Ooh, the monorail DOES smell funny... (almost finished!) [11/30-12/17, 2010]

[ClarabelleCowFan]

Speaking of soup/salad places, I miss Lettuce Souprise You in Atlanta GA.

Subbing but wanted to say that I LOVED Lettuce Souprise you in ATL. A dear friend of mine used to live in ATL and we would go there to eat. Sure wish we had one down here in South GA.

Also - glad you loved the Super Target (I could stay there for hours!). A friend of mine who I worked with as a CM years ago now works for Target and she designed the Disney section in the Orlando area Targets.

Great trip report so far. I love the perspective of a Disneyland native coming to WDW. I had the reverse reactions the first time I went to DLR after growing up going to WDW all of my life - everything was so TINY (especially the castle)!

Can't wait for more.

 

[bumbershoot]

subbing!

Yay!

The end of the ride, they ask you questions on a touch screen, about how you want to live in the future, and then they compile all of your answers and build YOUR future.

What you do at the exit of the ride (when you see yourself on the big screens)... You can identify your ride car (from one of the computer consoles), and e-mail the pictures back to yourself, the ones of you in YOUR future.

Great pics of the Epcot ball

The "cemetery" type looking thing, is called LEAVE A LEGACY, where you can put your pic or family pic permanently on the wall in Epcot.

We were asked those questions while on the ride. I hate having my picture taken so I covered my face. So my cousin sitting next to me had her pretty face cavorting through the future, and I was a cartoon non-caucasian male (they substitute a cartoon face when your pic doesn't come out). But that was all on the ride. It was while we were all looking at the screens and figuring out what there was to do in there that the kids got away!

Thanks for the name! I knew I knew the name, but forgot.

Subbing but wanted to say that I LOVED Lettuce Souprise you in ATL. A dear friend of mine used to live in ATL and we would go there to eat. Sure wish we had one down here in South GA.

Also - glad you loved the Super Target (I could stay there for hours!). A friend of mine who I worked with as a CM years ago now works for Target and she designed the Disney section in the Orlando area Targets.

Great trip report so far. I love the perspective of a Disneyland native coming to WDW. I had the reverse reactions the first time I went to DLR after growing up going to WDW all of my life - everything was so TINY (especially the castle)!

Can't wait for more.

What a fun job your friend has! It was really impressive; I had to restrain myself.

Along with Lettuce Souprise You, I also miss that burrito place in Atlanta. You know, the one on Peachtree? (bwa ha ha...every cross street in Atlanta is peachtree something or other, or at least that's how it appeared to my fellow students when we'd go there for a seminar) Wow, am I actually remembering that it's on ponce de leon and one of the peachtrees????

Doing a little research, I think it was Tortillas, and it closed? Oh boo.

 

[bumbershoot]

Sorry I've been gone. Silly computer ate a big post that I was trying to save, and it just took the fight outta me.

 

[kaoden39]

Sorry I've been gone. Silly computer ate a big post that I was trying to save, and it just took the fight outta me.

 

[BillyFan]

Sorry I've been gone. Silly computer ate a big post that I was trying to save, and it just took the fight outta me.

Sorry about that, Molly. I hate computer problems!

I just book a trip to WDW for March/April, so I'm really looking forward to your take on the parks!

 

[Sherry E]

Sorry I've been gone. Silly computer ate a big post that I was trying to save, and it just took the fight outta me.

I can empathize, Molly. I've lost big TR installments. You're right - it does take the fight out of you. That's a perfect way to describe it. You just don't feel like even attempting to start the lost piece again. It has to be one of the most frustrating things, ever. I said in my TR that I don't think I've ever cursed as much as I do when I use stupid Photobucket. But then you reminded me of the random problems that happen on stupid computers and how frustrating it is to lose a big TR post, and I realized that when that happens to me, I curse a lot then too! It's either that, or throw the horrible machine out the window.

 

[bumbershoot]

Thanks guys! Er, ladies!

I just book a trip to WDW for March/April, so I'm really looking forward to your take on the parks!

Woo, I better get crackin'!


Sherry, throwing these things out the window would be awesome. But the lady below us has her (smoking) patio below, and so it would only fall a little ways. Very anticlimactic (and how would I explain it to them?).




