Me 43 Chief Planner
DH 45 All Around Good Sport
I started planning this trip months ago. We wanted to do something special for our anniversary, since we were awfully young when we got married and were not able to afford a honeymoon back then. We kicked around several ideas, including Las Vegas, but finally settled on WDW. As an appeasement to the children (we have three daughters, 18, 15 and 11), we took them to Universal Studios in August for four nights. This trip was just for us. We took the girls to WDW in September of 1999 and stayed at All Star Movies. While we were there, we had dinner at Cape May Buffet, and I fell in love at first sight with the Beach Club, so I knew where I wanted to stay. DH liked the idea of an all-inclusive vacation, so we decided to do the Discovery Magic plan, which includes two wishes per person per night that you can use towards meals or several other things. I didnt think we would have any trouble eating that much food every day. I was wrong, as you will see. I also joined the Disney Club when I realized that we could get a discount on the package that way. I booked the trip through Dreams Unlimited. Vicki was our very competent agent, and set up all of our Priority Seatings for us.
Just a note before I start about air travel these days. I noticed a huge difference in procedures and peoples attitudes in general between our trip in August and this one. You could almost sense the passengers sizing each other up before boarding the plane. Our carrier, Continental, advised getting to the airport two hours ahead of time. We did, and got through security in about 10 minutes, so we had plenty of time to sit at the gate and check out the other passengers. Same thing on the way home. Continental is also doing random searches of passengers at the gate. They look through your carry-on and use the wand to go over you. I got picked in Cleveland on the way there. I was only carrying a small purse, so it didnt take long, but they did look in all the pockets. I didnt mind, it actually made me feel better about getting on the plane. Our flights were on time, and without incident (thank goodness).
Sunday, October 14 - We arrived at the Beach Club, via Tiffany Town Car (we were very happy with their service yet again) at 1pm. We checked in and got to our room, and had the only minor problem of the trip. We had booked a waterview smoking room, and our room on the third floor was clearly non-smoking, and also had a tiny balcony. I called the front desk, and they switched us to a smoking room on the fourth floor with a gorgeous view of the lake and the Boardwalk. It had a bigger balcony, but still not enough room to sit out there. We just opened the door and put the chairs by it instead. We were happy with the room, it was quite large with two queen beds and a day bed, a dresser, an armoire that held the TV and mini-bar, and a bathroom with two sinks outside.
After we got straightened out with the room, we walked over to Epcot for our first PS at Coral Reef. This is a beautiful restaurant, and it was relaxing watching the fish while we ate. And did we eat! Ill post a restaurant review later. We enjoyed this meal and were happy to be at WDW at last.
After lunch, we went over to the ESPN club to watch the Indians lose, since the game wasnt on in our room (it was on the Fox Family network). This is a busy place on Sunday afternoon, with all the football games going on. Its fun watching all the different fans root for their teams. DH took his Indians losing pretty well, Im sure the fact that were on vacation helped!
We had a PS at Le Cellier for dinner at 7:30pm, and only had to wait a few minutes. Our dinner was good. After dinner, we went for a walk arount the Boardwalk and soaked in the atmosphere.
Monday, October 15 - We got up and went to Magic Kingdom. We got there at 9:00am, and took the train over to Frontierland. DH actually got his nerve up and went on Splash Mountain with me. It helped that we didnt have to wait in line. We got a little wet, but not too bad. I should mention here that DH hates most rides, especially anything fast or with a drop in it. When we go to Cedar Point, he sits and reads the paper while we go on Millenium Force and all the other coasters there. I went on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad by myself after that, but there was no wait and I didnt mind. After a ride in the Haunted Mansion and the TTA, we left. This is not our favorite park, and we were happy just to get a taste of the atmosphere for a few hours before it got too busy.
For lunch, we had a PS at Nine Dragons. DH loves Chinese food, and wanted to try it. It was ok, nothing special. We explored the World Showcase for a while after lunch, and stopped to see the American Adventure. I had never seen it before, and it meant more to me now than it would have a few years ago.
We ended up at the ESPN club again to watch the Indians lose their last game of the year. It wasnt quite as crowded as Sunday, but there were still quite a few people there. We had a few beers, and ordered some wings while we watched.
While wandering the World Showcase, we looked at the menu for Chefs de France, where our dinner PS was. We decided we liked the menu at Bistro de Paris better, so we changed our PS to there instead. This was a lovely restaurant. We had a table overlooking the lake, and we could see the Illuminations fireworks while we were eating. We were so stuffed, we couldnt eat our steaks (which were excellent), so we took them back to the room and put them in the mini-bar fridge for later. I think it was the beer and wings that did us in! After this dinner, we decided to cut back on the lunch wishes and got tickets to La Nouba for Thursday night (two wishes each). Two big meals a day were just too much.
