poly.

I also (thanks to our luggage guy) moved our car to a different self parking lot that was much closer to our building. Additionally, I went to the front desk and asked for a late check out (having forgotten to do so upon check in - the excitement of the upgrade I guess made me forget!) and met a CM who grew up less than 10 minutes from me, so I think that helped us get a 1pm late check out. (the later the check out, the more time for us in the parks, and the hopefully easier change over to the beach club villas).

For dinner, we went to CA Grill. To get to the restaurant from the monorail was a bit confusing for us, but we got there. We had gone to CA Grill during our first or second trip and I guess had a different memory of it - more fancy than we experienced now I guess. Melissa had some fish and I had the steak. For appetizers, we both got the chicken and bacon flatbreads which we both loved. After dinner, we came back and Melissa crashed from the long day. I watched from my window the electrical water pageant and wishes. I had some initial plans of going into MK just to see spectromagic, but I was too tired, so the fireworks were the end of my night.

Here are some CA Grill and firework pics ( I love how tired we look in the pics, Melissa doesn't love it so much) :

Coming up: Our first day in the parks

 

[TigerLaw]

Wow! I guerss my jokes are bombing just like fozzie bear's so far as no one is subscribing or even responding to my report - I guess I will just have to work on them (and the report) a bit harder!

WOCKA! WOCKA! WOCKA!

 

[heaven2dc]

Fozzie Fan!!! Woohoo! I'm glad there are two of us in the world - j/k!!

Great start to your trip - being upgraded, beautiful view and some sleep! Anxious for more reading!

 

[TigerLaw]

Sunday, September 28th

Parks Visited: Epcot and MGM
Dining: Ohana’s (breakfast) Cape May Cafe (dinner)

Our original plan was to go to Kona Café for breakfast, but for whatever reason, they just didn’t have their stuff together at opening, so we went over to Ohana’s for their character breakfast instead. We had had it years ago when we stayed at the Poly, but we didn’t remember it being this good - both Melissa and I liked it a lot. The characters were Lilo, Stitch, Mickey and Pluto - here are a couple pics:

From there, we took the monorail to the TTC and then switched monorails for Epcot. We got into the central plaza about 15 minutes before opening, so we saw some of the fab five (I don’t know anywhere else where they are all together like this) and I got some pics of the characters there:

From there we headed over to Soarin, got a fastpass and then did the stand by line twice w/o any wait! Upon leaving the second time, the ride was still basically a walk on, but we headed over to Living with the Land (a Melissa favorite) also with no wait. It seemed like they were a little low on pumpkins this year, but given it was Halloween time, they were probably all on main street at MK. After our boat ride, we used our FP for our third Soarin ride of the morning. What was interesting was that it was a walk on going in still (and this was like at least an hour past opening) but when we got out it had a 40 minute stand by time.

Leaving the Land building, we went over to do Turtle Talk with Crush, but the line looked too long so we decided to skip it. We crossed over future world to do Test Track. There was no stand by time posted, so we went into that line, but it didn’t move for a long time, so we switched over to the single ride line and did the ride w. no wait. After riding it once, Melissa went over to mouse gears while I rode it a second time. From there, we rode Spaceship Earth for the first time since they rehabbed it. I still have trouble w. hearing the narrator and don’t know if the downwards part is an improvement or not, but the video was fun to play with.

Coming Up: We get to hear “welcome home” for the first time!

 

[TigerLaw]

I forgot to ask this before - can someone explain to me how to set up your signature so that it links to your prior trip reports. I think I know how to do a link, but I don't know how to say "click on this' and make the words a hotink to prior trip reports

thanks for the help!

 

[TigerLaw]

After we left Epcot, I got lost trying to get us back on the monorail, but eventually we made it out OK and back over to the poly. We got to the Beach Club at around 1pm or so and figured there was no way we would get our room early, but our good room luck continued and our room (319) was ready. Turns out, it was really close to the main elevators and kinda on top of the main entrance so we loved the location. Here’s a couple pics of our new “home away from home”

Needless to say, for disney geeks like us, DVC ROCKS! (I do have to say, Art the greeter wasn’t at the Beach Club the entire week we were there, and having him be there when we first arrived would have made it perfect, but you know what 99.9% perfect ain’t that bad either!)

