IvyandLace
Certified pixie dust user
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2000
- Messages
- 758
Our Day Plan: Magic Kingdom (open 9am-6pm); catch Come Share a Dream Come True parade at 3pm then head to Epcot; watch Tapestry of Dreams parade at 6:10pm
Our Meal Plan: Lunch: Columbia Harbor House
Dinner: Teppanyaki with PS at 7:30pm
Our Weather Today: Humid with rain threatening!
We breakfasted in GMs room and then marched, giggling with excitement to the bus stop. Wait a minute! After a brief perusal around the group, we noticed a renegade-Jack had a red sweatshirt covering his matching Mickey flag T-shirt! This was NOT acceptable! For some reason, this 14 year old boy did not want to be associated with us oh, the horror! After a bit of good teasing (and the humidity rising steadily), the sweatshirt came off, and our group was completed.
We made it the MK gates with time to spare and were pleasantly surprised by a greatly enthusiastic (and character laden) opening show complete with pixie dust countdown. This just heightened our sense of excitement! As I caught my first glimpse of Mickey riding the train to the Main Street Station, I felt the butterflies in my stomach. We were really here! (Of course, I had been "here" for four days now-you know when it just hits you??)
As soon as the countdown rang out, tons of characters poured out of their crevices to entice people-you know-from the rides! We, however, were of firmer stock. We had one thing in mind-riding Splash Mountain! Splash was one of our very favorite rides as a family, and we were eager to introduce it to JP. A few pics of the castle, a whiff of bakery items and we were on our way. Needless to say, we were pretty disappointed to find someone barring the entrance to Splash due to technical difficulties. What?? Okay, regroup. Again we were forced to be flexible. On to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Space Mountain, and Buzz. We rode Buzz a few times in a row-another fav! (Ariel cheated and earned about a hundred gazillion points the first time on no fair!) Harry and JP headed to Alien Encounter, and we scaredycats took a ride on the TTA. Now approaching Space Mountain! became a favorite mantra of our trip.
We went back to Splash and finally got to ride Woo hoo! Smiles all around, and then we felt them raindrops! Yikes! Ponchos and mini umbrella came out and we marched proudly past the crowds caught unaware who were ducking under any kind of shelter. It was definitely time for lunch at Columbia Harbor House. The upstairs of CHH is always peaceful, a definite harbor for us as we waited out the storm. After yummy clam chowder bread bowls and sandwiches, we were refreshed and much more dry. We were happy to see that the rain had passed while we were eating.
We headed to Adventureland to ride the Magic Carpets of Aladdin-a walk on since it had just reopened from what else? technical difficulties. Ariel was disappointed with our walkthrough of the Swiss Family Treehouse and thought that there would be more to the attraction; I, on the other hand, had a good time trying to keep up with Harry and his many rather ingenious comments concerning all their inventions. We finally made it to the Enchanted Tiki Room-Under New Management per Uncle Ts insistence. He liked the older version better, but we enjoyed the singing birds and gods very funny. This attraction was pleasantly surprising, but no one in our group liked Iago-he was annoying! This just goes to show you that everyone is going to have their own opinion and that you can never predict what someone will like or not like at WDW.
As you can imagine, our matching T-shirts caused quite a stir among CMs and visitors alike. The attention was both fun and a bit ridiculous. I mean, we had obviously planned to wear matching Ts, but to some people were clueless. Thus, the phrases Are you related?and "Do you all know each other?" were heard quite a bit today. I would definitely recommend it especially with a large group. It makes for excellent photos and a fun conversation piece as well.
Just a side note we spent a lot of time this trip pointing out the more subtle magic of WDW. On our last trip, GM, Ariel and I had taken the Keys to the Kingdom tour so we passed on much of our knowledge to the rest of the group. Harry and Princess M especially enjoyed learning more about Walt Disney, the man. Of course, the 100 years of Magic celebration helped with the teaching! We even did some quizzing on facts concerning his life and accomplishments. I think this helped the kids to see beyond the rides and to see how Walt influenced what we enjoy now. *Dabs eyes and blows nose delicately*
Okay Hallmark moment over. After a trip down Pirate Lane (or POC as normal people call it!), me hubby I mean, my husband Uncle T went hog wild in the POC gift shop. He just had to add to his growing pin collection with a POC pin and a POC polo shirt to wear to school on casual days. We all had fun playing in the store and managed to drag him, kicking and Arrrring like the Pirate he thinks he is, to a curbside seat on Main Street. It was time for the parade! I broke my own rule to never get ice cream before the parade due to lines and got waffle sundeas for our group at the Ice Cream Parlor. Of course, it was crowded but definitely worth it!
