AlmostApril
(on the advice of legal counsel, this space intent
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2005
- Messages
- 61
I'M BACK ! ! ! 
I copied and pasted my itinerary below and added comments about everything:
Monday April 18th
*Limo picks us up at home @ 6:30 AM It was our first limo ride ever, and it was pretty cool. Not worth the $160 though.
*Flight from Logan Airport leaves @ 9:55 AM Logan was so much more relaxed and quiet than I imagined it to be. Everything was easy to find and understand. This was also my first plane ride ever. I squeezed my husband's hand so tight during take-off, but a few minutes later I was pushing my son out of the way to look out the window. I LOVED it!
*2-hour stop-over in Philadelphia Almost there!
*Flight lands in Orlando @ 3:55 PM Woo-hoo! Actually, we landed at about 3:30. Earlier than I thought. Orlando airport is HUGE and nice!
*Quicksilver pick-up at airport and bring us to All-Star Sports Resort The guy was waiting for us at baggage claim. He was really nice! The ride was about 25 minutes to the resort.
*Check-in, unpack, explore hotel and swim in the pool Check-in went so smoothly! The girl was very nice. We didn't request a building cuz we thought whatever we got would be fate and would be the best, and sure enough we got the Home-Run Hotel. Baseball is our favorite sport! We were happy. Then we hopped over to guest services and added our 5th day of park-hopper passes which only came to $24 total! We brought our own luggage to room #9156 and by that time it was almost 5:00 PM. My son wanted to jump right in the pool, so we let him have about 20 minutes to swim while my husband and I sat by the pool and called home. I loved the Home-Run hotel. When we first walked out of the main building and saw the Surfs-Up pool, it was loud and chaotic. Our pool was quiet and had very few people in it! I love that section! I couldn't believe how warm they keep the water though! I like a cool pool for those warm days. Oh well. So we wanted to clean up and catch a bus to MK for our PS reservations at CP. The reservations weren't until 8:00, but we thought we might be able to get in earlier if we got there at 7:00. Well...
*Dinner at Crystal Palace @ 8:00 PM The bus to MK was a million miles long. I remembered asking you all if it was any quicker to take the bus to Epcot and then hop on the monorail to MK, and you all said it was pretty much the same. So, I figured, what the heck. The Epcot bus line had like 3 people in it, so we decided to go for it. It was cool to ride the monorail. When we got to TTC, they said transportation was available to MK by ferry only, at the time! I was like, what!?! So we got in a HUGE line for the ferry. All this running around and waiting in line made me wish I had just taken the MK bus. We were on the ferry at sunset which was really beautiful. I was so mesmerized by the Contemporary and GF. They looked so beautiful, just like in the pictures! And of course, the castle too! By the time we finally arrived at MK, it was about 7:45. We walked right over to CP and there was chaos! Busy busy busy! BIG waiting line. Even with priority seating for 8:00, I think we were finally seated 15 minutes or so after. But inside was BEAUTIFUL! Pooh, Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore all posed for pictures and gave my son autographs. The food was...wow...I'm so glad we went there. Unfortunately I had no appetite that night. I just had salad and chicken, which were delicious. My husband ate a lot and so did my son. For dessert I had a little bit of everything. I wish I remembered exactly, but silly me was too lazy to write it down! What I remember the most from CP was our waitress, Lorraine, was the sweetest, nicest, cutest, most pleasant waitress I ever had in my life! Definitely our favorite.
*Wishes @ 10:00 PM When we were done eating we walked around a little before Wishes started. We ventured a little bit into Frontierland and my son and husband played that shooting game for a while. They loved it. Then we started to head over to the castle. We stopped and watched Wishes from the little bridge in Liberty Square next to Sleepy Hollow. It wasn't the best viewing spot, I dont know how it happened but we just kinda ended up stopping there. It was really crowded. From our view, the fireworks were to the left of the castle instead of behind it. We couldn't see Tink, she was behind a tree. But it was still really nice, the music and fireworks and images on the castle. I liked it. But I LOVED Spectromagic!
*Spectro @ 11:00 PM I loved Spectro soooo much! It was beautiful! We got a great spot, right on the curb in front of the train station at the entrance, where the parade first comes out. I'll post my video of it when I figure out how. As soon as that was finished, we headed out the exit, and hopped on the bus back to the hotel.
*Bedtime I think we got back to the hotel around 12:30. Long day, huh?
Tuesday April 19th
*Breakfast at End Zone food court at hotel (1 counter-service point each) Okay, first of all, I LOVE the dining plan. They make you get a dessert with breakfast! Choices of big chocolate-covered croissants and danishes and donuts! The food court was noisy and chaotic and crowded though.
