My first of a two week adventure at WDW

[Mr D]

This will be brief as I have just eaten lunch at our vacation home several miles from WDW. We plan to visit the World Showcase tonight and see Illuminations if it isn't too windy, the weather has been unusually warm here in Orlando and has been hard on me to adjust from my many years of living in Alaska, first off all my allrgies resurfaced, second is a little thing called "sunburn" but my family has had lots of fun and I have seen all four parks. There is a lot of minor things I have noticed that could be improved upon like the sound system at Fantasmic needs tweaking to produce a more sound separation (stereo) and a little bit more in frequency changes, it sounds like an old AM radio compared to the show in Anaheim which to my ears was almost of Dolby Surround Sound. Also briefly is the rancid smell from EPCOT Future World from Ellens Energy Adventure to the queue before Test Track, possibly it was from all the toddlers that had diapers on playing in the fountains and the water cycled the "essence de babie" into the air. Also my bronchitis flared up very bad when we went up into Spaceship Earth past the burning of the libraries area, the sulphur and whatever mix was of such fine particulate particles I firmly believe could pose a health hazard to the elderly or to those like me with a resperatory problem, I had to leave the park early because of the stinging pain it left in my throat afterwards. I will post more later of my first week as it was not until yesterday I managed to get my new laptop hooked up and running, overall and in a nutshell the crowds are low, the weather nice and warm, DAK and MGM Studios are very nicely built and maintained, Tarzan Rocks was my favorite as was Ariels show at MGM was my grandaughters. Gotta go now for tonights adventure, more to come.

 

[snuggles]

I hope your bronchitis didnt cause too many problems. Hope you have a wonderful time.

 

[Mr D]

Its becoming manageable now unless some old bat is smoking next to me like when we waited for the parade at Worldshowcase tonight, and then they try to steal your chair! However Illuminations was very good but could be longer. A short day, tomorrow its IOA.

 

[Mr D]

Well we never made it to IOA or any other park other than Disney. it was a slow peaceful vacation and we never hurried, when everyone else was lining up 10 deep to see the parades we went elsewhere, I was not impressed with the parade at Epcot, all my family asked over and over was "is that all?" and as for the one at DSMGM the crowds were too much to deal with and we never saw that one and at the MK that one seemed lackluster and worn out, my kids just yawned at it. Tomorrow we leave Orlando after two weeks of WDW and we decided to never return, I will not renew our passports and instead will chart for DL and TDS in the future. Why? because it was the atmosphere at WDW, it felt way too much like we were constantly being herded from gift shop to gift shop. Only the elderly retirement age cast members took out the time to interact with us, one especially "Joseph" that worked the Astro-Orbitor elevators tues the 11th was exceptionally polite and constantly tried to cheer my hot kids up, if I was upper management I would look at this guys future position as he had true heart and spirit for what is sorely lacking at WDW.....true Disney spirit, thanks Joe from the family from Alaska. And also was a young man named "Kuri" who worked Fantasmic, he too was the rare castmember that enjoyed working at Disney and communicating with us instead of treating us as herds of cattle. These were employess I would appreciate having at my own business back home. My other peeve was when my fancy Citizen World Time watch died and I went searching for a battery, there is a sizable shop on Main Street that sells thousands of Disney watches, some very expensive collectors items. But did they have a simple watch battery? Nope and they could care less about any service.

 

[Mr D]

The crowds were for the most part almost nonexistant on the weekdays but so were most of the shows and shops, some eateries were open on alternate days or not till 11am. The foreign families were very rude pushing my kids aside so as to hog the character greetings. The parks were very clean and at Mickeys ToonTown Fair there was fresh paint on the fence at the barnstormer. A couple of engineers told me to apply for a job at the roundhouse because i knew locomotives (been collecting them for many years) and also my mechanical background, I seriously considered heading over near Pleasure Island to the casting department and applying for a Disney career. BUT.....I make $18 an hour, underpaid even at that wage in Alaska and a lot of CM's have been working at WDW for years and still barely make over minimum wage. I also heard from a CM at Frontierland that Michael Eisner was admonished (actually chewed out) for exceeding the federal limit of foreign visa employess at WDW especially now when our national security is at stake. No I would never give my heart and soul out to a corporation that has so little respect for its employees. I may try at DL where the southern Ca. weather is easier. The first week in Orlando made me really sick with bronchitis, hay fever and general weakness which i think is from the heat and high humidity, after I am really acclimated to the dry semiarid cold climate where I routinel work outdoors all day at 10 degrees. But still my birthday was dec 4th, I turned 45, my house is nearly paid off I have many many skills such as diesel mechanic, machinist, electrician and plant maintenance of over 25 years now, I would possibly enjoy working for Disney until retirement only if I could give all that I know and all of my heart and not for just a day job but as a lifes worth of achievements, maybe after Eisner is gone will Disney hire again.

 

[Mr D]

Well I arrived back in Alaska after a long day of flying, I do have advice for any that are flying more than 2 hours, rent or buy a DVD player and a headset. I rented one at MCO (Orlando) with 3 batteries, 3 DVD's for about 10 hours in the air and it really helped to make the time fly pun intended. Gawd its cold back home, its -28f my water is froze, sewage froze spent all day yesterday getting stuff going again and again looking back at what I actually think was a waste of funds to visit WDW, my wife thinks so and even my kids are much less enthusiastic about returning all they say is that they want to go swimming some more, yeah right swimming in Alaska. Now I guess that returning to WDW is out for quite a long time, I am going to focus on Tokyo DisneySea/TDL for our next vacation, at least at TDS there is none of the stupid placement of the gift shops like a barricade holding us hostage until we buy some garbage before we can leave the rides like at WDW. I do miss the heat wave a little bit though, it was 83f almost every day at WDW.

 

[Muffy]

We love WDW and will continue to visit. At this point it is like visiting an old familar friend. Sorry to hear you missed out on a great vacation.

 

[nativetxn]

Sorry to hear that your bronchitis flared up during your trip.