Magic & Memorable Munchings - Our Detailed Nov 2011 TR

[superdisneyfan]

“Let the Memories Begin” banners are seen throughout WDW so there is no mistaking that this is Disney’s current theme. Our memories began right at Orlando’s McCoy airport as we boarded Disney’s Magical Express bus that would take us to Port Orleans Riverside resort. As seasoned WDW travelers know, there is always something new to discover on every trip and we, as mother and son adult travelers, were determined to make new memories as well as re-live fun old ones. It has been 8 eight years since our last visit to the “World” and the first new memory to be made was the Magical Express bus trip which, with its plush seats, sparkling floors, and orientation videos, put us in the Disney state of mind much more than a taxi ride from the airport would. We’ve always admired Disney’s training of its “cast members” (as the employees are called). I tried to take note of little things that make a difference, little things many would not notice. One is the way to disembark the bus. The driver told us to remain seated in the bus while they unload our luggage (some people choose to transport their own luggage rather than have Disney handle it all from the airport to delivery in the room). They loaded each person’s luggage and placed it on the ground grouped together by family, being sure to pull the handles up on each piece making it ready to move. What taxi driver would do that for you? Definitely not most of our local cabbies! The bus trip took about 35 minutes.

It was early evening by the time we arrived and snce we had already checked in online that morning, the rest of the process upon arrival was quick. I was a little hesitant to check in online because of what I read on the web about people getting the opposite of what they requested. However, we were given our requests-- a newly refurbished mansion room on the top floor (3rd floor) of the Magnolia Terrace building since it was the closest in walking distance to the main area (shops and restaurants) of the resort. On our way to the room, we saw a horse-drawn carriage hitched up by the marina ready for rides. It was a nice touch to the southern theme of the resort. (It would be the only time we would see this horse since the rides are only given in the late afternoons to early evening and we were never at the resort at that time.) Once given our room info, it took a while to find our room especially since we had to take the elevator with our luggage. (For the duration of our trip, we used the stairs which were closer to our room.) Upon opening the door, we were greeted with a towel-created Mickey on the bed. We didn’t recall this on any of our previous Disney resort visits and know this as being standard on cruise ships, but in a hotel, it was a nice surprise. Carefully, I moved it to the top of the dresser where it would remain for the rest of our stay. The room was nicely decorated with colors I would not normally choose (greens and blues), but they coordinated nicely with the theme of the resort. The next surprise we had was our view. We had booked a standard view and expected seeing a parking lot or trees, but instead got a view of one of the quiet pools!

Since this trip would include our first try of the Regular Disney Dining Plan (1 Quick Service, 1 Table Service, 1 Snack per night of stay), I had planned out our week extensively prior to arrival with dining reservations coinciding with theme park days. Quick service meals were planned at venues that served food other than hamburgers, chicken nuggets, and sandwiches that we can get anywhere. Knowing that our arrival would be early evening, this first night would be spent acclimating to our surroundings. We planned on meeting up with my brother-in-law who had arrived the previous night at a nearby timeshare resort. He had a car and would help us with getting a case of bottled water to our room. Yes, we are big water drinkers and were not happy with the prospect of paying $2.50 per bottle in the gift shops or parks. As all the days were already planned out with the dining plan, for this evening’s meal with my brother-in-law, we decided to use the 15% off Planet Hollywood coupon that came as an extra with our package and arranged to meet him at Downtown Disney. Instead of taking a bus, we wanted to get in the Disney spirit immediately by taking the boat from our resort to DTD. What we didn’t know at the time was that Planet Hollywood was on the West Side part of DTD and our resort boat docks at the opposite side. It was a long walk, but in hindsight, a good thing because it turned out to be the only time we would get to walk through DTD (although we didn’t have a chance to stop into any store). What we didn’t know on the first night is that we could have switched to another boat that would have taken us to the west side, but the boats are scheduled for every 20 minutes.

Had it not been for having a coupon, we would not have chosen Planet Hollywood since we have already been to the one in New York and thought it was nothing special. The Orlando version surprised us because it is constructed as a globe and the restaurant is 3 stories inside the globe. It was a bustling place even at the late hour. The food was also better when compared to our meal in NY years ago. My brother-in-law had a salad which he said was just ok, but our entrees of Pasta Carbonara and L.A. Lasagna were tastier than we ever expected from PH. (As this was the first meal of our “foodie vacation”, we were not in the habit of taking photos of each meal and therefore neglected to take any of this meal.) We also had a coupon for a free gift at Planet Hollywood for which we got—guess what? How did you guess it was a logo key ring! Don’t make a special trip just to get this “free gift!” After dinner, we visited my brother-in-law’s timeshare apartment and then took a ride around Kissimmee (Rt 192) to see the changes since the 80s and 90s when we used to stay at off-Disney properties. After the tour, he drove us back to our resort where we gave him a short tour of whatever we knew thus far of our grounds. It was very dark and not as impressive at night. We brought the case of water to our room, said our good-byes and would not meet up with him for the rest of our trip since his plans were mostly not Disney-related. With our week’s supply of water, we were now all set and energized to make more memories.

