QuickGold
Studios Superman
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2002
- Messages
- 3,187
Who: Me! I went solo for the first time and here's my story.
When: February 5-8, 2004
For back info on my pretrip details, check out http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=494050
Didn't sleep much ...maybe 3 or 4 hours. Aside from general excitement, I kept waking up remembering things to pack (like shoes that are good for walking with shorts). At anyrate, I was up at 7, got my stuff together and headed to the airport. The night before I had printed out my boarding pass(which is great because you earn extra frequent flier miles) but I was concerned that I would get there way too early. Luckily, thanks to a slow city bus and getting dropped off at the wrong terminal, I got there with roughly 10 minutes to spare before boarding. This was my first time flying Song and I was generally impressed. I had flown Jetblue before so I was used to alot of the features. The trivia game was fun and a good warm up for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. My only gripe was there was no map showing your progress. As someone who has an avid fear of flying, its important to know how much longer exactly you must suffer.
Regardless, I landed(in 1 piece) at a little before one. A friend of mine, Jillian, was supposed to pick me up at the airport. I'd been friends with her over the internet via my site and she offered to pick me up(she's also a CM). Jillian picked me up at the airport and we headed off to grab a quick lunch and then to drop my stuff off at the hotel. More on the hotel later. Now, there's a funny story regarding me and Jillian being "married". In case you didn't know, we're not married, not going out, nothing like that. When I checked in they made us go talk to the <strike>wonderfuly courteus and lovely</strike> unsolicitated hard-pitch sales person who had our "welcome package"(otherwise known as unsolicitated advertisements to places I have no intention of ever going). Well she asked us if we were married. Jillian was of course, the smart and sensible person who would never lie(She is a CM after all). I, on the otherhand, was eager to see where this was going so I played along. I told her we were getting married and had 2 kids. Basically she wanted to send us on a timeshare presentation but since we didnt have ID that matched last names and/or addresses it wasnt gonna fly. Jillian was a good sport until we left the lobby to which she proceeded to burst out laughing. She must not have noticed the glass doors behind us as the woman must have thought we were a bit crazy. It was all fun and throughout the trip we made up reasons why our "kids" were never around(my favorite was I locked them in the hotel safe and forgot the combo). Anyway, that's our little inside joke.
Back to my trip....I got to Epcot at abotu 2:45. I have never experienced Disney like this before. Gorgeous weather, no lines(waits were 10 mins all day!) and no crowds. It's the way Walt envisioned it. I went to ride Mission:Space first(Duh) and I wasn't that impressed, to tell the truth. It was good, but I was expecting the best Disney ride ever. Although I'm slightly biased towards the Studios in general, I think Rock n Roller Coaster & Tower of Terror to be better. Oh well, that opinion didn't stop me from riding 4 times
I rode a few other attractions and noted during the robot portion of Test Track ("Corosives test"), the robot on the left is broken(it didn't do anything). Also, there were a number of times on Journey Into Your Imagination where nothing happened when something was clearly supposed to happen(i.e. the vision test portion).
At about 6 I started "Drinking Around the World". Opting to save a dollar I got a cup of Dos Equis in Mexico instead of a margaritta. On to the land of cruise ship registries and off shore oil platforms - Norway! Maelstrom is good for a few minutes to sit and relax - that and coming up with your best Norwegian accent. The beer in Norway tastes alot like Budweiser, so I was suspicous that perhaps I was overcharged for bad foreign beer. After Norway I moved to china. Beer here is the cheapest thus far. Beer in Mexico and Norway cost about $6.75 but in China it was $4.50, albeit the serving size was smaller. I'm not sure if its the beer or me but this "chinese beer" tasts alot like all the other beers I've had. I decided to wait as long as possible before eating dinner as to avoid the crowds and ate at about 7:30 in Sommerfest in Germany. The entrances to Sommerfest(the counter service place) and Biergarten(spelled wrong, I'm sure and it's the full service place) is set up like restrooms...guys this way and girls that way. I thought it was.....interesting.I found the schnitzel to be very good but the pretzel to be pretty bad(Can we say 'Microwave'?). At the risk of losing credibility in my fraternity, dark beer in Germany is quite....dark. Stick with the Light beer.
By now the beer had caught up with me so I had to stop drinking. Let me tell you, Drinking Around the World is a baaaad idea. Especially after a day of walking and being tired. All it does is spend money quickly, make you tired and want to go to bed. I spent a good 30-60 minutes sobering up before Illuminations. Illuminations was great, although it was much shorter than I remember(15 minutes?!). After the show, I asked a CM at Morrocco if I could buy flowers somewhere on Epcot. The reason I asked was I wanted to get Jillian flowers as a gift when I got to the airport but the only place selling them in Orlando's airport was out of a dispenser machine and they looked quite dead. Well the CM, call up, told me there was no place and that I should go across the path and pick a flower from the display. Now, although the CM told me to do it, I still felt like I'd be pounced on by half a dozen CM's for looking the wrong way at the flowers. So I non-chalantly walked backwards, whistling to myself, got to the flowers, looked around and snagged a rose. Afterwards I walked back from the International Gateway to MGM....sort of. I definetly took the "scenic route" and after criss-crossing the Boardwalk area several times, I finally met up with Jillian(my ride home). The rose had welted quite a bit by the time I gave it to her but it's the thought that counts, right? As soon as I got back to the hotel, my face hit the pillow and I was out.
Things I Learned:
- Drinking Around the World is not such a great idea. After walking all day and not sleeping much, by the time you get halfway done with World Showcase, you'll be wanting a nap.
- Jillian Rocks
-La Quinta is a great hotel for anywho who wants to save $$ and stay at a halfway decent hotel very close to it all.