*Catch bus to Epcot for park opening at 9:00 AM The buses were crowded and the lines were always so long! I never took you guys seriously when you said to allow an hour or more for transportation, but now I understand! And I LOVED Epcot the most out of all the parks! The day I was there, it was really quiet and relaxing and peaceful. The were no crowds! I loved the birds chirping everywhere! *Get Fastpasses right away for Test Track and Mission Space. Then Maelstrom and Honey I Shrunk Audience later. I LOVED Mission Space! It was the first ride we went on. We waited in line because the wait time was only 20 minutes I think. We got a Fastpass for Test Track. I wish I wrote down what all the wait times were and the Fastpass times, but I forgot. Actually, I was too lazy at the end of the day to write it all down. I was nervous about Mission Space because it warned you about the spinning and the enclosed spaces. But I thought it was really realistic and fun. I screamed a lot. We were suppose to have jobs (pilot, etc.) but I couldnt pay attention to any of the buttons I was suppose to be pushing. Also, I found that the only time I felt dizzy was when I took my eyes off the screen and looked at the buttons. Test Track was fun, but I thought it was going to be more of a roller coaster-type ride and less of the little tests and riding around. But the roller coaster-type parts were really fast and smooth and fun. I remember one funny part during the tests, they said they were going to do an element test and went through some extreme heat and then some extreme cold. When we went through the cold, it didnt even feel cold and I said, "Thats what Florida considers cold? Come to New England!" LOL! I really liked Maelstrom. It wasnt as wild as I thought, but it was really cool. I was just so in awe of all of the detail in all of the rides at Disney World. They put in sooo much to make everything so perfect! And Honey I Shrunk The Audience was okay. The other attractions we did were Ellens Energy Adventure, which was so much more awesome than I thought it would be, Journey Into Imagination with Figment, which was really cute, Spaceship Earth, which I LOVED LOVED LOVED!, and The Living Seas, which was just okay. Soarin was up and runnin and we really wanted to do it but just never had the time! We spent much more time in Futureworld than in World Showcase. We just walked through all the countries and didnt really stop at any of them. Except Mexico where we got a delicious Fiesta Margarita! Wow, was that good! And one thing that was pretty cool was while walking through Morocco, a bus of characters drove right over to us and stopped to so pictures and autographs. There was hardly anybody around and we got pics and autographs of about 8 characters in about 15 minutes! Big ones too, like Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, Donald, etc. It was unbelievable! We were definitely at the right place at the right time! I liked Ice Station Cool, it was pretty neat to try those sodas from other countried although they were all disgusting! I liked Minnies Butterfly garden, it was so pretty and relaxing!
*Quick lunch at Electric Umbrella (1 counter-service point each) This actually turned into an early dinner since we werent hungry for lunch. This place was cool. I had thee most delicious salad I ever had here! The Island Chicken Salad, ymmm! I also noticed here, eating outside, that the squirrels in the World come really close to you!
*Illuminations @ 9:00 PM Illuminations was the nighttime event I liked the least.Maybe I just picked a bad spot to sit. I remembered someone suggesting a really nice coffee and pastry place in France, so we started walking through World Showcase and figured wed just pick a spot to sit along the way. We really wanted to get a cappucino, but all the food places started to close already! We were a little mad about that. So we kept walking through the World Showcase, trying to find a coffee place that was still open. We ended up staying and watching from France. Which probably wasnt the best idea. We saw the fireworks okay but couldnt get a good view of that globe and other stuff.
*Bedtime Exhausted! I think we ended up getting back around midnight. Another long day!
Wednesday April 20th
*Breakfast at End Zone food court at hotel (1 counter-service point each) Stuffed myself with more breakfast...yummm
*Catch bus to Magic Kingdom for park opening at 9:00 AM We really wanted to get to the park before opening, but didnt quite make it. We were still too exhausted fromt the night before. Magic Kingdom was so unlike Epcot in that it was super super crowded and chaotic! Wow! And it didnt help that the first rides we wanted to go on were closed down! Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Pirates Of The Caribbean! We dont know why but we couldnt believe it! So we went to Jungle Cruise and ended up waiting 50 minutes! It was cute but totally not worth the wait. By the time that was over it was noon! But by then, those other rides were up and running again, thank god!
*Get Fastpasses right away for Splash Mountain, Stitch, Haunted Mansion and Thunder Mountain. Then Buzz Lightyear, Jungle Cruise and Space Mountain later We had fastpasses for Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Haunted Mansion, and Thunder Mountain. Fastpass is so awesome! I loved walking right by 100s of people just standing in the regular line, it feels so good! Space Mountain was nothing like I imagined. I thought it would be a nice, smooth ride. But it was really bumpy and jerky! It was definitely an old-school coaster. But I liked it. But now I dont regret at all standing in line for over an hour and then chickening out at the last minute 16 years ago! Haunted Mansion was wicked cool! I loved how it, and all the other Disney rides are so long! Theyre not over and done with in 5 mintes like at other parks! And Mansion never got boring! I tried looking for the ring on the ground at the exit but couldnt find it. Oh well. And I absolutely LOVED Pirates! It was so detailed and excited and it was just like the movie! And Thunder Mountain was wicked cool! My son loved all these rides too! The only ride he was a little bored on was Small World. I loved it! I remember thinking it was lame when I was a kid too, but it was so beautiful and cheery and detailed! Wow! And, by the way, my theory was correct. I had the theory that since we already saw Spectro and Wishes on Monday night, we could skip it, and there would be really short lines for the rides during those events. Boy was I right! We got on way more rides at night than we did during the day, all the lines being 5 minutes long or less! At night we did Splash Mountain, which I LOVED! It was so long and detailed and adorable and the big drop wasnt even that scary, it was fun! Stitch, which I must agree with most of the negative reviews, was a little weird. My son liked it though. I just thought it was a little boring and strange. Buzz Lightyear was wicked cool, Peter Pan, which was nice and cute and relaxing, Philharmagic, which was wicked awesome, Indy Speedway, which I let my son drive our car and I videotaped it, was just okay, but he loved driving. Astro-Orbiter was our last ride of the day, I thought was scary cuz it was so high, I didnt put mine all the way up and my son was making fun of me.