To backtrack for a moment, upon check-in, everything is presented to the guest in a folder which includes information, a map of the resort grounds, and the room keys which are encoded with the dining credits, and theme park tickets. When checking out the contents of this folder, there was another surprise hidden inside—a personalized birthday celebration button for my son, who I will refer to as “T” in this report. When booking this trip, I was asked whether I was celebrating an occasion because that is sort of a sub-theme in Disney this year—what are you celebrating? Since this year happened to be a milestone birthday for T, and since he actually celebrated his 3rd birthday on his first WDW trip, I just mentioned that we were celebrating his birthday because we couldn’t be there on his actual birthday this year. It turns out that you can pick up other celebration buttons at Guest Services in each park, but they are not personalized. Well, since he got that button, he had to wear it, right? He said that he would wear it if I wore a generic celebration button which I did. It turns out that his button got quite a bit of attention from the cast members as they are probably trained to take note—he got best wishes from street cleaners, to ride operators, to parade dancers. It was interesting to see how many greetings one got—kids of all ages must love this attention—and no, we didn’t wear it every day!

We were eager to begin our first full day at the Magic Kingdom the next morning (which I’ll refer to as Day 1 from now on) and arranged for a wakeup call that I was sure was going to be special. I was expecting to hear the voice of one of the classic main Disney characters (Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald—Pluto doesn’t talk). Last trip, it was Mickey so imagine the disappointment when I was awakened with garbled voices and screaming. It could have been a messed up recording, but I couldn’t tell who was speaking. The next day, I put it on speaker as soon as it rang and T was not a happy camper to hear that! Finally, after 3 days, I was able to decipher that Stitch had escaped (alluding to the attraction at Magic Kingdom) and decided not to schedule wake up calls for the duration of the trip. If anyone reading this knows what this recording is supposed to say, please let me know. And does anyone know whether each resort has its own unique recording?

The East Depot was a short walk from our room (another positive of our location) and was our starting point to get the buses for all the parks. As we entered into the Magic Kingdom on November 2, we were greeted with the Halloween decorations not yet removed in the Town Square and along Main Street. As we are no longer Halloween fans, we will never plan a trip here around that time, so it was an extra perk to just see the decorations. Our plan in the Magic Kingdom was to visit new attractions and revisit favorites while timing everything to fit in the 2 parades and the live shows in front of the castle.

We were at the right place at the right time on Main Street to see the first parade, “Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! Street Party” before lunch at Sleepy Hollow, a place that we must have walked past many times without noticing it. If it were not for reading about their funnel cakes on the web, we would still not know about it. It is tucked away on the side of the castle with outdoor seating (some covered) and serves waffles, funnel cakes, and the latest addition of waffle sandwiches. We went with funnel cakes in mind (since we missed them this summer at the shore) and found them to be better than the shore ones. The negative about this place (if you can even call it a negative) is that the only dessert they offer is a chocolate chip cookie (which happens to be good). Having an all sweet lunch is not normal, so we opted to appear a little healthier by choosing water as the beverage instead of soda. Water would be our beverage of choice for all the quick service meals. After lunch, we covered a few more attractions before claiming our spot for the 3 PM “Celebrate a Dream Come True Parade” and the 4:15 PM “Dream Along with Mickey” show at the Castle Forecourt.

We decided to check at the Cinderella’s Royal Table Restaurant to see whether they can fit us in at an earlier time than our dinner reservation at 7:10 to enable us to watch the nighttime parade. Cinderella’s Royal Table is a restaurant upstairs in the castle and it would be out of our budget range were it not for the dining plan. It is also one of the hardest restaurants in which to obtain a reservation so I took what I could get at the time I made them. We were told to check back and Bill, a very helpful host at the restaurant, worked his juggling magic to get us in at 5:40, enough time for the dining experience (yes, it is an experience) and see the parade. We enjoyed our roles as lords and ladies; Christopher, our server, played his role perfectly. I was a little hesitant when making this reservation because I thought the place would be full of young kids, but it turns out that there were other adult-only parties besides us there. We both had the Castle Salad, Friars Stuffed Chicken Breast and Roasted Beef Tenderloin as entrees (missed photos here) and the Dessert Trio and Valrhona Chocolate Mousse for dessert. The princesses (Snow White, Aurora, Ariel, and Belle) went around posing for photo ops. Cinderella already posed with everyone immediately after entering the castle for an included photo package consisting of four 4x6 and one enlargement presented in a folder. Thoroughly satisfied, I left the castle holding my souvenir magic wand (now I can sing Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo properly) and T left with his princely sword (or Jack Sparrow’s sword).

After the 8 PM Disney’s Electrical Parade (noticed they took off the Main Street part), we visited a couple more attractions instead of seeing the “Wishes” fireworks before heading back. New attractions covered today were: Mickey’s PhilharMagic, Stitch’s Great Escape, Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor, and The “new” Hall of Presidents. Old favorites revisited: It’s a Small World, PeopleMover, Carousel of Progress, Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, and Haunted Mansion. This was the first time we went to The Haunted Mansion at night and the atmosphere was better. We even discovered that there were 2 entrances whereas in the past, when there were lines, we were always directed one way. This time, we were able to go through the cemetery entrance passage which was more interactive. Is this new?