We ended the night with another stroll around the Boardwalk. Crowds seemed pretty light today in the parks.
Tuesday, October 16 - This was our anniversary. We started the day with room service breakfast. You can hang a card on the door with your order and they deliver it at the time you choose. We thought the coffee was especially good. After breakfast we took the bus to Downtown Disney and got our shopping done at World of Disney so I could use my Disney Club discount (had to get the kids something). We had lunch at House of Blues, and it was very good. The place has a lot of atmosphere, there is folk art all over and most of the wood is painted with different colors and shapes, even the restrooms.
After lunch, we went to Disney Quest for a while. I made a roller coaster and rode it. I didnt make one with any inversions this time, I learned my lesson the last time we were there. It was still fun. Disney Quest wasnt too busy, but I guess we werent in the mood for it, since we didnt stay long.
Our dinner PS tonight was at Yachtsman Steakhouse. I was glad we picked this place for our special occasion, it was very nice and the food was excellent. After dinner, we went to Jellyrolls. This place was really hopping, and was a lot of fun.
Wednesday, October 17 - We spent the day at MGM Studios. DH decided he would go on Rockin Rollercoaster with me. Good thing there wasnt a line, or he probably would have chickened out. Then he really shocked me by going on Tower of Terror. It made him feel a little better that the lady sitting next to him was more scared than he was.
We ended up at Who Wants to be a Millionaire next. We were there early, and they asked us if we wanted to sit in the fastest finger seats. These dont really mean anything, they take the fastest person in the whole audience, but they were nicer chairs. It was a fun show.
We had a lunch PS at 50s Prime Time. The restaurant is great, looks just like your moms (or grandmas) old kitchen from the fifties. Our server was fine, but we had more fun watching the other server in the room (I should have written down their names). He tried to get one lady to eat her tomato, and her kids thought it was hysterical. We ate all our food, so we didnt have any problems. I would definitely go here again, DH had a milkshake that was to die for.
We spent the afternoon looking around, We went to the Indiana Jones show, on the Great Movie ride, and did the backstage tour. We went to the Hunchback show, but didnt stay for the whole thing. That is just not my favorite Disney movie, and I dont even like the music from it.
We made a Fantasmic dinner seating at Hollywood Brown Derby. I just loved this restaurant; it has a great atmosphere. We got over to the Fantasmic stadium at about 6:45, and there wasnt any preshow (is there usually?). Everyone was getting restless, so they started doing the wave. Then they did it in slow motion, then fast motion. Then we all gave ourselves a big hand before the show started. The show was great, but it was getting very chilly (it went down in the fifties that night, but was in the 70s and not at all humid that day, just perfect park weather). Fantasmic was packed, and the park in general seemed pretty busy. The crowds were picking up as the week went on.
Thursday, October 18 - We had tickets for the National Car Rental Golf Classic today. We finally figured out that there was a shuttle from the TTC to the golf course (DH read it in the Orlando paper). We haaad asked Guest Services several times, but they had not idea about the shuttle. It was a beautiful day, high in the 70s, sunny with no humidity. We only stayed for a few hours, but we did get to see Tiger Woods and several other golfers that we knew. We went to the Palm course (they were playing on the Magnolia course, too), and its a beautiful course. We also got to see some of Shades of Green when we got lost coming back. Unfortunately, the shuttle back to the parking lot dropped us off in the middle of the Magic Kingdom parking lot, and we had to walk quite a way back to the TTC.
We took a bus over to Animal Kingdom and ate lunch at the Rainforest. After lunch, we went into the park for a little while and rode Dinosaur and saw Its Tough to be a Bug. This park seemed crowded too.
Our dinner PS was for Fultons. We had an excellent dinner there, and went to the 9:00pm showing of La Nouba. What an incredible show that is. Im glad we went. After the show we headed over to Pleasure Island. We wanted to go to the Comedy Warehouse, but the next show wasnt for a while, so we went to the Adventurers Club instead. I really enjoyed this place, it was a lot of fun. Pleasure Island seemed pretty busy, too.
Friday, October 19 - After a very late night last night, we decided to sleep in and spend most of the day at Epcot. We got over to Test Track at about 10:30am, and while the stand-by line was 45 minutes, we got right on using the singles line. We even got in the same car. We rode Spaceship Earth, and then went over to the Land Pavillion to ride Living with the Land. Believe it or not, this was our longest wait of the trip, around 20 minutes. I like seeing the plants, so it was worth it.