*Priority Seating reservations at Cinderella's Royal Table for lunch at 1:40 PM (1 table-service point each) This was thee most fanciest lunch I have ever had in my life! I had the Focaccia Sandwich and it was gigantic! I couldnt even eat half of it! And let me just say, that this dining plan was amazing! Why anyone wouldnt do it, I dont know. We paid an extra $400 for this plan and spent over $600 in food! So we pretty much made $200 on the deal! Cool, huh? Anyway, when we got ther, Cinderella herself was downstairs! We were the only ones in the room with her! She was very nice! Then we went upstairs to eat lunch. It was so cool to actually be inside the castle! It was so fancy and magical inside! My husband had the Grilled Portabella Mushrooms and Roasted Aspauragus. Now THAT was a fancy lunch! We also ordered the Bibbiddy Bobbiddy Brew and bought the souveneir mug.
*Dream Come True Parade @ 3:00 PM We had great front row seats right in front of the castle when we came out of lunch. This parade was really cool.
*Priority Seating reservations at Chef Mickey's @ 7:50 PM This was my favorite meal out of all the meals! We took the monorail to the Contemporary and I LOVE this hotel! It is so classic and beautiful! I loved how the monorail goes right through! The food at Chefs was delicious! I had a little bit of everything! And all of the characters came over to our table and posed for pics and signed autographs. Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and Chip and Dale. It was so cool! We didnt buy the picture package, we think its such a rip-off for almost $30. After dinner I loved riding the monorail to the Grand Floridian and the Polynesian and back to the park. We had a whole monorail car to ourselves.
*Electrical Water Pageant @ 10:05 @ Contemporary We didnt stick around the Contemporary for this cuz we wanted to get right back to the Kingdom cuz we still had a lot we wanted to do there before closing. But we did catch a glimpse of it from the monorail and it was beautiful!
*Magic Kingdom's EMH I was surprised that a lot of the characters were out signing autographs so late! We stayed until closing at 1:00 AM! My poor son, he was wiped out. And we STILL didnt get to do a lot of things we wanted to do! This is definitely a 2-day park. Ill remember that next time. We missed out on Hall Of Presidents, Carousel Of Progress, Cinderellas Golden Carousel, Dumbo, Alladin, Snow White, Winnie The Pooh, Tea Cups, Riverboat, and Country Bears.
*Bedtime2:00 AM by the time we collapsed in our beds. Phew!
Thursday April 21st
*Breakfast at End Zone food court at hotel (1 counter-service point each) Thanks god it was the last day of this! We were kind of getting sick of the same old food and the noise of the crowds was driving me crazy!
*Catch bus to MGM Studios for park opening at 9:00 AMI liked MGM, although it was crowded just like Magic Kingdom was. I still like Epcot better than all of them.
* Get Fastpasses right away for Tower Of Terror, Rock'N'Rollercoaster and Muppets 3-D. Then Star Tours and Indiana Jones later. We ended up getting Fastpasses for Tower and Roller Coaster. I loved Tower! Again, I know I keep saying this, but I was really impressed with how all the rides were so in detail and werent cheesy and were long and good! I wanted to take a picture from the top of Tower but every time I got my cam out, wed drop! It was so cool! And Rockin was so unbelievable! This was the ride I was most nervous about, but it was so smooth and fast and so much fun! I loved that take-off! Muppets was cute. Star Tours was just okay but I was a little disappointed in it. Also, when we got in and sat down, they realized one of our seat's seatbelt wasn't working and took us all off and put us on the next one. We never got around to Indiana Jones. We also did the Backlot Tour which was almost exactly the same as it was when I went when I was 12. The same catastrophe canyon, the same props, etc., but it was cool. My son liked it. We saw Buzz and Woody and Jessie at Als Toy Barn, and we did Mermaid which was really really cool, even my son who thought it would be girly liked it. We also did Sounds Dangerous which I thought was boring. My son decided to start a pin trading collection here. He loved trading and meeting people. I think this is a great idea.
*Priority Seating reservations at Sci-Fi Dine-In Restaurant for an early dinner at 3:55 PM (1 table service point each) Okay, this place was just alright. It wasn't what I imagined it would be. I pictured it to more like the restaurant on Pulp Fiction. I was definitely wrong. I loved the theme and how it really felt like you were in an old-fashioned drive-in. But it was too dark, which, I guess it wouldnt make sense if it was light, but I like to be able to read my menu and see my food. Our waitress was kind of spacey, we were given the lunch menus when we shouldve had dinner menus, and the food wasnt anything great. I had the BBQ ribs. I didnt really like them, or the french fries. The tables were wicked small and there was hardly any room at all for our plate, glass, etc. I should've listened to the advice I got about eating at 50's Prime Time Cafe instead.
*Stars and Motor Cars Parade at 5:30 PM Again, we had awesome seats for the parade, across from Echo Lake. This parade was a lot cooler than I thought it would be. I liked it just as much, if not more than the Dream Come True Parade.