The rain had disappeared and the sun was shining; we were eating ice cream on Main Street enjoying the atmosphere and catching glimpses of the Cinderellas castle. Life was good. It was about to get better the parade had begun! GM, Ariel and I had been at the soft opening for Come Share a Dream Come True last year and were eager to view the parade a year later. We were not disappointed!! It was great so inspiring and creative with lots of characters! The only thing we missed was seeing the confetti blow around in the snowglobes every once and awhile I guess it was just more technical difficulties.
After the parade, we jumped on the monorail and headed to Epcot to enjoy a few attractions before our PS at Teppanyaki. We had our priorities so we headed to Test Track, of course, for our first ride in Epcot. Since it was late afternoon, Fastpasses were long gone, and we didnt have time to wait in the standby line. We decided to try the singles line-you just cant go wrong with this. We breezed into the ride past all the lines and many of us ended up in the same cars! I love the part of Test Track when the car speeds around the track, wind in your hair, Epcot ball in the distance...
After the ride, we made our way clockwise through World Showcase. I pointed out many of the foods we had sampled earlier that week from the food kiosks scattered about the countries for the Food and Wine Festival. We loved watching the Chinese acrobats in the Chinese temple-these kids are great! What a jaw dropping performance! We made it to Germany in time to snag a large bench big enough for our family as we awaited for Tapestry of Dreams to begin. Some of our group scattered through Germanys shops while the rest watched Future World come alive as the sun went down. The glockenspiels chimes on the hour added to the atmosphere as the CMs prepared for the parade. When we heard that first deep reverb of the drum, Ariel and I (who both own the CD) smiled at each other in delight. We love this parade! When asked What do you dream of?, I went down the bench to each member of the group. Harry answered with some complicated version of a flying machine-he is definitely a soon-to-be inventor!-while JP just looked at me with an impish grin and replied, I dream of living at Disney World. (Good answer.)
The most memorable part of the parade for me came when the last puppet with mini puppet came into view. I said, See how they bow to people? I have always wanted them to do that to me, but they never have. All right, you know what happened the mini puppet came up to me and bowed! I guess my dream came true. Pure Disney magic.
We hummed our way to the Japan pavilion. Time to eat! We had quite a long wait for our table at Teppanyaki, allowing us to break out our secret weapon for waits Disney trivia cards! Ariel had read this tip on the DIS board-it was invaluable! We used these as we waited for meals and for bus rides as well. We always seemed to draw others into the trivia especially on our bus rides lots of fun and it made the time go much faster.
We were finally led to our teppan table and more fun ensued. Our Japanese chef was hilarious, much more animated than the other chefs around us, and our food was fantastic! (Chicken, steak, shrimp, lobster, etc.) Harry and Jack especially like Teppan cooking so this was easily our best dinner. Great entertainment, great service and wonderful food. Two thumbs up! We will be back.
After dinner, we browsed around Japan. I played Iron Chef (a favorite show of mine) while JP (who is part Korean) introduced us all to the wonders of rice candy. Yum! We had planned on skipping IllumiNations tonight-we would be watching it on our IllumiNations cruise on Friday, 11/01/02-so we started around the rest of the World Showcase at a clip. With the Food and Wine Festival and IllumiNations close to starting, it was quite crowded. We were happy to glimpse the Living Statue in France and stopped to watch briefly. She was incredible! Very entertaining and unusual.
Bedtime was ~10pm-tomorrow was going to be a big day!
Tips for the day:
1. Even if it was annoying to hear Are you guys a group?, we cant say enough about our matching Ts. They brought a sense of unity to our gang, and it was so nice not having to figure out what to wear every day. Plus I think everyone else was jealous!
2. Make sure to sabotage your sisters gun before she rides Buzz!
3. CHH is a wonderful place to eat-a very peaceful environment. Make sure to eat upstairs.
4. Eat at Teppanyaki youll be glad you did. The balcony outside Teppanyaki would make a great place to watch IllumiNations.
5. Bring Disney trivia cards to pass the time while waiting for buses or in long lines!
6. Take time to enjoy all the various shows and street entertainment that Epcot has to offer. They bring a sense of festivity to World Showcase almost like a world street festival.
If early to bed, early to rise
Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise,
What would happen late Halloween night?
Would we smile and wave or cause such a fright?
Continue on, my friend, to see the rest
For Halloween at Disney is definitely the best.