We had a lunch PS at Teppanyaki. The food here was very good. Epcot seemed a little more crowded today. After lunch, we went to Norway and Mexico and went on the boat rides in each. The Maelstrom line was about 10 minutes, no line at all for Rio de Tiempo. It was a little warmer and more humid, more like Florida weather. It rained off and on for a few hours in the afternoon. After our first and last dip in the quiet pool, we got ready for our dinner PS at Narcoosees.
To get to Narcoosees, we took a bus to the Magic Kingdom, then took the resort monorail to the Grand Floridian. What a beautiful hotel that is. We had some time to walk around before dinner. Narcoosees is in a separate building right on the lake. This was a very good dinner, with the best steak we had all week (and we had a lot of them!). We got done with dinner just before the Magic Kingdom fireworks started, so we watched them from the boat dock right next to the restaurant. It was quite romantic.
After the fireworks, we figured we would just go back the way we came. We didnt factor in the hordes of people that were all leaving Magic Kingdom, however. We got lucky and our bus came in about 5 minutes, so it wasnt too bad, just very crowded on the bus on the way back.
We took one last stroll on the Boardwalk before turning in early, since we had an early flight.
Saturday, October 20 - We got up at 5:30am to get ready for our Tiffany Towncar pickup at 6:30am. Our flight was at 8:45am, and once again we sat at the gate for quite some time before our flight.
Our vacation turned out to be very special. After September 11, we seriously considered canceling the trip. Im glad we didnt. The CMs and even the other guests seemed to go out of their way to be friendly, and we never had a bad experience with either.
With the exception of our day at MGM Studios (which is our favorite park), we didnt spend more than a few hours at any one park at a time. This worked well for us. I liked the Discovery Magic package, but if I did it again, I would use the wishes only for dinner and go easy on lunch. Its just too much food, and it takes up a lot of time. I do feel we got our moneys worth, though.
I hope nobody minds me putting all this in one post, but I like reading trip reports that way. Ill be happy to answer anyones questions, but not tonight. I've been doing laundry all day and Im tired!
Thanks for reading,
Cindy
DH 45 All Around Good Sport
I started planning this trip months ago. We wanted to do something special for our anniversary, since we were awfully young when we got married and were not able to afford a honeymoon back then. We kicked around several ideas, including Las Vegas, but finally settled on WDW. As an appeasement to the children (we have three daughters, 18, 15 and 11), we took them to Universal Studios in August for four nights. This trip was just for us. We took the girls to WDW in September of 1999 and stayed at All Star Movies. While we were there, we had dinner at Cape May Buffet, and I fell in love at first sight with the Beach Club, so I knew where I wanted to stay. DH liked the idea of an all-inclusive vacation, so we decided to do the Discovery Magic plan, which includes two wishes per person per night that you can use towards meals or several other things. I didnt think we would have any trouble eating that much food every day. I was wrong, as you will see. I also joined the Disney Club when I realized that we could get a discount on the package that way. I booked the trip through Dreams Unlimited. Vicki was our very competent agent, and set up all of our Priority Seatings for us.
Just a note before I start about air travel these days. I noticed a huge difference in procedures and peoples attitudes in general between our trip in August and this one. You could almost sense the passengers sizing each other up before boarding the plane. Our carrier, Continental, advised getting to the airport two hours ahead of time. We did, and got through security in about 10 minutes, so we had plenty of time to sit at the gate and check out the other passengers. Same thing on the way home. Continental is also doing random searches of passengers at the gate. They look through your carry-on and use the wand to go over you. I got picked in Cleveland on the way there. I was only carrying a small purse, so it didnt take long, but they did look in all the pockets. I didnt mind, it actually made me feel better about getting on the plane. Our flights were on time, and without incident (thank goodness).
Sunday, October 14 - We arrived at the Beach Club, via Tiffany Town Car (we were very happy with their service yet again) at 1pm. We checked in and got to our room, and had the only minor problem of the trip. We had booked a waterview smoking room, and our room on the third floor was clearly non-smoking, and also had a tiny balcony. I called the front desk, and they switched us to a smoking room on the fourth floor with a gorgeous view of the lake and the Boardwalk. It had a bigger balcony, but still not enough room to sit out there. We just opened the door and put the chairs by it instead. We were happy with the room, it was quite large with two queen beds and a day bed, a dresser, an armoire that held the TV and mini-bar, and a bathroom with two sinks outside.