*Fantasmic at 8:30 PM This show was the BEST out of all the nighttime shows at all the parks! It was amazing! We were actually on our way, about a half-hour before the show started and ended up running into a family we knew from CT, isnt that funny? What a coincidence! So, we were running late, after talking, and ended up getting in a HUGE line, about 15 minutes before the show started. As soon as we got in the line, it started to move rather quickly and we were sitting down less than 10 minutes later. We had seats on the aisle in the back on the extreme left side. We ran out of videotape after Stars and Cars and forgot to bring an extra one. So, we taped over Illuminations since we were disappointed in that. Well, Im glad we did! Fantasmic was amazing!
*Late-night snack at Toy Story's Pizza Planet (1 counter-service point each) We were still full from lunch so we skipped that.
*MGM Studios EMH Again, we stayed until closing. We hung out at the Chinese Theater and did the Magic Of Animation which was sooo cool! We got to draw Donald Duck with a real Disney animator! Those came out so cool! And the last ride of the day was the Great Movie ride, which was a lot more exciting than I thought it would be. I loved it. The only things we didnt do that I wish we had more time for was Beauty and the Beast and Indiana Jones.
*Bedtime By this night, my calves and ankles were swollen from so much walking!
Friday April 22nd
*Catch bus to Animal Kingdom for park opening at 9:00 AM Our last day at Disney World! The week went by so fast!
*Priority Seating reservations at Donald's Breakfastosaurus at 9:40 AM (pay cash) This was a really nice change from the hotel food court breakfast, thats for sure! There was so much to choose from and all the food was really delicious! And we saw all the characters...again. By then, it was like, "Ooh...Theres Mickey Mouse....again....yay." LOL
*Quick lunch anywhere in park (pay cash) Again, we were still full from breakfast and so we skipped lunch
*Get Fastpasses right away for Dinosaur, Kilimanjaro Safaris, Kali River Rapids and It's Tough To Be A Bug. Primeval Whirl later. For some reason Kali River Rapids wasnt doing Fastpasses, and the wait was always too long, so we never got to do that ride. But we did get Fastpasses for the Safari, Dinosaur and Bug. I have to say that I was a little disappointed in the Safari. We only saw a couple animals and they were all far away or hiding. Tough To Be A Bug was the BEST 3D show out of all the 3D shows at all the parks! It was so cool how the bees sting you and you can feel all the bugs running at your feet! Dinosaur was cool but not how I imagined. I thought it was more of a roller coaster-type ride. I loved Primeval Whirl and was terrified on it! Even though when it first took off we were stuck at the begining for like 7-8 minutes before we moved. But when we got going, holy cow, I screamed a lot! We also saw the Flights Of Wonder Show. My son liked that a lot. And it just so happened that we ended up at Animal Kingdom on Earth Day, so there were a lot of little extra things going on. I loved releasing the ladybugs! This day was the warmest out of all the days we were there. We saw the begining of Lion King but had to leave halfway through to make our reservation at Rainforest Café.I was the least impressed with Animal Kingdom. DinoLand was tacky and the rest of it was "Just a Zoo" LOL.
*Jungle Parade at 4:00 PM This was wicked cool. We got excellent seats at the begining where the parade first comes out.
*Priority Seating reservations at Rainforest Cafe @ 5:00 PM (pay cash) I was a little disappointed in Rainforest. I wished we stayed to see the rest of Lion King instead. The food was just okay, and inside the restaurant was too dark and really noisy. We sat right next to the gorillas. I had the buffalo chicken salad and a Mai Tai and kept the souveneir glass.
*Disneys Boardwalk Before Boardwalk, we went back to the hotel for a quick swim in the pool. Then we hopped on the MGM bus and took the ferry to the Boardwalk. It was cool but smaller than I thought. We got an expensive, small, yucky latte and watched a little bit of a street-performer/juggler. We looked around the ESPN Club Store and watched the Illuminations fireworks and then left. I was not impressed with Boardwalk. We went and explored inside the Dolphin Hotel. I was so in awe! I wish I could afford to stay there! Then we got on the Downtown Disney bus from there.
*Downtown Disney I LOVED this place! Holy cow! My son was in heaven at the Lego store and the pin-trading store! We spent sooo much money there! We also walked around Once Upon A Toy for a long time. Pleasure Island was so cool! We couldnt go into any of the clubs or bars cuz our son was with us, but just being outside on the street was crazy! It was so much fun just walking around! Everything was beautiful at night! It was getting late, we were getting tired, so we made plans to come back in the morning after check-out.
*Bedtime After my son and husband went to bed, I stayed up until 3:00 AM doing laundry at the hotel. I was exhausted!
Saturday April 23rd
*Pick up rental car (convertible) at Alamo at Car Care Center @ 9:00 AM My husband went to get our car while I finished packing up. I was a little disappointed that our Mousekeeping didnt make us any towel-animals that I heard about. And we tipped $4 a day. Oh well.
*Check-out at 11:00 AM It was so sad to go! I didnt want to leave! I love Disney World so much!
*Breakfast on the road Actually, since we had one more counter-service point left each, we ate at the hotel AGAIN before we checked out. Then we drove back to Downtown Marketplace and spent the morning shopping at Wonderful World Of Disney and spent a LOT of money on souveneirs!
*Drive to Punta Gorda to stay with friends for 4 days
*Fly home out of Fort Meyers airport on 4/26 at 9:55 AM
As soon as we got home, I started planning another trip!