Epcot was scheduled for Day 2. Our memory didn’t serve us well that morning because we thought we could take the monorail from the Magic Kingdom to Epcot, so when the first bus arrived headed for the Magic Kingdom, we opted to take it instead of waiting for the Epcot bus. It wasn’t until we got to the MK that we realized that we had to take a monorail to the TTC and switch to the Epcot monorail. Anyway, by taking the scenic route, we got our fill of monorail rides, went through the Contemporary Resort, and got a glimpse of their new tower.

This was the day we really got to experience the Food and Wine Festival once again. We were headed towards the Festival Welcome Center when we passed the Test Track attraction, one ride that I was never able to find company to go ride with in the past. This was the year we were going to try it. We are happy that we finally got to go on it—the speed was intense, but at the same time thrilling. After checking out the Festival Welcome Center and a real cranberry bog, we headed straight to the Festival Marketplaces around World Showcase. We were thrilled to find out that snack credits from our dining plan could be used for the food samplings. Without these credits, sampling can be very costly. Therefore, since we had our bottled water supply (for which we originally were going to use our snack credits), we planned to use all our snack credits on the food samplings. That would give us 14 snack credits and since we were sharing each sample, we could each have 14 tastings. If, by chance, we wanted more, we would pay for it.

It turned out that we couldn’t get beyond 10 that day not because we couldn’t find anything else to taste, but because our stomachs couldn’t handle any more knowing a full dinner was still ahead. To keep track of what countries were visited, there’s a passport you get stamped at each country once you’ve tasted the food. It’s a good gimmick and I understand it was started last year. Once you’ve been through everything, you get a stamp of completion. It’s a nice free souvenir. Does anyone know whether you have to sample everything from every marketplace, or just one from each one to get the completion stamp? We sampled the following: Swedish Meatballs with Lingonberries (Scandinavia), Pork Pot Stickers and Xinjiang Barbecue Chicken Stick (China), Neuernberger Sausage in a Pretzel Roll (Germany), Kielbasa and Potato Pierogie with Caramelized Onions and Sour Cream (Poland), Pork Kakuni (Japan), Lamb Slider with Tomato Chutney (New Zealand), Belgian Waffle with Berry Compote and Whipped Cream (Belgium), Coq au Vin sur Gratin de Macaroni (France), and Kalua Pork Slider with Sweet and Sour Pineapple (Hawaii). Unfortunately, we had to stay away from spicy foods because our stomachs weren’t cooperating that week.

While walking World Showcase, we happened upon 3 scheduled performances that we didn’t plan to see—Mariachi Cobra (Mexican musicians), Matsuriza (female Japanese drummers), and Serveur Amusant (a French combination of mime and acrobatics). The samplings took us all around World Showcase and back to Future World where we stopped at Club Cool to quench our thirst by trying Coke products from Mozambique, Costa Rica, Italy, Germany, Japan, Israel, Mexico, and China. We both agreed that the Mozambique drink was the best tasting since it tasted like ginger ale. The Italian drink tasted pretty bitter and awful.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the Future World attractions. New attractions covered were The Seas with Nemo & Friends and Turtle Talk With Crush. We thought Turtle Talk would be juvenile for us, but the interactive Crush turned out to be very funny and entertaining. The revamping of the Living Seas was well done with a “Finding Nemo” theme especially with the scene of the seagulls that randomly call out “mine” as you walk past. We did a revisit to Journey Into Imagination with Figment since Figment has always had a place in our hearts.

Before we knew it, it was time to start walking towards our dinner location which was back in the World Showcase area. Thank goodness the France area is not far from Future World. We had a lovely dinner at Les Chefs de France. I had read that Remy (from Ratatouille) makes occasional appearances in the afternoon here, but since our reservations were for dinner, I knew we would miss him. Another surprise came just as we were seated—Remy appeared on a cart at the adjacent table and soon made his appearance at our table—another first for us. It turned out to be his last appearance that day. The dining plan includes an entrée, dessert, and beverage. However, at Les Chefs, if we choose from their prix fixe menu, we can have an appetizer as well. Noticing that the prix fixe entrees were also included on their regular menu, we opted for the prix fixed in order to get the appetizer. We both started with Soupe a l'oignon gratinee (onion soup) which came with a whole loaf of bread for the table, shared our entrees of Plat de Cote de Boeuf au Cabarnet avec pates (beef short ribs with pasta) and Demi poulet fermier roti, pommes rissolees et tomate grillee (roasted chicken with potatoes and grilled tomatoes. For dessert, we shared Profiteroles au chocolat and Chocolate mousse cake with ice cream.