Drag your wretched bodies on over to the next chapter and read Once Upon a Birthday-October 31, 2002, Day Three: Part I and II
Our Meal Plan: Lunch: Columbia Harbor House
Dinner: Teppanyaki with PS at 7:30pm
Our Weather Today: Humid with rain threatening!
We breakfasted in GMs room and then marched, giggling with excitement to the bus stop. Wait a minute! After a brief perusal around the group, we noticed a renegade-Jack had a red sweatshirt covering his matching Mickey flag T-shirt! This was NOT acceptable! For some reason, this 14 year old boy did not want to be associated with us oh, the horror! After a bit of good teasing (and the humidity rising steadily), the sweatshirt came off, and our group was completed.
We made it the MK gates with time to spare and were pleasantly surprised by a greatly enthusiastic (and character laden) opening show complete with pixie dust countdown. This just heightened our sense of excitement! As I caught my first glimpse of Mickey riding the train to the Main Street Station, I felt the butterflies in my stomach. We were really here! (Of course, I had been "here" for four days now-you know when it just hits you??)
As soon as the countdown rang out, tons of characters poured out of their crevices to entice people-you know-from the rides! We, however, were of firmer stock. We had one thing in mind-riding Splash Mountain! Splash was one of our very favorite rides as a family, and we were eager to introduce it to JP. A few pics of the castle, a whiff of bakery items and we were on our way. Needless to say, we were pretty disappointed to find someone barring the entrance to Splash due to technical difficulties. What?? Okay, regroup. Again we were forced to be flexible. On to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Space Mountain, and Buzz. We rode Buzz a few times in a row-another fav! (Ariel cheated and earned about a hundred gazillion points the first time on no fair!) Harry and JP headed to Alien Encounter, and we scaredycats took a ride on the TTA. Now approaching Space Mountain! became a favorite mantra of our trip.
We went back to Splash and finally got to ride Woo hoo! Smiles all around, and then we felt them raindrops! Yikes! Ponchos and mini umbrella came out and we marched proudly past the crowds caught unaware who were ducking under any kind of shelter. It was definitely time for lunch at Columbia Harbor House. The upstairs of CHH is always peaceful, a definite harbor for us as we waited out the storm. After yummy clam chowder bread bowls and sandwiches, we were refreshed and much more dry. We were happy to see that the rain had passed while we were eating.
We headed to Adventureland to ride the Magic Carpets of Aladdin-a walk on since it had just reopened from what else? technical difficulties. Ariel was disappointed with our walkthrough of the Swiss Family Treehouse and thought that there would be more to the attraction; I, on the other hand, had a good time trying to keep up with Harry and his many rather ingenious comments concerning all their inventions. We finally made it to the Enchanted Tiki Room-Under New Management per Uncle Ts insistence. He liked the older version better, but we enjoyed the singing birds and gods very funny. This attraction was pleasantly surprising, but no one in our group liked Iago-he was annoying! This just goes to show you that everyone is going to have their own opinion and that you can never predict what someone will like or not like at WDW.
As you can imagine, our matching T-shirts caused quite a stir among CMs and visitors alike. The attention was both fun and a bit ridiculous. I mean, we had obviously planned to wear matching Ts, but to some people were clueless. Thus, the phrases Are you related?and "Do you all know each other?" were heard quite a bit today. I would definitely recommend it especially with a large group. It makes for excellent photos and a fun conversation piece as well.
Just a side note we spent a lot of time this trip pointing out the more subtle magic of WDW. On our last trip, GM, Ariel and I had taken the Keys to the Kingdom tour so we passed on much of our knowledge to the rest of the group. Harry and Princess M especially enjoyed learning more about Walt Disney, the man. Of course, the 100 years of Magic celebration helped with the teaching! We even did some quizzing on facts concerning his life and accomplishments. I think this helped the kids to see beyond the rides and to see how Walt influenced what we enjoy now. *Dabs eyes and blows nose delicately*
Okay Hallmark moment over. After a trip down Pirate Lane (or POC as normal people call it!), me hubby I mean, my husband Uncle T went hog wild in the POC gift shop. He just had to add to his growing pin collection with a POC pin and a POC polo shirt to wear to school on casual days. We all had fun playing in the store and managed to drag him, kicking and Arrrring like the Pirate he thinks he is, to a curbside seat on Main Street. It was time for the parade! I broke my own rule to never get ice cream before the parade due to lines and got waffle sundeas for our group at the Ice Cream Parlor. Of course, it was crowded but definitely worth it!