Looking at: February 20-26, 2006!
I copied and pasted my itinerary below and added comments about everything:
Monday April 18th
*Limo picks us up at home @ 6:30 AM It was our first limo ride ever, and it was pretty cool. Not worth the $160 though.
*Flight from Logan Airport leaves @ 9:55 AM Logan was so much more relaxed and quiet than I imagined it to be. Everything was easy to find and understand. This was also my first plane ride ever. I squeezed my husband's hand so tight during take-off, but a few minutes later I was pushing my son out of the way to look out the window. I LOVED it!
*2-hour stop-over in Philadelphia Almost there!
*Flight lands in Orlando @ 3:55 PM Woo-hoo! Actually, we landed at about 3:30. Earlier than I thought. Orlando airport is HUGE and nice!
*Quicksilver pick-up at airport and bring us to All-Star Sports Resort The guy was waiting for us at baggage claim. He was really nice! The ride was about 25 minutes to the resort.
*Check-in, unpack, explore hotel and swim in the pool Check-in went so smoothly! The girl was very nice. We didn't request a building cuz we thought whatever we got would be fate and would be the best, and sure enough we got the Home-Run Hotel. Baseball is our favorite sport! We were happy. Then we hopped over to guest services and added our 5th day of park-hopper passes which only came to $24 total! We brought our own luggage to room #9156 and by that time it was almost 5:00 PM. My son wanted to jump right in the pool, so we let him have about 20 minutes to swim while my husband and I sat by the pool and called home. I loved the Home-Run hotel. When we first walked out of the main building and saw the Surfs-Up pool, it was loud and chaotic. Our pool was quiet and had very few people in it! I love that section! I couldn't believe how warm they keep the water though! I like a cool pool for those warm days. Oh well. So we wanted to clean up and catch a bus to MK for our PS reservations at CP. The reservations weren't until 8:00, but we thought we might be able to get in earlier if we got there at 7:00. Well...
*Dinner at Crystal Palace @ 8:00 PM The bus to MK was a million miles long. I remembered asking you all if it was any quicker to take the bus to Epcot and then hop on the monorail to MK, and you all said it was pretty much the same. So, I figured, what the heck. The Epcot bus line had like 3 people in it, so we decided to go for it. It was cool to ride the monorail. When we got to TTC, they said transportation was available to MK by ferry only, at the time! I was like, what!?! So we got in a HUGE line for the ferry. All this running around and waiting in line made me wish I had just taken the MK bus. We were on the ferry at sunset which was really beautiful. I was so mesmerized by the Contemporary and GF. They looked so beautiful, just like in the pictures! And of course, the castle too! By the time we finally arrived at MK, it was about 7:45. We walked right over to CP and there was chaos! Busy busy busy! BIG waiting line. Even with priority seating for 8:00, I think we were finally seated 15 minutes or so after. But inside was BEAUTIFUL! Pooh, Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore all posed for pictures and gave my son autographs. The food was...wow...I'm so glad we went there. Unfortunately I had no appetite that night. I just had salad and chicken, which were delicious. My husband ate a lot and so did my son. For dessert I had a little bit of everything. I wish I remembered exactly, but silly me was too lazy to write it down! What I remember the most from CP was our waitress, Lorraine, was the sweetest, nicest, cutest, most pleasant waitress I ever had in my life! Definitely our favorite.
*Wishes @ 10:00 PM When we were done eating we walked around a little before Wishes started. We ventured a little bit into Frontierland and my son and husband played that shooting game for a while. They loved it. Then we started to head over to the castle. We stopped and watched Wishes from the little bridge in Liberty Square next to Sleepy Hollow. It wasn't the best viewing spot, I dont know how it happened but we just kinda ended up stopping there. It was really crowded. From our view, the fireworks were to the left of the castle instead of behind it. We couldn't see Tink, she was behind a tree. But it was still really nice, the music and fireworks and images on the castle. I liked it. But I LOVED Spectromagic!
*Spectro @ 11:00 PM I loved Spectro soooo much! It was beautiful! We got a great spot, right on the curb in front of the train station at the entrance, where the parade first comes out. I'll post my video of it when I figure out how. As soon as that was finished, we headed out the exit, and hopped on the bus back to the hotel.
*Bedtime I think we got back to the hotel around 12:30. Long day, huh?
Tuesday April 19th
*Breakfast at End Zone food court at hotel (1 counter-service point each) Okay, first of all, I LOVE the dining plan. They make you get a dessert with breakfast! Choices of big chocolate-covered croissants and danishes and donuts! The food court was noisy and chaotic and crowded though.