After we got straightened out with the room, we walked over to Epcot for our first PS at Coral Reef. This is a beautiful restaurant, and it was relaxing watching the fish while we ate. And did we eat! Ill post a restaurant review later. We enjoyed this meal and were happy to be at WDW at last.
After lunch, we went over to the ESPN club to watch the Indians lose, since the game wasnt on in our room (it was on the Fox Family network). This is a busy place on Sunday afternoon, with all the football games going on. Its fun watching all the different fans root for their teams. DH took his Indians losing pretty well, Im sure the fact that were on vacation helped!
We had a PS at Le Cellier for dinner at 7:30pm, and only had to wait a few minutes. Our dinner was good. After dinner, we went for a walk arount the Boardwalk and soaked in the atmosphere.
Monday, October 15 - We got up and went to Magic Kingdom. We got there at 9:00am, and took the train over to Frontierland. DH actually got his nerve up and went on Splash Mountain with me. It helped that we didnt have to wait in line. We got a little wet, but not too bad. I should mention here that DH hates most rides, especially anything fast or with a drop in it. When we go to Cedar Point, he sits and reads the paper while we go on Millenium Force and all the other coasters there. I went on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad by myself after that, but there was no wait and I didnt mind. After a ride in the Haunted Mansion and the TTA, we left. This is not our favorite park, and we were happy just to get a taste of the atmosphere for a few hours before it got too busy.
For lunch, we had a PS at Nine Dragons. DH loves Chinese food, and wanted to try it. It was ok, nothing special. We explored the World Showcase for a while after lunch, and stopped to see the American Adventure. I had never seen it before, and it meant more to me now than it would have a few years ago.
We ended up at the ESPN club again to watch the Indians lose their last game of the year. It wasnt quite as crowded as Sunday, but there were still quite a few people there. We had a few beers, and ordered some wings while we watched.
While wandering the World Showcase, we looked at the menu for Chefs de France, where our dinner PS was. We decided we liked the menu at Bistro de Paris better, so we changed our PS to there instead. This was a lovely restaurant. We had a table overlooking the lake, and we could see the Illuminations fireworks while we were eating. We were so stuffed, we couldnt eat our steaks (which were excellent), so we took them back to the room and put them in the mini-bar fridge for later. I think it was the beer and wings that did us in! After this dinner, we decided to cut back on the lunch wishes and got tickets to La Nouba for Thursday night (two wishes each). Two big meals a day were just too much.
We ended the night with another stroll around the Boardwalk. Crowds seemed pretty light today in the parks.
Tuesday, October 16 - This was our anniversary. We started the day with room service breakfast. You can hang a card on the door with your order and they deliver it at the time you choose. We thought the coffee was especially good. After breakfast we took the bus to Downtown Disney and got our shopping done at World of Disney so I could use my Disney Club discount (had to get the kids something). We had lunch at House of Blues, and it was very good. The place has a lot of atmosphere, there is folk art all over and most of the wood is painted with different colors and shapes, even the restrooms.
After lunch, we went to Disney Quest for a while. I made a roller coaster and rode it. I didnt make one with any inversions this time, I learned my lesson the last time we were there. It was still fun. Disney Quest wasnt too busy, but I guess we werent in the mood for it, since we didnt stay long.
Our dinner PS tonight was at Yachtsman Steakhouse. I was glad we picked this place for our special occasion, it was very nice and the food was excellent. After dinner, we went to Jellyrolls. This place was really hopping, and was a lot of fun.
Wednesday, October 17 - We spent the day at MGM Studios. DH decided he would go on Rockin Rollercoaster with me. Good thing there wasnt a line, or he probably would have chickened out. Then he really shocked me by going on Tower of Terror. It made him feel a little better that the lady sitting next to him was more scared than he was.
We ended up at Who Wants to be a Millionaire next. We were there early, and they asked us if we wanted to sit in the fastest finger seats. These dont really mean anything, they take the fastest person in the whole audience, but they were nicer chairs. It was a fun show.
We had a lunch PS at 50s Prime Time. The restaurant is great, looks just like your moms (or grandmas) old kitchen from the fifties. Our server was fine, but we had more fun watching the other server in the room (I should have written down their names). He tried to get one lady to eat her tomato, and her kids thought it was hysterical. We ate all our food, so we didnt have any problems. I would definitely go here again, DH had a milkshake that was to die for.