After getting settled in, we drove over to winn dixie to get some snacks and other food. This was one of those weird times I felt like a first time DVCer b/c while you want to stock up, you don’t want to overbuy and then waste food - where’s the line? Eventually, we made it back to the room and vegged for a bit before dinner.

We had ressie for the cape may clambake before heading over to MGM for extra magic hours. The food was good, although for some stupid reason mister beef-eater TOTALLY forget to go to the carving station! Ultimately, we made it over to MGM like an hour before closing. We headed straight to Toy Story Mania but the standby line was 80 minutes long. I asked if they were going to reopen the FP machines during the extra magic hours, and they said no. Instead, we did the Great Movie Ride and Muppet Vision 3D, both with little to no waits. By then it was 8pm, or regular park closing time. We went down Sunset Blvd. and was surprised to see that RnRC was a walk on, so we did that twice and got FPs for it, all before Fantasmic ended and the masses came back to hit the rides. Melissa decided to take a ride break, so while she shopped, I rode Tower of Terror once. Once I got off, I tried to ride again, but by then the lines had gotten huge b/c Fantasmic had let out, so we used our FPs for RnRC one more time. We walked back over to TSM to see how the line was, but it was still a 40 minute stand by line. We knew we had two MGM mornings planned, so we called it a night and headed back to out NEW HOME!

Coming uo - our longest day of the trip

 

[nflder]

Really enjoying your TR. I love ready couples reports!

 

[muppetkaties]

I saw Fozzie Bear and I immediately had to subscribe!! I'm a huge fan of the muppets (see username)! Read your TR so far and I'm really enjoying it! Can't wait to hear more.

 

[TigerLaw]

Really enjoying your TR. I love ready couples reports!

Thanks E, glad to have you on board

I saw Fozzie Bear and I immediately had to subscribe!! I'm a huge fan of the muppets (see username)! Read your TR so far and I'm really enjoying it! Can't wait to hear more.

Thanks, more is on the way!

 

[TigerLaw]

hey everyone, sorry I am so behind in updating, but I will have new updates in the next day or so, I promise!

 

[TigerLaw]

Monday, September 29th

Parks Visited: MGM & MK
Dining: Beaches and Cream (lunch) and Crystal Palace (dinner)

Monday morning there was a threat of showers predicted, but nothing much came out of it. Before leaving, we had breakfast of pop tarts and coffee. One thing I forgot to say before was that one problem we did have w. our BCV room was that we had two TVs and one remote. For whatever reason, I didn’t think to call housekeeping until Monday morning, but we had a second remote by the time we got back from MGM. ANYWAY..... We took the boat over to MGM to get as close to the rope line as possible. We timed it right for a change and ended up at MGM like 30 minutes before opening. The plan was for me to race walk to get FPs for toy story, Melissa to ride RnRC one time, and then I come down to meet her. Well, by the time the rope dropped, I couldn’t help myself, so I got the FPs and then rode TSM by myself as basically a walk on. Simply put, like everyone else, loved it!

By the time I was done riding, the stand by line was already 30 minutes long. So I booked down sunset to RnRC and Melissa had already ridden it twice - weekday morning plus TSM means no lines for RnRC I guess! We rode it a couple more times together and then I went over and did tower of terror. The crowds were so light that they didn’t open up the FP machines for either ride - something I had never seen before. After a couple rides on ToT, we went back over to TSM to use our fastpasses and Melissa liked the ride a lot more than she thought she would. Having done all the biggies, we looked at some of the shops at the front of the park and came back home. We had an early lunch at beaches and cream, where Melissa got her favorite orange something ice cream drink (I can’t remember the name of it). We always like the food there, but for some reason, it took like 20 minutes to process the bill, so that wasn’t fun.

From there we went back to our room, changed and went swimming at stormalong bay. While the forecast was for a 60% chance of rain, we didn’t see any while we were at the parks or pool. One funny thing I saw after the pool was walking back to the room there was a crowd gathered and I couldn’t see why at first. Turns out a guest had caught a snake somehow and was holding it with his arm out and then the man put it in a garbage bag being held by someone else! NO WAY JOSE FOR ME!!!