*Catch bus to Epcot for park opening at 9:00 AM The buses were crowded and the lines were always so long! I never took you guys seriously when you said to allow an hour or more for transportation, but now I understand! And I LOVED Epcot the most out of all the parks! The day I was there, it was really quiet and relaxing and peaceful. The were no crowds! I loved the birds chirping everywhere! *Get Fastpasses right away for Test Track and Mission Space. Then Maelstrom and Honey I Shrunk Audience later. I LOVED Mission Space! It was the first ride we went on. We waited in line because the wait time was only 20 minutes I think. We got a Fastpass for Test Track. I wish I wrote down what all the wait times were and the Fastpass times, but I forgot. Actually, I was too lazy at the end of the day to write it all down. I was nervous about Mission Space because it warned you about the spinning and the enclosed spaces. But I thought it was really realistic and fun. I screamed a lot. We were suppose to have jobs (pilot, etc.) but I couldnt pay attention to any of the buttons I was suppose to be pushing. Also, I found that the only time I felt dizzy was when I took my eyes off the screen and looked at the buttons. Test Track was fun, but I thought it was going to be more of a roller coaster-type ride and less of the little tests and riding around. But the roller coaster-type parts were really fast and smooth and fun. I remember one funny part during the tests, they said they were going to do an element test and went through some extreme heat and then some extreme cold. When we went through the cold, it didnt even feel cold and I said, "Thats what Florida considers cold? Come to New England!" LOL! I really liked Maelstrom. It wasnt as wild as I thought, but it was really cool. I was just so in awe of all of the detail in all of the rides at Disney World. They put in sooo much to make everything so perfect! And Honey I Shrunk The Audience was okay. The other attractions we did were Ellens Energy Adventure, which was so much more awesome than I thought it would be, Journey Into Imagination with Figment, which was really cute, Spaceship Earth, which I LOVED LOVED LOVED!, and The Living Seas, which was just okay. Soarin was up and runnin and we really wanted to do it but just never had the time! We spent much more time in Futureworld than in World Showcase. We just walked through all the countries and didnt really stop at any of them. Except Mexico where we got a delicious Fiesta Margarita! Wow, was that good! And one thing that was pretty cool was while walking through Morocco, a bus of characters drove right over to us and stopped to so pictures and autographs. There was hardly anybody around and we got pics and autographs of about 8 characters in about 15 minutes! Big ones too, like Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, Donald, etc. It was unbelievable! We were definitely at the right place at the right time! I liked Ice Station Cool, it was pretty neat to try those sodas from other countried although they were all disgusting! I liked Minnies Butterfly garden, it was so pretty and relaxing!
*Quick lunch at Electric Umbrella (1 counter-service point each) This actually turned into an early dinner since we werent hungry for lunch. This place was cool. I had thee most delicious salad I ever had here! The Island Chicken Salad, ymmm! I also noticed here, eating outside, that the squirrels in the World come really close to you!
*Illuminations @ 9:00 PM Illuminations was the nighttime event I liked the least.Maybe I just picked a bad spot to sit. I remembered someone suggesting a really nice coffee and pastry place in France, so we started walking through World Showcase and figured wed just pick a spot to sit along the way. We really wanted to get a cappucino, but all the food places started to close already! We were a little mad about that. So we kept walking through the World Showcase, trying to find a coffee place that was still open. We ended up staying and watching from France. Which probably wasnt the best idea. We saw the fireworks okay but couldnt get a good view of that globe and other stuff.
*Bedtime Exhausted! I think we ended up getting back around midnight. Another long day!
Wednesday April 20th
*Breakfast at End Zone food court at hotel (1 counter-service point each) Stuffed myself with more breakfast...yummm
*Catch bus to Magic Kingdom for park opening at 9:00 AM We really wanted to get to the park before opening, but didnt quite make it. We were still too exhausted fromt the night before. Magic Kingdom was so unlike Epcot in that it was super super crowded and chaotic! Wow! And it didnt help that the first rides we wanted to go on were closed down! Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Pirates Of The Caribbean! We dont know why but we couldnt believe it! So we went to Jungle Cruise and ended up waiting 50 minutes! It was cute but totally not worth the wait. By the time that was over it was noon! But by then, those other rides were up and running again, thank god!
*Get Fastpasses right away for Splash Mountain, Stitch, Haunted Mansion and Thunder Mountain. Then Buzz Lightyear, Jungle Cruise and Space Mountain later We had fastpasses for Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Haunted Mansion, and Thunder Mountain. Fastpass is so awesome! I loved walking right by 100s of people just standing in the regular line, it feels so good! Space Mountain was nothing like I imagined. I thought it would be a nice, smooth ride. But it was really bumpy and jerky! It was definitely an old-school coaster. But I liked it. But now I dont regret at all standing in line for over an hour and then chickening out at the last minute 16 years ago! Haunted Mansion was wicked cool! I loved how it, and all the other Disney rides are so long! Theyre not over and done with in 5 mintes like at other parks! And Mansion never got boring! I tried looking for the ring on the ground at the exit but couldnt find it. Oh well. And I absolutely LOVED Pirates! It was so detailed and excited and it was just like the movie! And Thunder Mountain was wicked cool! My son loved all these rides too! The only ride he was a little bored on was Small World. I loved it! I remember thinking it was lame when I was a kid too, but it was so beautiful and cheery and detailed! Wow! And, by the way, my theory was correct. I had the theory that since we already saw Spectro and Wishes on Monday night, we could skip it, and there would be really short lines for the rides during those events. Boy was I right! We got on way more rides at night than we did during the day, all the lines being 5 minutes long or less! At night we did Splash Mountain, which I LOVED! It was so long and detailed and adorable and the big drop wasnt even that scary, it was fun! Stitch, which I must agree with most of the negative reviews, was a little weird. My son liked it though. I just thought it was a little boring and strange. Buzz Lightyear was wicked cool, Peter Pan, which was nice and cute and relaxing, Philharmagic, which was wicked awesome, Indy Speedway, which I let my son drive our car and I videotaped it, was just okay, but he loved driving. Astro-Orbiter was our last ride of the day, I thought was scary cuz it was so high, I didnt put mine all the way up and my son was making fun of me.