I'm getting survey request after survey request from WDW, it's amazing. OKW sent me a postcard with a password to take a survey! AKL sent me an email, you can bet I filled that one out...

 

[kaoden39]

Ooh those are the best surveys.

 

[bumbershoot]

It'll be interesting to see if there's any response, especially to the AKL one.

I did a survey about Universal, and they actually wrote a direct response to me, less tan 24 hours later! It was pretty cool.

 

[kaoden39]

That is great that they replied to it. That tells me that they actually care what their guests think.

 

[DLR29]

Sorry I've been gone. Silly computer ate a big post that I was trying to save, and it just took the fight outta me.

Arrgh! I hate it when that happens! Once, I had to type up a TR section 3 times! I feel your pain!

 

[bumbershoot]

I'm going to do more. Very shortly. But right now I have to close down Robert's "beta testing" version of Firefox, b/c it gets overloaded that I can't copy/paste. Which is impossible when you're trying to get picture s in there, and it's the EXACT SAME PROBLEM that happened with my lost post (along with the Dis logging me out at exactly the wrong time).

Gol darnit....

 

[kaoden39]

I'm going to do more. Very shortly. But right now I have to close down Robert's "beta testing" version of Firefox, b/c it gets overloaded that I can't copy/paste. Which is impossible when you're trying to get picture s in there, and it's the EXACT SAME PROBLEM that happened with my lost post (along with the Dis logging me out at exactly the wrong time).

Gol darnit....

I am not a fan of Firefox. I use Google Chrome, but it has it's bugs too.

 

[bumbershoot]

It's the beta test thing. Why does he do these things???


**************************

December 3, day 4 continued​

**************************


OK so we had dealt with Spaceship Earth and subsequent near heart failure caused by missing two children at once. So we were off to the Great Bathroom Ride! Seriously, when you have 8 people, there's someone visiting the bathroom around once an hour!

Robert was keeping track of things with an app on his phone, but we didn't test it beforehand, so now we're finding that it works differently than expected, at the end of the trip. I want to be able to look at a page and see a list, in chronological order, of the rides ridden and have a subset page of who rode what. But instead of that, it lists everyone by age and date, and then you see what each person rode on that day.

Then you throw in his phone's inability to get the right time for a few days, my camera not being on eastern time (and not on standard time it seems), and the fact that I relied on his phone and didn't take notes, and...you've got a mess. We also disagree with each other's memories.

But the basic concept is that most of us went over and rode Test Track

Oh yeah, this is what I wanted to do for you guys! A map! First, open this page, if you choose: http://www.wdwinfo.com/maps/epcot.htm Then, refer back to it!



So you can see that Spaceship Earth is pretty much the first thing you hit, when you come in by the main entrance gates (there's also an entrance over in World Showcase by the UK, which made NO sense o me until I was actually there). From there, you have choices. Lots of choices.

Before Test Track, we picked up a few FPs for Mission: Space (building #3). So we went into that courtyard area, then turned left, and got the FPs. Then moved over to the big Test Track building (#4 on the map).

My aunt and little cousin didn't ride. They had their own adventure involving ice cream and a bubble gun that got destroyed inside of 3 minutes. My aunt has recently come to the realization that she probably could be diagnosed with ADHD, and is realizing that the many negative things that have happened in her life are because of the characteristics of interpersonal relationships she's read can go along with it. And one of the things that make me say "hmm, I can believe it" is that she just shoots forward without thinking things through, and that bubble gun was probably a case in point. She probably didn't read the directions and just banged it together and handed it over...blamed the device instead of her not reading directions, and decided that they were awful (when there were countless working bubble guns throughout the parks).

But I digress!

When I thought about Test Track, I thought "what's the big deal, it's like being in a convertible on the freeway!" Aha...that's where I was wrong. I knew that you also did tests inside the building, but mainly thought about the fast part of the ride. And I didn't really think about the fact that MOST of us do NOT accelerate to 65 mph while heading INTO a banking curve! And especially not with our small children with us! Woohoo, that was exhilarating!


Then we let Eamon drive.

Wait, what? Oh, no no, there are cars sitting in a showroom that you can sit in. It's actually quite nice, to sit in a car without a salesperson breathing down your neck.


After that, according to any memory that we can dredge up, the order of my pictures, and my receipts, we went back to the fountain courtyard (possible what it's actually called LOL), through it, and over to The Land. Building #8 on the map.