This is not the stereotypical French restaurant known for tiny portions. On the contrary, their portions are huge so an after dinner walk along World Showcase was perfect to locate a good spot to watch Illuminations at 9 PM. Along the way, we happened upon the finale of The Pointer Sisters concert which was part of the Food Festival concert series. We knew we wouldn’t be able to make the concert (can’t do everything), so we were happy to catch the finale. While waiting for Illuminations to begin, we had time to go on the new Gran Fiesta Tour ride in the Mexico pavilion. We preferred the music from the previous version better although we can see how this revamp, with Donald featured, would be more appealing to kids.

After watching Illuminations, which was quite different from the way we remembered it in 2003 (did it change?), we headed back to our hotel or “home” as the recording on the bus likes to call it. We decided to get off at the lobby bus stop in order to use up our arcade coupon. It was only for 100 points which turned out to be worth $2 so it was gone in an instant with two tries at the crane machine. Back to the room after another exhausting, but fun day. When we opened the door, a towel duck, adorned with blue decorations, greeted us. The duck stayed in the room for the duration of our trip. I finally managed to meet our creative housekeeper on our last day, but we had complimented her through notes left in the room prior to meeting in person.

Day 3 was planned for Disney Hollywood Studios and the bus arrived fairly quickly. Another surprise awaited us as we got off the bus. The Christmas tree was up! (We have never been to WDW at Christmas time and I was resigned to the fact that we weren’t going to see any Christmas decorations on this trip since we did not see any holiday decorations on our previous trip in 2003 which took place a week later in November. Of course, the tree wasn’t lit, but something is better than nothing. As we walked around, we noticed that the lights were strung up on the buildings in anticipation of the Osborne Family Light Show—something we hope to witness someday.

The Studios is hard to navigate because the layout is elongated in shape. Even with the best of planning, the necessity of the fast passes at some attractions and the show schedules will make you run back and forth from one end to the other. While we were waiting for The American Idol Experience show, we saw part of the Disney Channel Rocks! Show outdoors which didn’t impress us. The American Idol Experience stage was impressive and looked like the real set of the show. It was a fun experience being able to react to the judges comments and vote for our favorites. There are 3 contestants for each show who passed the audition process at the park earlier in the day. The last show of each day pits the winner of each show against each other to get the golden ticket pass to audition on the real AI bypassing the normal lines. The last show is probably the best one to attend, but then again, if you do that at 7 PM, it will conflict with dinner and/or the Fantasmic! show at 7:30 PM.

The other problem we had at Studios was the lack of appealing dining locations. The Quick Service lunch was at Fairfax Fare only because T wanted to try a Turkey Leg for the first time. I had tried it years ago and was not impressed, but he needed to try this barbaric way of eating once. Since we were together, I had to get my meal at Fairfax Fare which only served barbecue items which I am not crazy about, but was willing to try. He was not impressed with the Turkey Leg and I did not care for my barbecue chicken/ribs combo with beans and slaw. Both desserts were not worth the calories either--carrot cake and chocolate cake. Well, at least the meal filled us up until dinner time.

After lunch, we quickly traversed to the other end of the park to see the Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show. This was a revamp from the last time we saw it with a “Cars” element added. It was great seeing a real-life Lightning McQueen. If only Mater was there too! After that, we went to experience the new Star Tours 3D only to find out that there are 6 different possible trips and we were only able to go through one! The 3 PM Pixar Pals Countdown to Fun! Parade was fun and revisiting the Great Movie Ride is always a treat. Then it was time to return to redeem the Fast Pass obtained that morning for Toy Story Midway Mania. We finally got to see why this ride is so popular—it totally rocks! It is 3-D and so much fun because of its interactive aspect and it also has different variations to it. After the competitive excitement, we walked to Magic of Disney Animation, saw the film, but was unable to attend Animation Academy because of our dinner reservation at the other end of the park.

Of all the dinners we had, the one at Mama Melrose’s Ristorante at Studios was the most disappointing. We probably would have enjoyed the food at 50s Prime Time Café better, but we did not feel like participating in the guest interaction on this trip. We had read that Mama Melrose’s specialty was the Oven baked Chicken Parmigiana which is one of T’s favorite dishes, so he ordered it. I ordered Chicken Campanelle so we could share. My chicken dish ended up tastier than his, but as a whole, the entrees were lackluster. Our tiramisu and spumoni gelato were adequate, but not great. Perhaps it seemed more disappointing because Italian cuisine is our favorite and we expected more from the restaurant. Interesting that many years ago, we had a disappointing Italian meal at Tony’s Restaurant in Magic Kingdom where, in honor of Lady and the Tramp, we expected great spaghetti and meatballs and it failed to meet our expectations.