*Priority Seating reservations at Cinderella's Royal Table for lunch at 1:40 PM (1 table-service point each) This was thee most fanciest lunch I have ever had in my life! I had the Focaccia Sandwich and it was gigantic! I couldnt even eat half of it! And let me just say, that this dining plan was amazing! Why anyone wouldnt do it, I dont know. We paid an extra $400 for this plan and spent over $600 in food! So we pretty much made $200 on the deal! Cool, huh? Anyway, when we got ther, Cinderella herself was downstairs! We were the only ones in the room with her! She was very nice! Then we went upstairs to eat lunch. It was so cool to actually be inside the castle! It was so fancy and magical inside! My husband had the Grilled Portabella Mushrooms and Roasted Aspauragus. Now THAT was a fancy lunch! We also ordered the Bibbiddy Bobbiddy Brew and bought the souveneir mug.
*Dream Come True Parade @ 3:00 PM We had great front row seats right in front of the castle when we came out of lunch. This parade was really cool.
*Priority Seating reservations at Chef Mickey's @ 7:50 PM This was my favorite meal out of all the meals! We took the monorail to the Contemporary and I LOVE this hotel! It is so classic and beautiful! I loved how the monorail goes right through! The food at Chefs was delicious! I had a little bit of everything! And all of the characters came over to our table and posed for pics and signed autographs. Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and Chip and Dale. It was so cool! We didnt buy the picture package, we think its such a rip-off for almost $30. After dinner I loved riding the monorail to the Grand Floridian and the Polynesian and back to the park. We had a whole monorail car to ourselves.
*Electrical Water Pageant @ 10:05 @ Contemporary We didnt stick around the Contemporary for this cuz we wanted to get right back to the Kingdom cuz we still had a lot we wanted to do there before closing. But we did catch a glimpse of it from the monorail and it was beautiful!
*Magic Kingdom's EMH I was surprised that a lot of the characters were out signing autographs so late! We stayed until closing at 1:00 AM! My poor son, he was wiped out. And we STILL didnt get to do a lot of things we wanted to do! This is definitely a 2-day park. Ill remember that next time. We missed out on Hall Of Presidents, Carousel Of Progress, Cinderellas Golden Carousel, Dumbo, Alladin, Snow White, Winnie The Pooh, Tea Cups, Riverboat, and Country Bears.
*Bedtime2:00 AM by the time we collapsed in our beds. Phew!
Thursday April 21st
*Breakfast at End Zone food court at hotel (1 counter-service point each) Thanks god it was the last day of this! We were kind of getting sick of the same old food and the noise of the crowds was driving me crazy!
*Catch bus to MGM Studios for park opening at 9:00 AMI liked MGM, although it was crowded just like Magic Kingdom was. I still like Epcot better than all of them.
* Get Fastpasses right away for Tower Of Terror, Rock'N'Rollercoaster and Muppets 3-D. Then Star Tours and Indiana Jones later. We ended up getting Fastpasses for Tower and Roller Coaster. I loved Tower! Again, I know I keep saying this, but I was really impressed with how all the rides were so in detail and werent cheesy and were long and good! I wanted to take a picture from the top of Tower but every time I got my cam out, wed drop! It was so cool! And Rockin was so unbelievable! This was the ride I was most nervous about, but it was so smooth and fast and so much fun! I loved that take-off! Muppets was cute. Star Tours was just okay but I was a little disappointed in it. Also, when we got in and sat down, they realized one of our seat's seatbelt wasn't working and took us all off and put us on the next one. We never got around to Indiana Jones. We also did the Backlot Tour which was almost exactly the same as it was when I went when I was 12. The same catastrophe canyon, the same props, etc., but it was cool. My son liked it. We saw Buzz and Woody and Jessie at Als Toy Barn, and we did Mermaid which was really really cool, even my son who thought it would be girly liked it. We also did Sounds Dangerous which I thought was boring. My son decided to start a pin trading collection here. He loved trading and meeting people. I think this is a great idea.
*Priority Seating reservations at Sci-Fi Dine-In Restaurant for an early dinner at 3:55 PM (1 table service point each) Okay, this place was just alright. It wasn't what I imagined it would be. I pictured it to more like the restaurant on Pulp Fiction. I was definitely wrong. I loved the theme and how it really felt like you were in an old-fashioned drive-in. But it was too dark, which, I guess it wouldnt make sense if it was light, but I like to be able to read my menu and see my food. Our waitress was kind of spacey, we were given the lunch menus when we shouldve had dinner menus, and the food wasnt anything great. I had the BBQ ribs. I didnt really like them, or the french fries. The tables were wicked small and there was hardly any room at all for our plate, glass, etc. I should've listened to the advice I got about eating at 50's Prime Time Cafe instead.
*Stars and Motor Cars Parade at 5:30 PM Again, we had awesome seats for the parade, across from Echo Lake. This parade was a lot cooler than I thought it would be. I liked it just as much, if not more than the Dream Come True Parade.
