WayneWatsonFan
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2005
- Messages
- 47
Ok, back to it....
Part 2 of my report on our just-concluded 1/28 to 2/4 WDW trip.....
After getting settled into our connected rooms at POR building 26, we headed for MK. My Father-In-Law suggested parking at Epcot so we could take the monorail over to MK, so that's what we did. It was good seeing The Big Golf Ball, errr Spaceship Earth, again, as we made our way up the monorail station ramp at Epcot. I must say, no matter how many times you go to WDW, there's a certain excitement that comes over you when you enter the gates of the Magic Kingdom again, as if for the first time. That walk thru the train station lower level, out into the sun again, and staring out at Main Street USA.....you know you're back, and in for a magical time!
Anyway, we walked up Main Street kinda wide-eyed, all the kids just taking in the sights. One of my greatest joys as a Dad is the looks on my kids' faces while we're at WDW....just priceless. Taking things in, we were surprised and disappointed to find a high wooden fence surrounding the circle in front of the Castle where the Walt and Mickey statue is. It's under refurbishment, so we won't get our traditional family picture with the statue.
We turned right and headed into Tomorrowland....the first place the kids wanted to go was Mickey's Toontown Fair. But right between the new Stitch ride and Buzz's Space Ranger Spin we ran into Stitch himself! My DS6 thinks Stitch is soooo cool, so we got in line and got his picture with Stitch. He was all smiles after that, and talked about Stitch all that day, and actually the entire trip! We made our way up past Space Mountain, and the Indy Speedway.....noticed Cosmic Ray's eatery was still standing, told the wife we'd definitely have to eat there one day (one of our faves in WDW). Up past the Tea Cups and into Toontown. I must tell you all, Goofy's Barnstormer is my kids' absolute favorite ride at WDW, so we got right on and rode it 4 times before they would even hear of moving on! Nice little ride, love the theming, my 64-year-old F-I-L rode it each time, laughing all the way too.
So then we headed into Fantasyland and got on Snow White. Just the same as I always remember.....there's a comfort to that, isn't there, as an adult I suppose.....no matter what changes in the outside world, you come here with the kids and there's stability -- Snow White hasn't turned "Girls Gone Wild" on us, etc. -- and that's a good thing. That Evil Queen sure is butt ugly though, isn't she?! And Dopey waving at us from the bridge at the end of the ride is always cute.
We knew what rides were closed for refurb long before from reading these boards, but it was still a letdown to see good ol' Dumbo surrounded by those tall wooden fences. We rode Peter Pan once, I really enjoy that with the kids.....something about soaring over London at night, good stuff. "Fire, Mr. Smee!!"
We came out and found a hard rain falling, so we ducked into the gift shop there.....got some fun pictures of us all trying on Mickey's Sorcerer hats! My kids knew how much spending money they each had for the week, and it was burning a hole in their pockets already! So in this shop, my DS6 got a medium size Mickey plush doll he'd talked about buying for weeks. And of course, the Disney Pin Trading fever started anew, picking right up where it left off our last trip, as we checked out all the new pins.
Finally the rain dwindled to a drizzle, so we headed down to Buzz Lightyear, one of our family's favorites too. The line was not bad, so we got to ride it twice. I must have had a faulty Ion Cannon, as my DD9 kicked my butt scorewise! Maybe Zurg put a hex on my IC! Anyway, this is simply a charming, fun ride, good for everyone. God bless Pixar! All of their movies are absolute genius.....sad to see the split between them and Disney, I just have an unsettled feeling about Disney trying to make sequels to Pixar movies without the Pixar guys involved.....doesn't seem right. Smacks of greed, Gordon Gecko-style.
It was getting late by now, so we went to check out the line for Space Mountain, found it to be 5 minutes (yes!), so me and DS6 got on (everyone else in our party chickened out). My son loves this ride, at least I have one fellow daredevil in my family to ride the big rides with me! Space Mountain was great as usual, what a fun ride. But I'll tell you, for thirty years now, I've wanted someone to turn on the lights while I'm in there -- I would LOVE to see what the inside of Space Mountain looks like with the lights on!! Anyone else have that geeky burning desire?!?
We were all pretty tired by this time, so we left MK and headed back to POR. We'd planned on going to eat at Chili's just outside DTD tonight (love that place), but decided to just walk around POR and explore it. We walked over to Ol' Man's Island, checked out the big pool -- wow, looks very cool! The kids wanted to go swimming right then, the big slide looks cool too. But we kept going. Finally we ended up in the food court and ate there.....meatball sub and chicken parm sandwich were good. The pizza looked Nasty, sitting there under the hot lamp, cheese looking rubbery, crust looking bagel-ly.....and $22 for a whole pizza?? You gotta be kidding! Made mental note to NOT try the pizza this week.
We walked back to our building, enjoying the gorgeous scenery, and ended our first day here. Started the day at 6 am in Brunswick GA, ended it here at POR.....a long day, but a great start to our adventure!