After dinner, we walked across the park again to get to the amphitheatre for the 7:30 Fantasmic! show. We had seen this show years ago, but missed it on our last trip, so wanted to see if anything had changed. As we sat waiting for 45 minutes, the wind picked up and it got unusually cold. Blankets were being sold and everyone was shivering including us, but we didn’t want to leave since we had arranged our schedule to fit this in and this show is not shown every night. To add to the cold, the people sitting behind me spilled beer on my back so that I ended up cold and wet! Instead of being very apologetic and embarrassed as I would be, when I turned around to glare at them, they said “the baby did it” so I couldn’t yell (not that I would since I knew it was an accident). They were saying that the baby pushed the mother’s hand that was holding the glass of beer. By this time, the only thing I could hope for was the show to start and that the pyrotechnics would be hot enough to radiate the heat to us since we were sitting pretty close to the front. The fire scenes did provide a little warmth. Although the show was fabulous, we were glad to get going back to our “home” that night where we turned up the heat in our room. We discovered that channel 17 on the room TV was the Disney Guide with all Disney music in the background, so we always had it on when not watching TV just to keep us in the Disney spirit. There’s never too much Disney music!

Day 4 was planned as a “rest from theme park” day to allow time to explore other parts of the “world”. I realized that we would have an extra Quick Service meal left over because we had used snack credits for the tastings lunch at Epcot on Day 2 and therefore did not eat a Quick Service lunch. Although this was a “rest from theme park” day, with all the activities planned, it was by no means going to be a real “rest” day. So to get energized, we decided to use our Quick Service meal credit to have breakfast for a change at our own resort in the Riverside Mill Food Court before heading out. This would also satisfy our desire to have a Mickey waffle. The full breakfast consisted of a platter of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, home fries,biscuit, and a mini Mickey waffle.

After this big breakfast, we decided today would be the only day to explore the rest of the resort grounds in daylight. We walked over to the Alligator Bayou section and to the Fishing Hole. There were anglers there, but we didn’t see any catches. Actually, it was better that way because I didn’t want to have to see them unhook the poor fish with the “catch and release” rule. Instead of taking the boat at our resort, we decided to walk along the Sassagoula River path which led us to the Port Orleans French Quarter resort where we explored the shops and were given free beads.

From the French Quarter, we took the boat to Downtown Disney where we transferred to the bus that would take us to the Swan hotel which is just up the block from Fantasia Gardens mini-golf. The weather was perfect for mini golf--it was overcast for the most part, but the rain held off. We had a choice of two courses, but since it was our first time at WDW mini golf, we chose the Fantasia course because it seemed whimsical and fun with the audio and water surprises. At each hole, there was a cute rhyme telling you about that particular challenge. The coupon for one free game came in handy since we were planning to play regardless of the coupon. There was an offer to play the other course for 50% off within a day, and we would have done that had we had the time in our schedule. The other course is the Fairways course—it was more challenging (not that we needed more challenge) and serious--without any of the Disney Fantasia characters. It’s something we look forward to doing on our next trip. After the golf, we took the bus back to Downtown Disney and lunch at Earl of Sandwich. Because we had eaten that big breakfast, there was no way to have an Earl’s Club and dessert, so we bagged our brownie and cookie to bring home.

After lunch, we took 2 boats from Downtown Disney to check out Saratoga Springs Resort, one we have never visited. Since this resort covers a lot of land, we only checked out the area around the shops and lobby. The racing theme was prevalent throughout the public areas, but we were not impressed enough to want to book this for a future trip. From there, it was a boat back to Downtown Disney to transfer to a bus which would take us to Animal Kingdom Lodge, another resort we have never visited. Animal Kingdom Lodge looked elegant, and the furnishings were very dark. In some ways, it reminded us of Wilderness Lodge, one of our favorites. We came here to see the savannah views that Disney promotes in its videos. There were three overlooks with various animals, none threatening, and the giraffe was nowhere in sight. It was still light so we didn’t get to experience the night vision glasses. After seeing Animal Kingdom Lodge, it was time to bus back to DD to transfer to another bus to Wilderness Lodge where we had our dinner reservation. By this time, we were getting very tired of buses and have come to the conclusion that a lot of time is wasted on them because there is no way to get from one resort to another without going to a hub to transfer. Hubs are the theme parks and Downtown Disney. No wonder it is suggested in everything you read to allow 1-1/2 hours to get to a resort from a park. It really doesn’t take that long, but with the walking and waiting for the bus if you just missed one, it comes pretty close.

Revisiting Wilderness Lodge brought back wonderful memories of our stay there years ago shortly after it opened. Nothing like relaxing by the heated pool at night after a long day of walking and hearing the geyser erupt nearby. Our Canyon Skillet dinner at Whispering Canyon was just as we remembered, but this time, we were seated outside the main dining room, away from the main action, but in a cozy warm corner which was just what we needed. The Canyon Skillet dinner is a family style meal consisting of a mixed greens salad with apple vinaigrette, coleslaw, smoked pork ribs, pulled pork, chicken, beef brisket, mashed potatoes, cowboy beans, cornbread, and corn on the cob (we forgot to take a photo). For those of you “in the know” who are wondering, the answer is “no, we did not ask for ketchup”, but the table next to us did and we witnessed the consequences. After all that food, we still had to indulge in the included desserts from which we chose kahlua-flavored chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream. It would have been nice to be able to retreat to our room right after dinner, but we had to go the bus route again to DD and transfer to the PO bus “home”. By that time it had started to rain lightly, the first rain we had on the vacation.