*Fantasmic at 8:30 PM This show was the BEST out of all the nighttime shows at all the parks! It was amazing! We were actually on our way, about a half-hour before the show started and ended up running into a family we knew from CT, isnt that funny? What a coincidence! So, we were running late, after talking, and ended up getting in a HUGE line, about 15 minutes before the show started. As soon as we got in the line, it started to move rather quickly and we were sitting down less than 10 minutes later. We had seats on the aisle in the back on the extreme left side. We ran out of videotape after Stars and Cars and forgot to bring an extra one. So, we taped over Illuminations since we were disappointed in that. Well, Im glad we did! Fantasmic was amazing!
*Late-night snack at Toy Story's Pizza Planet (1 counter-service point each) We were still full from lunch so we skipped that.
*MGM Studios EMH Again, we stayed until closing. We hung out at the Chinese Theater and did the Magic Of Animation which was sooo cool! We got to draw Donald Duck with a real Disney animator! Those came out so cool! And the last ride of the day was the Great Movie ride, which was a lot more exciting than I thought it would be. I loved it. The only things we didnt do that I wish we had more time for was Beauty and the Beast and Indiana Jones.
*Bedtime By this night, my calves and ankles were swollen from so much walking!
Friday April 22nd
*Catch bus to Animal Kingdom for park opening at 9:00 AM Our last day at Disney World! The week went by so fast!
*Priority Seating reservations at Donald's Breakfastosaurus at 9:40 AM (pay cash) This was a really nice change from the hotel food court breakfast, thats for sure! There was so much to choose from and all the food was really delicious! And we saw all the characters...again. By then, it was like, "Ooh...Theres Mickey Mouse....again....yay." LOL
*Quick lunch anywhere in park (pay cash) Again, we were still full from breakfast and so we skipped lunch
*Get Fastpasses right away for Dinosaur, Kilimanjaro Safaris, Kali River Rapids and It's Tough To Be A Bug. Primeval Whirl later. For some reason Kali River Rapids wasnt doing Fastpasses, and the wait was always too long, so we never got to do that ride. But we did get Fastpasses for the Safari, Dinosaur and Bug. I have to say that I was a little disappointed in the Safari. We only saw a couple animals and they were all far away or hiding. Tough To Be A Bug was the BEST 3D show out of all the 3D shows at all the parks! It was so cool how the bees sting you and you can feel all the bugs running at your feet! Dinosaur was cool but not how I imagined. I thought it was more of a roller coaster-type ride. I loved Primeval Whirl and was terrified on it! Even though when it first took off we were stuck at the begining for like 7-8 minutes before we moved. But when we got going, holy cow, I screamed a lot! We also saw the Flights Of Wonder Show. My son liked that a lot. And it just so happened that we ended up at Animal Kingdom on Earth Day, so there were a lot of little extra things going on. I loved releasing the ladybugs! This day was the warmest out of all the days we were there. We saw the begining of Lion King but had to leave halfway through to make our reservation at Rainforest Café.I was the least impressed with Animal Kingdom. DinoLand was tacky and the rest of it was "Just a Zoo" LOL.
*Jungle Parade at 4:00 PM This was wicked cool. We got excellent seats at the begining where the parade first comes out.
*Priority Seating reservations at Rainforest Cafe @ 5:00 PM (pay cash) I was a little disappointed in Rainforest. I wished we stayed to see the rest of Lion King instead. The food was just okay, and inside the restaurant was too dark and really noisy. We sat right next to the gorillas. I had the buffalo chicken salad and a Mai Tai and kept the souveneir glass.
*Disneys Boardwalk Before Boardwalk, we went back to the hotel for a quick swim in the pool. Then we hopped on the MGM bus and took the ferry to the Boardwalk. It was cool but smaller than I thought. We got an expensive, small, yucky latte and watched a little bit of a street-performer/juggler. We looked around the ESPN Club Store and watched the Illuminations fireworks and then left. I was not impressed with Boardwalk. We went and explored inside the Dolphin Hotel. I was so in awe! I wish I could afford to stay there! Then we got on the Downtown Disney bus from there.
*Downtown Disney I LOVED this place! Holy cow! My son was in heaven at the Lego store and the pin-trading store! We spent sooo much money there! We also walked around Once Upon A Toy for a long time. Pleasure Island was so cool! We couldnt go into any of the clubs or bars cuz our son was with us, but just being outside on the street was crazy! It was so much fun just walking around! Everything was beautiful at night! It was getting late, we were getting tired, so we made plans to come back in the morning after check-out.
*Bedtime After my son and husband went to bed, I stayed up until 3:00 AM doing laundry at the hotel. I was exhausted!
Saturday April 23rd
*Pick up rental car (convertible) at Alamo at Car Care Center @ 9:00 AM My husband went to get our car while I finished packing up. I was a little disappointed that our Mousekeeping didnt make us any towel-animals that I heard about. And we tipped $4 a day. Oh well.
*Check-out at 11:00 AM It was so sad to go! I didnt want to leave! I love Disney World so much!
*Breakfast on the road Actually, since we had one more counter-service point left each, we ate at the hotel AGAIN before we checked out. Then we drove back to Downtown Marketplace and spent the morning shopping at Wonderful World Of Disney and spent a LOT of money on souveneirs!
*Drive to Punta Gorda to stay with friends for 4 days
*Fly home out of Fort Meyers airport on 4/26 at 9:55 AM
As soon as we got home, I started planning another trip!
Looking at: February 20-26, 2006!