Here’s some MGM pics (you can see how empty the park was in the tower pic):

[

Coming up: Our first visit of the trip to Magic Kingdom

 

[TigerLaw]

Later that night, we headed over to MK for extra magic hours (the park closed at 8pm, and the extra hours til 11pm) Apparently everyone else in the free world did as well. Here a pic of everyone’s favorite street showing the crowds and a couple of the window displays outside the emporium:

We had ressies for crystal palace, but decided to do some shopping on main st. first (just looking around mostly). We ended up having a 15-20 minute wait for CP, so I ran over and got us some FPs for jungle cruise since it wouldn’t be open during the extra magic hours (it had like a 30 minute stand by line when I got there). Dinner was actually better than we remembered it being in the past. Melissa joked that it was almost O’hana-esque for me in terms of lots of different beef choices on my plate! We got pics w. pooh and eyeore, but no tigger.

One interesting note was they told us when they sat us down that it takes an hour and fifteen minutes for all the characters to come around (as if they want us sitting there for that long and stopping them from turning over the tables!)

After dinner, we were both stuffed, so we didn’t want to do any major rides just yet, so we made it over to the 6pm showing of the hall of presidents were before it closed its doors. This will probably be the last time we see it with George W. Bush speaking, as it supposed to go under an extensive rehab soon. From there we went over to use our jungle cruise FPs. It was funny to watch the skipper dying as NONE of the jokes were being laughed at by anyone. The line for the cruise was still pretty long. I think a lot of that had to do that this was the only weeknight that MK was open late given the Halloween parties. After our cruise ended, we did Pirates as a walk on and then went to the Christmas ornament shop across from the hall of presidents, but didn’t really see many ornaments we would want (our xmas tree is all disney ornaments and is probably worth more than our house right now! ) We next did haunted mansion twice in a row with no wait and then found a spot in liberty square to sit and watch the 7pm Spectromagic. We waited like maybe 30 minutes for the parade. Of course what goes along with that is the usual pushing, shoving, parents pushing their kids in front of other people - OH THE FUN!! I actually got some decent pictures of the parade for a change:

Once the parade was over we walked through the crowd and found a spot on the tomorrowland bridge area to watch the 8pm wishes fireworks, which we loved as always. So now the park was “closed” except to resort guests. We tried to do the peoplemover, but for the first time we could remember, it was closed! At first we thought it was a maintenance issue, but later we learned that both it and the monsters inc. laugh floor were no longer open during EMH. Ah, budget cutbacks! We went over and rode Space Mountain once w/o too much of a wait and then did Buzz with a little wait as well. Next, we crossed back over and did Splash Mtn. and Big Thunder Mtn. Melissa was getting tired, so we called it an early night.

Here’s a few more nighttime pics:

Coming Up - Will Melissa get her water park day or not?

 

[TigerLaw]

Tuesday, September 30th

Parks Visited: AK and Epcot
Dining: Yak & Yeti (lunch) and Rose & Crown (dinner)

One of Melissa’s main goals this trip was a day at Blizzard Beach. Unfortunately, BB closed early this year for its refurb, so we had to go to Typhoon Lagoon. In making our plans, I set the TL day for Tuesday, but also made our plans so that if the weather was supposed to be bad, we would go to AK instead and do TL on Friday. (So we would either do TL on Tuesday and AK on Friday, or vice versa). Well, leading up to the trip, Tuesday continually looked to be the worst anticipated weather day, so by the night before, they were forecasting a 70% chance of thunderstorms and heavy rain. So we ended up calling a switch and making Tuesday our AK day.

Instead of taking the bus over to AK, we drove it, and I have to say, driving it was the way to go. Yes it’s a bit of a hike, but I think it beats out waiting for busses there and back (of course we wouldn’t have had any BB stops this time around). One bit of bad news was as we got out of the car, I realized (so I thought) that I had left my camera in our room, so this will be the NO PICTURE DAY OF THE REPORT! I thought about driving back, but there was no way to pull that off w/o missing the rope drop (and as Mel said, its not like I don’t have 5 million pics already) so we decided to proceed w/o it.