The rain had disappeared and the sun was shining; we were eating ice cream on Main Street enjoying the atmosphere and catching glimpses of the Cinderellas castle. Life was good. It was about to get better the parade had begun! GM, Ariel and I had been at the soft opening for Come Share a Dream Come True last year and were eager to view the parade a year later. We were not disappointed!! It was great so inspiring and creative with lots of characters! The only thing we missed was seeing the confetti blow around in the snowglobes every once and awhile I guess it was just more technical difficulties.
After the parade, we jumped on the monorail and headed to Epcot to enjoy a few attractions before our PS at Teppanyaki. We had our priorities so we headed to Test Track, of course, for our first ride in Epcot. Since it was late afternoon, Fastpasses were long gone, and we didnt have time to wait in the standby line. We decided to try the singles line-you just cant go wrong with this. We breezed into the ride past all the lines and many of us ended up in the same cars! I love the part of Test Track when the car speeds around the track, wind in your hair, Epcot ball in the distance...
After the ride, we made our way clockwise through World Showcase. I pointed out many of the foods we had sampled earlier that week from the food kiosks scattered about the countries for the Food and Wine Festival. We loved watching the Chinese acrobats in the Chinese temple-these kids are great! What a jaw dropping performance! We made it to Germany in time to snag a large bench big enough for our family as we awaited for Tapestry of Dreams to begin. Some of our group scattered through Germanys shops while the rest watched Future World come alive as the sun went down. The glockenspiels chimes on the hour added to the atmosphere as the CMs prepared for the parade. When we heard that first deep reverb of the drum, Ariel and I (who both own the CD) smiled at each other in delight. We love this parade! When asked What do you dream of?, I went down the bench to each member of the group. Harry answered with some complicated version of a flying machine-he is definitely a soon-to-be inventor!-while JP just looked at me with an impish grin and replied, I dream of living at Disney World. (Good answer.)
The most memorable part of the parade for me came when the last puppet with mini puppet came into view. I said, See how they bow to people? I have always wanted them to do that to me, but they never have. All right, you know what happened the mini puppet came up to me and bowed! I guess my dream came true. Pure Disney magic.
We hummed our way to the Japan pavilion. Time to eat! We had quite a long wait for our table at Teppanyaki, allowing us to break out our secret weapon for waits Disney trivia cards! Ariel had read this tip on the DIS board-it was invaluable! We used these as we waited for meals and for bus rides as well. We always seemed to draw others into the trivia especially on our bus rides lots of fun and it made the time go much faster.
We were finally led to our teppan table and more fun ensued. Our Japanese chef was hilarious, much more animated than the other chefs around us, and our food was fantastic! (Chicken, steak, shrimp, lobster, etc.) Harry and Jack especially like Teppan cooking so this was easily our best dinner. Great entertainment, great service and wonderful food. Two thumbs up! We will be back.
After dinner, we browsed around Japan. I played Iron Chef (a favorite show of mine) while JP (who is part Korean) introduced us all to the wonders of rice candy. Yum! We had planned on skipping IllumiNations tonight-we would be watching it on our IllumiNations cruise on Friday, 11/01/02-so we started around the rest of the World Showcase at a clip. With the Food and Wine Festival and IllumiNations close to starting, it was quite crowded. We were happy to glimpse the Living Statue in France and stopped to watch briefly. She was incredible! Very entertaining and unusual.
Bedtime was ~10pm-tomorrow was going to be a big day!
Tips for the day:
1. Even if it was annoying to hear Are you guys a group?, we cant say enough about our matching Ts. They brought a sense of unity to our gang, and it was so nice not having to figure out what to wear every day. Plus I think everyone else was jealous!
2. Make sure to sabotage your sisters gun before she rides Buzz!
3. CHH is a wonderful place to eat-a very peaceful environment. Make sure to eat upstairs.
4. Eat at Teppanyaki youll be glad you did. The balcony outside Teppanyaki would make a great place to watch IllumiNations.
5. Bring Disney trivia cards to pass the time while waiting for buses or in long lines!
6. Take time to enjoy all the various shows and street entertainment that Epcot has to offer. They bring a sense of festivity to World Showcase almost like a world street festival.
If early to bed, early to rise
Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise,
What would happen late Halloween night?
Would we smile and wave or cause such a fright?
Continue on, my friend, to see the rest
For Halloween at Disney is definitely the best.
Drag your wretched bodies on over to the next chapter and read Once Upon a Birthday-October 31, 2002, Day Three: Part I and II