We spent the afternoon looking around, We went to the Indiana Jones show, on the Great Movie ride, and did the backstage tour. We went to the Hunchback show, but didnt stay for the whole thing. That is just not my favorite Disney movie, and I dont even like the music from it.
We made a Fantasmic dinner seating at Hollywood Brown Derby. I just loved this restaurant; it has a great atmosphere. We got over to the Fantasmic stadium at about 6:45, and there wasnt any preshow (is there usually?). Everyone was getting restless, so they started doing the wave. Then they did it in slow motion, then fast motion. Then we all gave ourselves a big hand before the show started. The show was great, but it was getting very chilly (it went down in the fifties that night, but was in the 70s and not at all humid that day, just perfect park weather). Fantasmic was packed, and the park in general seemed pretty busy. The crowds were picking up as the week went on.
Thursday, October 18 - We had tickets for the National Car Rental Golf Classic today. We finally figured out that there was a shuttle from the TTC to the golf course (DH read it in the Orlando paper). We haaad asked Guest Services several times, but they had not idea about the shuttle. It was a beautiful day, high in the 70s, sunny with no humidity. We only stayed for a few hours, but we did get to see Tiger Woods and several other golfers that we knew. We went to the Palm course (they were playing on the Magnolia course, too), and its a beautiful course. We also got to see some of Shades of Green when we got lost coming back. Unfortunately, the shuttle back to the parking lot dropped us off in the middle of the Magic Kingdom parking lot, and we had to walk quite a way back to the TTC.
We took a bus over to Animal Kingdom and ate lunch at the Rainforest. After lunch, we went into the park for a little while and rode Dinosaur and saw Its Tough to be a Bug. This park seemed crowded too.
Our dinner PS was for Fultons. We had an excellent dinner there, and went to the 9:00pm showing of La Nouba. What an incredible show that is. Im glad we went. After the show we headed over to Pleasure Island. We wanted to go to the Comedy Warehouse, but the next show wasnt for a while, so we went to the Adventurers Club instead. I really enjoyed this place, it was a lot of fun. Pleasure Island seemed pretty busy, too.
Friday, October 19 - After a very late night last night, we decided to sleep in and spend most of the day at Epcot. We got over to Test Track at about 10:30am, and while the stand-by line was 45 minutes, we got right on using the singles line. We even got in the same car. We rode Spaceship Earth, and then went over to the Land Pavillion to ride Living with the Land. Believe it or not, this was our longest wait of the trip, around 20 minutes. I like seeing the plants, so it was worth it.
We had a lunch PS at Teppanyaki. The food here was very good. Epcot seemed a little more crowded today. After lunch, we went to Norway and Mexico and went on the boat rides in each. The Maelstrom line was about 10 minutes, no line at all for Rio de Tiempo. It was a little warmer and more humid, more like Florida weather. It rained off and on for a few hours in the afternoon. After our first and last dip in the quiet pool, we got ready for our dinner PS at Narcoosees.
To get to Narcoosees, we took a bus to the Magic Kingdom, then took the resort monorail to the Grand Floridian. What a beautiful hotel that is. We had some time to walk around before dinner. Narcoosees is in a separate building right on the lake. This was a very good dinner, with the best steak we had all week (and we had a lot of them!). We got done with dinner just before the Magic Kingdom fireworks started, so we watched them from the boat dock right next to the restaurant. It was quite romantic.
After the fireworks, we figured we would just go back the way we came. We didnt factor in the hordes of people that were all leaving Magic Kingdom, however. We got lucky and our bus came in about 5 minutes, so it wasnt too bad, just very crowded on the bus on the way back.
We took one last stroll on the Boardwalk before turning in early, since we had an early flight.
Saturday, October 20 - We got up at 5:30am to get ready for our Tiffany Towncar pickup at 6:30am. Our flight was at 8:45am, and once again we sat at the gate for quite some time before our flight.
Our vacation turned out to be very special. After September 11, we seriously considered canceling the trip. Im glad we didnt. The CMs and even the other guests seemed to go out of their way to be friendly, and we never had a bad experience with either.
With the exception of our day at MGM Studios (which is our favorite park), we didnt spend more than a few hours at any one park at a time. This worked well for us. I liked the Discovery Magic package, but if I did it again, I would use the wishes only for dinner and go easy on lunch. Its just too much food, and it takes up a lot of time. I do feel we got our moneys worth, though.
I hope nobody minds me putting all this in one post, but I like reading trip reports that way. Ill be happy to answer anyones questions, but not tonight. I've been doing laundry all day and Im tired!
Thanks for reading,
Cindy
Sounds like you had a wonderful chilled out anniversary.