When we opened our room door on the morning of our 5th full day, a Mickey envelope was hanging on our door outside with information/instructions for the Magical Express bus return trip to the airport. Our assigned time was 12:30 on November 8th. I thought I had heard some whistling in the middle of the night by the door—it was Mickey delivering this envelope! Ah—the end is in sight! What great service—we didn’t even have to go to the lobby to make any arrangements.

On our 5th full day, we had to make a decision. This day was originally intended to be another “rest from theme park” day in which we would use to shop for souvenir gifts, visit the shops we wanted to in Downtown Disney and ride the balloon, weather permitting. We had one day left on our Park Hopper tickets and as always, wanted to save that for the last full day before departing. We had planned to start that day with Animal Kingdom to cover the one or two attractions we wanted there and then hop to the other parks where we still had “must dos” before we left. However, we had been gifted one day park hopper tickets from a good friend who was a cast member in New York. When we got this gift, the original plan was the reduce our park hopper package ticket to 3 days instead of 4 to save money, but the price differential was insignificant so we decided to keep the extra day ticket in the event we needed it. The question on this 5th day was: do we continue with our DTD “rest day” or do we take advantage of the extra ticket and split the final 2 days into a more leisurely 2 parks per day? If we took the parks option, then we would forgo DTD and end up with the pressure of buying all the souvenirs (which were mostly edible souvenirs) at the parks. How we needed an extra day at this point! By the way, in case you’re wondering, our original itinerary was set up to avoid the theme parks on weekend days since they would be more crowded with locals.

We decided to use the extra ticket which meant that our so-called “rest” day was gone and our final 2 days would be spent park hopping—Animal Kingdom with Magic Kingdom on one day and Studios with Epcot the last day. I usually like to end the entire trip in Magic Kingdom walking symbolically away from the castle, but logistically, it was better to end the 5th day at the Magic Kingdom since it in close proximity to our dinner reservation that night at the Polynesian Resort. Weather forecast was for possible showers the next 2 days, so with rain ponchos packed, off we went on the bus to Animal Kingdom. Of the 4 parks, Animal Kingdom has proven to be our least favorite with only 2 attractions we would want to repeat—Kilimanjaro Safaris and It’s tough to be a Bug!. The “must-do” for us in this park was the new show Finding Nemo—The Musical, which is only shown a few times each day. We walked all the way to the Safari ride only to find that the Fast Pass issued would bring us right into the middle of the next showing of Finding Nemo. Since the standby line was supposedly 20 minutes, we stood on that line hoping that if all went as scheduled, we could finish the safari and rush to Nemo on time. Well, 25 minutes later, we were still not approaching the boarding area of the safari so we made the decision to leave the line and proceed to the Nemo show. Doing that, we made it in plenty of time and got fabulous seats for a fantastic 45 minute Broadway-like production. After the show, we made our way to the other attraction on our list—the Maharajah Jungle Trek, which was a 15 minute walk along a trail where the highlights were giant bats, a Komodo dragon, and tigers. For lunch, knowing that the quick service dining places in Animal Kingdom did not appeal to us, we left Animal Kingdom and bussed to the Transportation & Ticket Center where we boarded the monorail to the Magic Kingdom.

As we entered the Magic Kingdom, a wonderful visual surprise hit us. The fall and Halloween motif we saw on Wednesday was gone and replaced by Christmas decorations. We tried to absorb all of the holiday atmosphere and store it in our memory. By this time, it was way past lunch time, but that was fine since the only reservation we were able to get for dinner at ‘Ohana that night was at 9:30. There were two places we had on the list for possible Quick Service meals at the Magic Kingdom, Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Café and Columbia Harbour House. Neither one appealed to T at the time compared to his new favorite funnel cake. As the skies darkened, we headed back to the place we discovered on day 1, Sleepy Hollow, and repeated that lunch under sheltered seating as the rain came pouring down.

The rain was short and before long, the sun came out along with the first rainbow we’ve ever seen in WDW! We decided to skip riding the new cars at the Tomorrowland Speedway since that would mean walking to the other side from where most of the other attractions we wanted were located. For the rest of the day, we were able to go to the new Enchanted Tiki Room which turned out to be the original version and ride the new Pirates of the Caribbean ride—yes, we found Capt. Jack Sparrow in the scenes. We also revisited the Jungle Cruise (it’s always fun to watch how each cast member interprets their script) and since we haven’t been to the Country Bear Jamboree for over 20 years, we did that too, and found it just as hokey as it was back then. We finished off the day at Magic Kingdom with an unexpected seasonal show in the castle forecourt called Cinderella’s Holiday Wish. This show concludes with the magical lighting of hundreds of thousands of twinkling lights wrapped around the castle for the holiday season. As we slowly walked away from the castle, we stopped in the shops along Main Street as we made our way towards the Polynesian Resort where the Wishes fireworks at 8 PM could be viewed from its beach with speakers broadcasting the show.