More later......
Part 2 of my report on our just-concluded 1/28 to 2/4 WDW trip.....
After getting settled into our connected rooms at POR building 26, we headed for MK. My Father-In-Law suggested parking at Epcot so we could take the monorail over to MK, so that's what we did. It was good seeing The Big Golf Ball, errr Spaceship Earth, again, as we made our way up the monorail station ramp at Epcot. I must say, no matter how many times you go to WDW, there's a certain excitement that comes over you when you enter the gates of the Magic Kingdom again, as if for the first time. That walk thru the train station lower level, out into the sun again, and staring out at Main Street USA.....you know you're back, and in for a magical time!
Anyway, we walked up Main Street kinda wide-eyed, all the kids just taking in the sights. One of my greatest joys as a Dad is the looks on my kids' faces while we're at WDW....just priceless. Taking things in, we were surprised and disappointed to find a high wooden fence surrounding the circle in front of the Castle where the Walt and Mickey statue is. It's under refurbishment, so we won't get our traditional family picture with the statue.
We turned right and headed into Tomorrowland....the first place the kids wanted to go was Mickey's Toontown Fair. But right between the new Stitch ride and Buzz's Space Ranger Spin we ran into Stitch himself! My DS6 thinks Stitch is soooo cool, so we got in line and got his picture with Stitch. He was all smiles after that, and talked about Stitch all that day, and actually the entire trip! We made our way up past Space Mountain, and the Indy Speedway.....noticed Cosmic Ray's eatery was still standing, told the wife we'd definitely have to eat there one day (one of our faves in WDW). Up past the Tea Cups and into Toontown. I must tell you all, Goofy's Barnstormer is my kids' absolute favorite ride at WDW, so we got right on and rode it 4 times before they would even hear of moving on! Nice little ride, love the theming, my 64-year-old F-I-L rode it each time, laughing all the way too.
So then we headed into Fantasyland and got on Snow White. Just the same as I always remember.....there's a comfort to that, isn't there, as an adult I suppose.....no matter what changes in the outside world, you come here with the kids and there's stability -- Snow White hasn't turned "Girls Gone Wild" on us, etc. -- and that's a good thing. That Evil Queen sure is butt ugly though, isn't she?! And Dopey waving at us from the bridge at the end of the ride is always cute.
We knew what rides were closed for refurb long before from reading these boards, but it was still a letdown to see good ol' Dumbo surrounded by those tall wooden fences. We rode Peter Pan once, I really enjoy that with the kids.....something about soaring over London at night, good stuff. "Fire, Mr. Smee!!"
We came out and found a hard rain falling, so we ducked into the gift shop there.....got some fun pictures of us all trying on Mickey's Sorcerer hats! My kids knew how much spending money they each had for the week, and it was burning a hole in their pockets already! So in this shop, my DS6 got a medium size Mickey plush doll he'd talked about buying for weeks. And of course, the Disney Pin Trading fever started anew, picking right up where it left off our last trip, as we checked out all the new pins.
Finally the rain dwindled to a drizzle, so we headed down to Buzz Lightyear, one of our family's favorites too. The line was not bad, so we got to ride it twice. I must have had a faulty Ion Cannon, as my DD9 kicked my butt scorewise! Maybe Zurg put a hex on my IC! Anyway, this is simply a charming, fun ride, good for everyone. God bless Pixar! All of their movies are absolute genius.....sad to see the split between them and Disney, I just have an unsettled feeling about Disney trying to make sequels to Pixar movies without the Pixar guys involved.....doesn't seem right. Smacks of greed, Gordon Gecko-style.
It was getting late by now, so we went to check out the line for Space Mountain, found it to be 5 minutes (yes!), so me and DS6 got on (everyone else in our party chickened out). My son loves this ride, at least I have one fellow daredevil in my family to ride the big rides with me! Space Mountain was great as usual, what a fun ride. But I'll tell you, for thirty years now, I've wanted someone to turn on the lights while I'm in there -- I would LOVE to see what the inside of Space Mountain looks like with the lights on!! Anyone else have that geeky burning desire?!?
We were all pretty tired by this time, so we left MK and headed back to POR. We'd planned on going to eat at Chili's just outside DTD tonight (love that place), but decided to just walk around POR and explore it. We walked over to Ol' Man's Island, checked out the big pool -- wow, looks very cool! The kids wanted to go swimming right then, the big slide looks cool too. But we kept going. Finally we ended up in the food court and ate there.....meatball sub and chicken parm sandwich were good. The pizza looked Nasty, sitting there under the hot lamp, cheese looking rubbery, crust looking bagel-ly.....and $22 for a whole pizza?? You gotta be kidding! Made mental note to NOT try the pizza this week.
We walked back to our building, enjoying the gorgeous scenery, and ended our first day here. Started the day at 6 am in Brunswick GA, ended it here at POR.....a long day, but a great start to our adventure!
More later......