When: February 5-8, 2004
For back info on my pretrip details, check out http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=494050
Didn't sleep much ...maybe 3 or 4 hours. Aside from general excitement, I kept waking up remembering things to pack (like shoes that are good for walking with shorts). At anyrate, I was up at 7, got my stuff together and headed to the airport. The night before I had printed out my boarding pass(which is great because you earn extra frequent flier miles) but I was concerned that I would get there way too early. Luckily, thanks to a slow city bus and getting dropped off at the wrong terminal, I got there with roughly 10 minutes to spare before boarding. This was my first time flying Song and I was generally impressed. I had flown Jetblue before so I was used to alot of the features. The trivia game was fun and a good warm up for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. My only gripe was there was no map showing your progress. As someone who has an avid fear of flying, its important to know how much longer exactly you must suffer.
Regardless, I landed(in 1 piece) at a little before one. A friend of mine, Jillian, was supposed to pick me up at the airport. I'd been friends with her over the internet via my site and she offered to pick me up(she's also a CM). Jillian picked me up at the airport and we headed off to grab a quick lunch and then to drop my stuff off at the hotel. More on the hotel later. Now, there's a funny story regarding me and Jillian being "married". In case you didn't know, we're not married, not going out, nothing like that. When I checked in they made us go talk to the <strike>wonderfuly courteus and lovely</strike> unsolicitated hard-pitch sales person who had our "welcome package"(otherwise known as unsolicitated advertisements to places I have no intention of ever going). Well she asked us if we were married. Jillian was of course, the smart and sensible person who would never lie(She is a CM after all). I, on the otherhand, was eager to see where this was going so I played along. I told her we were getting married and had 2 kids. Basically she wanted to send us on a timeshare presentation but since we didnt have ID that matched last names and/or addresses it wasnt gonna fly. Jillian was a good sport until we left the lobby to which she proceeded to burst out laughing. She must not have noticed the glass doors behind us as the woman must have thought we were a bit crazy. It was all fun and throughout the trip we made up reasons why our "kids" were never around(my favorite was I locked them in the hotel safe and forgot the combo). Anyway, that's our little inside joke.
Back to my trip....I got to Epcot at abotu 2:45. I have never experienced Disney like this before. Gorgeous weather, no lines(waits were 10 mins all day!) and no crowds. It's the way Walt envisioned it. I went to ride Mission:Space first(Duh) and I wasn't that impressed, to tell the truth. It was good, but I was expecting the best Disney ride ever. Although I'm slightly biased towards the Studios in general, I think Rock n Roller Coaster & Tower of Terror to be better. Oh well, that opinion didn't stop me from riding 4 times
I rode a few other attractions and noted during the robot portion of Test Track ("Corosives test"), the robot on the left is broken(it didn't do anything). Also, there were a number of times on Journey Into Your Imagination where nothing happened when something was clearly supposed to happen(i.e. the vision test portion). At about 6 I started "Drinking Around the World". Opting to save a dollar I got a cup of Dos Equis in Mexico instead of a margaritta. On to the land of cruise ship registries and off shore oil platforms - Norway! Maelstrom is good for a few minutes to sit and relax - that and coming up with your best Norwegian accent. The beer in Norway tastes alot like Budweiser, so I was suspicous that perhaps I was overcharged for bad foreign beer. After Norway I moved to china. Beer here is the cheapest thus far. Beer in Mexico and Norway cost about $6.75 but in China it was $4.50, albeit the serving size was smaller. I'm not sure if its the beer or me but this "chinese beer" tasts alot like all the other beers I've had. I decided to wait as long as possible before eating dinner as to avoid the crowds and ate at about 7:30 in Sommerfest in Germany. The entrances to Sommerfest(the counter service place) and Biergarten(spelled wrong, I'm sure and it's the full service place) is set up like restrooms...guys this way and girls that way. I thought it was.....interesting.I found the schnitzel to be very good but the pretzel to be pretty bad(Can we say 'Microwave'?). At the risk of losing credibility in my fraternity, dark beer in Germany is quite....dark. Stick with the Light beer.
By now the beer had caught up with me so I had to stop drinking. Let me tell you, Drinking Around the World is a baaaad idea. Especially after a day of walking and being tired. All it does is spend money quickly, make you tired and want to go to bed. I spent a good 30-60 minutes sobering up before Illuminations. Illuminations was great, although it was much shorter than I remember(15 minutes?!). After the show, I asked a CM at Morrocco if I could buy flowers somewhere on Epcot. The reason I asked was I wanted to get Jillian flowers as a gift when I got to the airport but the only place selling them in Orlando's airport was out of a dispenser machine and they looked quite dead. Well the CM, call up, told me there was no place and that I should go across the path and pick a flower from the display. Now, although the CM told me to do it, I still felt like I'd be pounced on by half a dozen CM's for looking the wrong way at the flowers. So I non-chalantly walked backwards, whistling to myself, got to the flowers, looked around and snagged a rose. Afterwards I walked back from the International Gateway to MGM....sort of. I definetly took the "scenic route" and after criss-crossing the Boardwalk area several times, I finally met up with Jillian(my ride home). The rose had welted quite a bit by the time I gave it to her but it's the thought that counts, right? As soon as I got back to the hotel, my face hit the pillow and I was out.
Things I Learned:
- Drinking Around the World is not such a great idea. After walking all day and not sleeping much, by the time you get halfway done with World Showcase, you'll be wanting a nap.
- Jillian Rocks
-La Quinta is a great hotel for anywho who wants to save $$ and stay at a halfway decent hotel very close to it all.