The original plan was to take the watercraft from Magic Kingdom to Polynesian, but by the time we got to the dock, it had just departed, so instead of waiting 20 minutes for the next boat, we opted to enjoy the monorail one more time to the Polynesian Resort. The rain forest did not seem as colorful as we remembered it, but maybe that’s because we arrived in the evening. It was a cool evening and even cooler by the beach where we waited about 10 minutes for the fireworks. Watching and listening to the fireworks away from the crowds of Main Street is a nice experience and would have been even nicer on a summer night. However, a few minutes into this serene environment, the rain started. Thank goodness the beach is adjacent to the pool area where there were warm towels. We wrapped ourselves in these towels to shield us from the cold and rain until the rain got too heavy for anyone to enjoy it, so most people left before the fireworks ended—what a bummer!

It was only 8:20 by the time we dried up and got to ‘Ohana, the one place we always wanted to try, but never had a chance to do so. We inquired whether there was any way they could get us in earlier than our reservation at 9:30 since by that time T’s hands were icy from hunger and his condition. They were very concerned and got us seated by 8:40. Because I had indicated at the time of the reservation that my son had certain food allergies, the chef came to our table and explained what each item in the Feast contained and offered alternatives to those he couldn’t eat. T only opted to skip the salad entirely which was not an inconvenience since there was so much other food. The food started coming immediately after the talk with the chef.

The ‘Ohana meal is served in an all-you-can-eat family style manner. It consists of a coconut/pineapple bread, appetizers of pork fried dumplings, coriander chicken wings, and a mixed greens salad accompanied by stir-fried broccoli and lo mein. Then the servers come around with skewers of meat that were prepared over an oak fire--sirloin steak, Asian BBQ pork loin, grilled chicken, and whole un-peeled shrimp. You get a few pieces of each meat at a time so your plate is completely filled with hardly room to cut them. Three sauces were provided: peanut, chimichurri and sweet-and-sour. Neither of us had any room for seconds knowing that their famous dessert of 'Ohana bread pudding a la mode with banana foster sauce was coming. During the meal, an authentic Hawaiian entertainer sang and played the ukulele, gave hula lessons to guests to the tune of the Hukilau song (which brought back fond memories of my Hawaiian vacation ages ago), and held a coconut race for the kids. After the meal, we had a nice long chat with him outside the restaurant and he ended up giving me his mini-carnation fresh flower lei—another wonderful surprise! (This was much nicer that the artificial leis given to the participants in the hula lesson.) We didn’t want to, but had to leave the Polynesian to wait outside in the cold misty rain at the bus stop for the bus to DTD and transfer to our bus to POR.

For the last full day, I had originally booked a final Table Service character breakfast at 1900 Park Fare in the Grand Floridian since this would satisfy our desire to visit Grand Floridian again as well as finishing off a vacation with a character meal. As a result of changing our itinerary with the extra theme park ticket and our plan to start the day at Hollywood Studios, a trip to the Grand Floridian would mean more travelling time and did not make sense. We no longer felt the need to have a character meal, and since we already had our Mickey waffle on this vacation, we did not need to have breakfast. The decision was to cancel that reservation (which we did the day before) and use that Table Service credit for dinner the same day. Since the plan was to be at Epcot by dinner time, we tried to get a reservation at Tutto Italia and hope for a better Italian restaurant experience, but as we expected, they did not have availability. I would have tried for the Coral Reef Restaurant, but we both agreed that seafood can be iffy and we didn’t want to chance that for our last night. So we tried for a repeat at Les Chefs since we enjoyed it so much the first time and got the reservation. All set for the final stretch!

Day 6 arrived before we knew it. When we opened the door this time, another Mickey envelope was hanging on it with our boarding passes for the next day. More great service without asking. We made our way to Disney Hollywood Studios and felt almost like a VIP as we used our gifted ticket for special entry (though we still had to go through the security bag check). We loved the Toy Story Midway Mania so much the first time around that we really wanted to go through it again, but by the time we got to the Fast Pass area, all of them had been given away for the day and the standby line was too long to waste time on for a second ride.

So on to the Animation Academy which we didn’t get to do on the previous visit. As luck would have it, we learned how to draw a character we really liked—Eeyore! It was a great experience as well as a confidence booster for non-artists like us. We get to keep our drawings as souvenirs. As we left the Academy and walked through the gift shop (exiting through a gift shop is the norm here), we saw a single animator coloring in a cel. There used to be many animators working at the Studios for visitors to observe. How we miss seeing those animators at work and how we miss hand-drawn animation—a lost art.

It was a short visit to Studios, but we had to head to Epcot for lunch. Another first for us was taking a boat from the Studios to Epcot. What a fun new experience sailing past the Swan, Boardwalk, and Yacht Clubs to get to the World Showcase entrance of Epcot. This entrance saved us some walking since it was right near the Boulangerie Patisserie in France where we planned to have our delicious Quick Service Lunches of Quiche Lorraine and Ham and Cheese Croissant with desserts of chocolate sacristain and a chocolate croissant. Both lunches were shared in order to get a variety of tastes. We always thought this bakery only had the few visible outdoor tables, but we found that there are quite a few more tables inside an adjacent room.