We got in line and got up to the rope line, so after the little opening skit, they walked up back to Expedition Everest, and after getting FPs (for 10:30?), we were one of the first to ride that morning. We did EE twice in a row w. no wait. While riding we felt drops of rain. After riding twice (which is about both our limits w/o starting to get sick) we walked over from Asia to Africa to do the safari ride. While walking, it started to rain more, but not enough to get out the ponchos. We did the safari with like a 5 minute wait, and given the weather conditions, we did see a lot of animals. I wished I did have my camera for one part b/c the ride ended up taking much longer than usual b/c in the truck ahead of ours, giraffes stayed on the road and wouldn’t move out of the way for like 5 minutes. So we ended up getting super up close to a couple giraffes and saw a couple of lions (never recalled seeing more than one). By the time we got off the ride, the rain had stopped so we next did the festival of the lion king with no wait (it was the emptiest we had seen the showroom in a long time). After seeing the show and then doing Dinosaur with no wait, we headed back over to Everest to use our FP (the line was still only like 20 minutes long) and then a second time using the single rider line. After dinosaur and two everest rides back to back to back, I was done with the riding for awhile.

By that time, it was almost noon, so we headed over to Yak and Yeti to eat there for the first time ever. Even though it was lunch, we wanted to try it out a bit, so we each got an appetizer - she got 3 each rolls and I got 5 pot stickers and we traded each other a bit. She got a shrimp lo mien dish for her lunch that she didn’t love and I got the steak and rice plate with fried coconut-like shrimp which was OK. Given the prices and how we were not really wowed, I doubt we would come back anytime soon.

After lunch, we came back home, where I realized that I had my camera all along, just hidden in the wrong backpack pocket! The weather was getting worse, so we stayed in and took a nap.

Coming Up - Michael and Melissa drink around the world!

 

[TigerLaw]

Despite all our trips over the years, we have never done the “drink around the world” thing , so given we were at Epcot during the food and wine festival, we decided it was time to do so. We started in france and got the grand mariner orange slushy drink that everyone loves. From there we got beers from moracco, japan, italy, india and looked at the world showcase shops. We also did the boat ride in mexico to kill some time. (For the rest of the trip, I would randomly yell "DONDE DONALD?!?" at melissa ).

At 7:40 we checked in at R&C (10 minutes before our ressie time) and still waited 40 minutes to get a seat. Despite the fact there were outdoor tables with unobstructed views of the lagoon, we got a bad table view-wise. I asked to move and they wouldn’t let us. Given how long we waited to sit down also was problem b/c we either had to watch illuminations from a bad view while we were still eating or had to go to the standing viewing area in between our appitizers and main course. We chose the latter as the lesser of two evils. When we get over to the viewing area, some kids have flashlights and they decide to continually shine them in our faces even after we repeatedly ask them to stop. It got so bad that halfway through the fireworks, we left the viewing area and went back to our bad table. THEN we get our main courses, and the food is cold (at least mine was)! Needless to say, this was our worst R&C (and quite possibly disney dining overall) experience ever. I tried to address everything we went through w. the mgr. and, she didn’t care at all, basically saying we didn’t have to leave a tip if we didn’t want to. All I could say was nice job.

To wrap up, here are some pics from our epcot night. I forgot to say that Sheena Easton was the singer at the Eat to the Beat series and while we waited to get into R&C, we got pics with Pooh, Tigger and Eyeore.

Coming Up: I see the evil R&C manager again!

 

[TigerLaw]

Wednesday, October 1st

Parks Visited: Epcot
Dining: ESPN club (lunch) Boardwalk Pizza (Dinner)

Despite our last than stellar night at Epcot, Wednesday morning, we went back to Epcot. We got there in advance of the rope drop and went and did the character spot as one of the first sets of people in w. the characters.