This houses Sunshine Seasons (counter service), The Garden Grill (table service), Soarin', Circle of Life, and Living with the Land. Little hint for the newbies out there...when you go in the building, if your plan is to go all the way downstairs, turn RIGHT. The DOWN escalator is that way, and even if you want to take the stairs it makes sense, because you don't have to deal with the mass of people coming off the UP escalator and turning to walk right into you. So turn right.

I didn't check out Circle of Life, and we didn't eat at Garden Grill during our stay. I guess it rotates slowly (like the Space Needle's restaurant). It also looks out over Living with the Land, which I only noticed on our last time on the ride. Just shows you how many times I have to do something before I notice important factors!

There was much crankiness, so we ate at Sunshine Seasons. I'm still not sure what all we did between entering and lunching, because it doesn't seem like there's enough activity that I've remembered, but oh well!

In all, this is what ended up on our table for the 3 of us to eat. A container of two hardboiled eggs. A kid's mac and cheese meal, which comes with a drink (E had a bottle of water) and two sides (E had two baggies of grapes). A small bag of nacho style tortilla chips. A container of taboule. An apple, and a Veggie Flatbread.

All was tasty, though none of it really went with each other. OH well!

After lunch, we all rode Living with the Land, which is a slow boat ride that talks about agriculture. It's kinda funny, because they talk a good game about working with the earth and coming up with more natural ways of growing food, but then they are showing horrid black and white videos of industrial farming, and then they show all these hybrid and hydroponic ways of growing food. Uh, that's not natural. Might be super-cool and fun to PLAY with, but it's not natural and, IMO, not really healthy. Not a big fan of Franken-food!

But if you can ignore that, it's cool.


Gotta break for a bit! Hope to be back later this evening.

 

[kaoden39]

How cool that E got to drive. And it is so nice to be able to sit in a car without a salesman breathing down your neck and acting like they act.

 

[DLR29]

Our family LOVES Test Track! And the car exhibit at the end is pretty sweet. I don't want to spoil this for you, but I'm pretty sure that the food (or at least the veggies) at Sunshine Seasons comes from the Land pavilon itself...the one producing "Franken food" ...just saying

 

[bumbershoot]

Oh yes, they definitely make it clear that they use it at WDW. Thpppth on them.

 

[QueenDoOver]

Hello,
Reading along but hardly have time to respond I hope you are on your way to recovery though. We are just having the strangest weather. Sitting here with swollen throat and headache, cursing the darn weather! So dry!

Anyhow, I liked that boat ride and talk about agriculture. I did not apply any sort of logic to it, but just was enthralling to me. I also went to DW with my gramps and went on that ride with him, so have good memories from that.

I loved test track. Crazy ride. It will be fun when the cars ride gets open at DL, since it is supposed to be sort of similiar in technology and experience, if not in theming.

 

[Crazy4Disney72]

Loving your TR so far! I knew I would, as I always enjoyed your DL reports. As a WDW vet, I got a lot of info about DL from your reports. I'm interested to get your impressions of all the WDW parks.

 

[bumbershoot]

Gathering the brain cells to continue...


Today we had a movie day. I saw Harry Potter 7 while R&E saw Tron Legacy (he went onto one of those family review sites and was happy with what he saw, so...), then E&I saw Tangled while Robert say HP7.

#7 in my opinion is the best since the first movie. They did it really well. I laughed, I cried, cried, cried some more, cried...sigh. Tangled was very good. I laughed a whole lot (the horse is hilarious) and cried as well. And admired the bad lady's hair.

But I wish I hadn't gone to the Tangled showing SO fast after HP, b/c I kept thinking about HP...



editing to add other things on my mind.

Added up all the FOOD we bought. At the grocery store, the waters at Costco, the foods at the parks. Also included in that is Robert's refillable mug, 3 butterbeer mugs, and my beer stein. Even with those souvenir-type things...we came in nearly 400 UNDER our food budget. Keep in mind that we did buy the Tables in Wonderland card (after upgrading to APs) so that's a 20% discount on most table services and some counter services. And then, though I didn't keep track AT ALL of the cash layed out to bell services etc etc, even with the mandatory tips that go along with the TIW, we were well under budget with food tips as well.

So that's nice! We made up for it with souvenirs, LOL, but still.