Time for more exploring and shows in World Showcase that we missed while we walking around the second day sampling at the Food Festival. We had 4 more snack credits we could have used for more tastings, but our stomachs just wouldn’t let us. Since we were at the French pavilion, I suggested we watch the film “Impressions de France” that T missed entirely at age 3 since he was napping in his stroller while we watched it. It was so long ago that I don’t even know whether it’s still the same film, but this time, it was quite good and served its purpose of making one want to visit France. After that, we caught the end of the British Revolution show (singing Beatles tunes) in the United Kingdom pavilion and I tried to walk through the hedge maze with eyes closed and T navigating. We were just trying to replicate one of the challenges in the TV show “Survivor.” One of the most entertaining and amazing shows was The Jeweled Dragon Acrobats in front of the China pavilion. They had one of the largest audiences of the World Showcase shows. Air Supply was performing that night where The Pointer Sisters had been previously, but we didn’t stay to watch. Instead, we went to the Re-Imagined Spaceship Earth where the ride into the sphere is now interactive and a huge improvement over the previous two versions.

As mentioned before, dinner was to be a repeat visit to Les Chefs. With the exception of two changes—I had the Salade au bleu which was delicious, especially for someone who doesn’t like blue cheese normally and Crème Brulee for dessert—we repeated I our meal from day 2 and enjoyed it just as much. lluminations began during dinner, and we were able to see a part of it from our seats. After dinner, we did our souvenir shopping in the Future World shops and even used up our remaining 4 snack credits for the Mickey Rice Krispie treats to bring home. Another new touch we noticed on this trip was that the cast members all wave and say good-bye as you’re exiting the parks at closing time. Sometimes, they line up to do this and even have Mickey gloved hands!

That night, I packed as much as I could to save time the following morning. The next morning, I was able to get a box from the hotel gift shop in which to transport my fresh lei which had been refrigerated since I brought it back. Originally, I thought we would have time to take one last boat ride down the river at have our lunch at the Sassagoula Floatworks and Food Factory at PO French Quarter, but we didn’t want to chance missing our bus, so we stayed at our resort and had our last Quick Service Lunch at the Riverside Mill Food Court. We opted for the make your own pasta station and it was less than satisfying. The desserts of a cupcake and brownie were packed to go home with us and they proved just ok when we had them at home. The Magical Express Bus arrived as scheduled and we were happy to see that it was one they use for cruises with windows in the shape of port holes. Inside, it was the same comfy, clean bus and we arrived at McCoy with plenty of time to explore the Disney, Sea World, and Universal shops there.

Many memories were made on this trip and many more are left to be made on future trips. We didn’t get to do everything we planned and we know that in order to have done that, we would have had to extend our vacation. We also didn’t get to enjoy the resorts as much as we would have liked. I would have liked a “rest from theme park day” not as a day to travel to other places, but to just rest and enjoy our own resort—perhaps rent some water craft, sit by the pool, people watch and nature watch. We saw plenty of squirrels, but no rabbits (which were plentiful during our previous stay at the Polynesian Resort). We would have liked to have seen more attractions/shows at the four parks (eg. Tomorrowland Speedway, The Magic, The Memories, and You!, Universe of Energy, Jedi Academy, Balloon Ride in DTD) and just spend time chatting with the international cast members in Epcot. As much as we do not care to go shopping since almost every type of store can be found in NY, we would have liked to explore some of the unique stores in Downtown Disney and of course, visit the World of Disney store which we have missed on our last trip as well. And even as much as this was a foodie vacation with all the different foods and meals, there were many more restaurants (eg. Tutto Italia, Le Cellier, Coral Reef, Kringla Bakeri, Brown Derby, Wolfgang Puck Express) and specialty snacks on our planning list (eg. school bread, zebra dome, Contempo Café cupcakes) that we would have liked to sample if there were more days. A campfire sing-along with Chip and Dale at Ft. Wilderness would have been a fun way to end one of the days, but the closest we ever got to Ft. Wilderness was Wilderness Lodge which is a bike ride away. And we have never even taken any of the “behind the scenes” tours that are offered. There are so many reasons to justify return trips. There’s also a new Fantasyland under construction along with a new castle.

This report is lengthier than I ever anticipated. In order to keep the memories alive, I wanted to include as much as we remembered. We hope this answers the question we are frequently asked about why we keep on returning and how is it possible that we haven’t seen everything yet with all the trips we’ve made. To us, WDW is an escape from reality into a magical fantasy world that is constantly changing to remain relevant. Walt Disney called Disneyland “happy place” at its opening, and although he didn’t get to see the opening of Disneyworld, it is also truly a “happy place”.

Note: The text under the banner is incorrect since it was inserted prior to this trip. Any help in removing it will be appreciated. Also, in my report, I had photos embedded among the text, but it didn't copy onto this format.

 

[appleorchard]

Nice report--sounds like you had a great time!