One funny moment was as we walked past R&C to get into future world, we saw outside the restaurant the same manager from our night before, so that was awkward. Anyway, after we got all our character pics, of course we headed over to Soarin. I got FPs and then we rode twice in a row as a walk on. After Soarin twice, I picked up another set of FPs, and then we did test track twice in a row as a total walk on. I can’t remember what the stand by sign said, but literally we walked onto our cars both times - I have never seen test track so empty! From test track, we did mission space-green. I was the first time we have ever done the easier side, and while I could tell a difference, it was still fun. We next used up our FPs for soarin, which by then had gotten a long line (maybe it was just a late arriving epcot crowd that day) The night before, Melissa had saw a food stand selling lobster rolls, so we walked all the way from soarin to the american section of world showcase to try the lobster rolls (they were okay, not great).

Here’s some of our other Epcot shots:

For lunch, we went to the ESPN club, which was pretty empty. Mel had the club sandwich and I got their chicken wings (which is a wing and a leg each almost) and then a cheeseburger and fries (which I took home after a couple bites). After lunch we went swimming, and the weather was absolutely perfect. I do have to say that the first few days, the humidity was unbelievable - it felt like summer sometimes. By Wednesday, the humidity was gone (and still little to no love bugs as well!) Before we went swimming, there was a problem w. the room. Wednesday was our fourth day in the room, so it was due for a full clean. I called housekeeping beforehand to tell them we were leaving to try to have them do it while we were gone. Instead, when we got back, we got towel service. When I called to see what was wrong, they said we got towels on day 4, and cleaning on day 6. I was pretty sure that was wrong, so I challenged them on it and eventually a housekeeping mgr. took care of the issue and the cleaning was done while we went swimming.

After swimming, we came back and vegged for a bit. We then drove over to the outlet mall, as they had a bigger Coach store, but Melissa didn’t see anything she wanted. From there, we drove over to downtown disney to do some more shopping. We got some more xmas ornaments from the 365 days of christmas store (but even there, it seemed like a lot of the same stuff we had seen in years past - and why was there halloween stuff in there?: We were going to have dinner at Earl of Sandwich, but Melissa didn’t want another turkey sandwich, so we skipped it. We ended up buying a couple things at World of Disney, looked at the Trex restaurant construction (it opened up a couple weeks after we were there) and came home. For dinner, we ended up getting pizza from the boardwalk pizza window and bringing it back to the room.

Coming Up: Its MK all day and all night long!

 

[TigerLaw]

Thursday, October 2nd

Parks Visited: Magic Kingdom
Dining: Crystal Palace (breakfast) Tony’s Town Square (dinner)

Thursday morning we did the MK extra magic hours morning. We had good luck w. the bus, so we got there within plenty of time. One of major budget cutbacks we saw (or maybe it was just b/c it was off-season) was the park opening event in front of the train station. It was scaled down big time - almost to the level of animal kingdom’s. Anyway, at opening, everyone, including us, rushed through onto main street. We got our picture taken w. the castle as a backdrop (see below) and then tried to hit all the fantasyland rides. We did in order Dumbo, Pooh, Snow White, Peter Pan and (for the first time in a long time) It’s a Small World, all within like 45 minutes. We then waited by peter pan for the official park opening rope drop, and headed over to splash and big thunder. I tried to get us splash FPs, but the machines weren’t open, so we went on Big Thunder instead three times in a row, all walk ons. After that, we headed over to splash. After we rode it once, I asked if we could stay on and they said no (even though no one was in line in our row). It turned out to work for the best b/c after we went around and rode Splash a second time, WE WON DREAM FASTPASSES!!!

Now for most people, that would be great, and it was. However, we had a problem - none of the rides needed fastpasses b/c the park was dead! Oh well, just our luck! After splash, we went over and did Pirates (again, total walk-on). From there we went across the plaza and got our pictures taken w. Caption Hook and Mr. Smeee (sp?) and watched some of Caption Jack’s Pirate Tutorial.

Finally, we did a late breakfast (10:30 am) crystal palace. I think b/c it was the last seating, it wasn’t as crowded, so we got to spend even more time with Pooh and his friends (and finally saw Tigger too!). Once we were done eating, I took some pics around the hub and main street and then we came back home, where the afternoon was spent swimming and then napping.

Coming Up: Halloween party time!

 

[TigerLaw]

That night (around five pm or so) we came back to MK for the halloween party. For dinner, we went to Tony’s Town Square. Easily the worst meal of the trip. The mean had been reduced big time and the food was not even on par with your local Olive Garden. Melissa got the spaghetti and meat balls and I got the chicken parm. - both were just plain bland!

After dinner, we went over into tomorrowland and rode the people mover. During our ride, we saw the inside of space mtn. with the lights on! Unfortunately, I couldn’t get any real good pics of it. We tried to do the monsters inc. laugh floor next, but it had just seated, so we did buzz instead first, then went back over monsters. ( I love roz, so of course, this sign is one of my favorites:

The problem we had was that we couldn’t get to Toontown Fair for its party rode drop, so by the time we got out of monsters and got over there, it was like 7:10 and the lines to see mickey and minnie in their costumes was too huge, so I gave up on that. We did go through the mad hatter candy lines, and along the way, Melissa started to get into the whole trick or treating thing and liked doing the candy lines. We did see tigger and eyeore across from the pooh ride, but we never saw snow white and the seven dwarfs out together. We also did see Chip and Dale at their dance party by dumbo.

During all of this, we tried to see philharmagic twice, but both times it had just seated. We gave up on that for awhile and went over to do haunted mansion a couple times, which was cool as the workers were in full makeup. We also did splash once and big thunder twice after HM as well.
From there, we went over to watch the special halloween fireworks. we sat in front of the castle, which was a mistake, as it blocked a lot of the fireworks - we should have known better but oh well. Here some pics of the fireworks.

After the fireworks were over, we finally did philharmagic and then found a spot to watch the halloween parade across from liberty tree tavern. Here are some parade pics:

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After the parade, we left for the evening.

Coming up: Will Melissa FINALLY get her water park day in?!?

 

[TigerLaw]

Friday, October 3rd
Parks Visited: Typhoon Lagoon
Dining: Cape May Café (breakfast) and O’hanas (dinner)

The weather Friday was much better than on Tuesday, so we made the right call in terms of switching our water park day. The park didn’t open until 10am, so we had breakfast first at cape may café. It was pretty empty. Donald was a new character, taking the place of chip and dale (so now only three characters instead of four). We had a really nice waitress who was oriental in origin. She was hard to understand sometimes, but super nice.

After breakfast, we came back up to the room, gathered our stuff, and headed over to TL. I think we got there like 25 minutes before hand, but we still parked in the first row. Almost as soon as we got passed the ticket booths, they opened up the ticket machines, so we waited at the main bridge into the park for like 15 minutes - hitting around a beach ball and stuff. Once the park opened, Melissa found a place she wanted to sit with a full umbrella off to the right side of the wave pool. Once we got situated, I went and did Crush N Gusher twice in a row with no wait (one ride on each of the two slides where you could go on it by yourself) I have to admit that I was a bit scared at first (something about water slides I worry I am going to fall off the slide somehow), but it was a pretty short ride and once I did it the first time, I got some water slide confidence going!) After that, I headed over across the park and did the two single rider tube slides, again with no wait. From there, I came back to Melissa, and for the next few hours, we laid out, read our books, got into the wave pool, did the lazy river a few times. I also walked around and took some pictures. By mid-day, the park got pretty full (I think this had a lot to do w. blizzard beach closing down earlier than usual this year). I went over and looked at the sharf reef area and couldn’t figure out the thrill at all. We left the park around 3pm. Here are some pics:

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After we took a nap, we got dressed and drove over to Ohana’s. Because we are DDE members, we got free valet parking. We got there about an hour before our ressie time, but I was able to talk us into w/o much of a fuss. This is usually one of my favorite places to eat anywhere (Beef! its what’s for dinner!) We knew that they had brought back the shrimp, but didn’t know they had taken off the au gratin potatoes. Needless to say, I ate a lot. I also love their dessert - its the best bread pudding and ice cream combo I have ever had. Once dinner was over, we went down to the beach, had a couple drinks and watched the fireworks.

Coming Up: Our last day at the parks