Matt71
Self appointed voice of reason
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2008
- Messages
- 537
The Cast: Me36, DW37, DD16, DS15
Where we’re from: Michigan
Where we stayed: Port Orleans French Quarter
Number of Pictures Taken: 5235
Here is our original commando itinerary that we kind of stuck to.
Saturday 3-29
I decided to drive, pretty much, straight through from Michigan stopping only for a 2 hour nap. As a result, we arrived at POFQ around 11am which was 4 hours ahead of schedule. Check-in was a breeze and we were unpacked and on the ferry to DTD by noon.
We were hungry, so after a little browsing, we stopped at Earl of Sandwich. The sandwiches were goo, but not the god send people make them out to be. We managed to check out nearly every shop, but didn’t buy anything yet. I had mnanaged to get sun screen in my eye, so my eye was watering the erst of the day even after washing it out twice. People probably thought I was crying.
By 6pm we were pretty much spent (I was working on only 2 hours sleep), so we stopped by Wolfgang Puck Café an hour before our 7pm ADR and were able to get in. The food was merely ok though I didn’t really have time to taste mine. I had ordered my steak medium rare and they brought it to me well done. By the time they fixed it, everyone else was done eating, so I wolfed mine down. I had pre-ordered a birthday cake for DD & DS which was nice, but not as nice as I expected after seeing some of the amazing cakes others had ordered. I asked for a supper chocolate cake and what we got was basically a store bought cake with chocolate covered strawberries on it. Fortunately they counted it as our dessert for the DDP, so we didn’t have to pay extra for it. What really stunk was that DD & DS were not feeling well and didn’t eat any of it. It ended up sitting in our room until the strawberries molded and we threw it away.
Sunday 3-30
We made it to the park in time for rope drop and headed to KS first and were on the trail by 9:10am. Got some good pics, but there were no lions. DW & DS needed to use the rest room, so DD & I ran over to Everest to grab fast passes. When we got back, the 4 of us hit Pangani Forest Trail where I got some amazing Gorilla pics. By 10am we were at Kali River Rapids which only had a 10 minute wait (which was mostly walking from the entrance to the ride), so we hit that really quick. After KRR, DD and I rode used our 4 fast passes and rode Everest back to back in about 15 minutes. The standby line was 40 minutes by then (11:45). While DD and I rode everest DW & DS grabbed 12:10 fast passes for Dinosaur. We walked through Dinoland for a bit, but didn’t find it to be much more exciting than a typical county fair. We opted against Primeval Whirl as none of us wanted to throw up. We rode Dinosaur, which was fun, but not nearly as fun as Everest.
For lunch we at at Frame Tree BBQ which was good, but not amazing. It did take us longer to find a seat than it took us to ride Everest twice however, which I found humorous. After lunch, we headed over to the 2pm Flights of Wonder which was pretty entertaining. We then went to the 3:15 showing of Finding Nemo - The Musical which I think is amazing. We were amazed to find second row seats to be empty despite a near full house. I wish we were allowed to take pictures because they’d have been amazing. Seats further back would probably had been better, but we were still able to see everything fine. After Nemo we headed over to watch the Parade which was entertaining, but not quite worth the heat stroke waiting for it. After the parade we headed over to “It’s Tough To Be a Bug”. Despite watching the parade right outside the entrance, we still got stuck being a LOT of people that charged the entrance as soon as the parade was over. It was well worth it and probably one of my favorite attractions of the entire trip.
After ITTBAB we rode Kali River rapids again which only had a 5 minute wait at 4:20pm. This time I put my camera in a zip-lock bag and managed to take some good pics. Afterwards, we headed to the 5:00 showing of Lion King, which I was not terribly pleased with after seeing Nemo.
After Lion King, we hopped on a bus to the Poly and had dinner at the Kona Café which was one of our better meals of the week.
After Dinner, we headed over to Magic Kingdom for EMH and caught the end of Spectromagic. We made our way up Main Street and claimed a spot at the corner in front of the castle for Wishes. By this time, we were all pretty much spent, but we toughed it out since the lines were so short for everything. We did Pirates, Flying Carpets, Laugh Floor and Stitch before we gacve in for the night. I must say, no one should ever wait more than 10 minutes for Pirates – It was pretty boring. Stitch is the dumbest, waste of time at WDW and had it not been a walk-on I’d have been really mad. We headed back to eth resort a little before midnight.
Monday 3-31
We got a late start on Monday and didn’t get up until after 10am. We’d planned to do miniature golf from 10 to noon, but skipped it and drove to DTD around 11am. We started out with lunch at Wolfgang Puck Express which was bland, but eatable, then headed to Disney Quest.
Disney Quest was a mixed bag. It was great to be able to play old arcade games for free, but it was so amazingly hot inside that it was hard to enjoy it. Though fun, the Aladdin simulator gave me borderline motion sickness and the Jungle Cruise simulator just wore me out – it was too much like exercise for vacation. By 3pm DS was feeling sick, so we headed back to the resort.
Later that day we headed up to the Amway Arena to watch wrestling and made it back to the resort by about midnight.
Tuesday 4-1
Tuesday morning was a turning point in our vacation. DW and I had to force the kids out of bed, so we could get to Epcot to ride Soarin. We missed rope drop, but managed to ride Soarin by 8:45 and grab fast passes for 9:36. After Soarin, DS had had enough of WDW, he claimed to be sick (we discovered later that he was faking) and went back to the resort where he spent about 50% of the rest of out trip watching TV – I was not pleased, but wasn’t about to force him. DW, DD and I did Living with the Land before hitting Soarin for a second time. By that time the stand-by line was 55 minutes long and fast passes were going out for 12:36.
After Soarin, we watched “Circle of Life” them headed over to Nemo and friends. The line was pretty long, so we decided to come back later. We headed over to Ellen’s Energy Adventure which was entertaining, but only if you think Ellen is funny. The Line for Spaceship Earth was pretty long and none of us were all that excited about doing Test Track or Mission Space, so we headed back over to Nemo which was much easier to get on by then. Nemo and Friends was pretty lame, so I’m gald we didn’t wait earlier. It’s cool how they get the animated characters to look like they are in the tank with the real fish, but that was the only thing that inspired me.
From there we headed to our 1:10 lunch ADR at Le Cellier. The food was good, but it’s not the five star steak house people claim it is.
After lunch we did “Honey I shrunk the Audience” and “Turtle Talk with Crush”. Both were merely ok attractions. DD wasn’t feeling well and I was pretty unsatisfied with Epcot as a whole, so we went back to the resort around 3:30.
We all took a nap, then headed out to DTD for dinner at Planet Hollywood and La Nouba. We drove over to DTD where DD suddenly got a stomach ache and promptly threw up in the bushes outside Planet Hollywood. She claimed to feel much better after that, so once she was composed we went inside for dinner ( a decision I later regretted). After a considerable wait, we were seated and ordered. DD ended up spending the whole time in the restroom and DS basicly sat at the table and stared at his food the whole time. Considering this was our one OOP meal, I was pretty disappointed. The good news is that the food was pretty good.
After dinner, DD took a bus back to the resort while the rest of us went to La Nouba. We tried getting rid of our extra La Nouba ticket, but couldn’t even give it away. The box office was willing to give us a voucher for a different day, but the trip was such a huge expense for us I didn’t think we’d be back to see the show within the 2 year window they offered. So, basically, we ate a $70 ticket. In the end, I didn’t mind, because the show was amazing. Even DS who had yet to like anything to that point thought it was “cool but weird”.
Wednesday 4-2
DW and I showed up at Hollywood Studios around 9:30. Both kids chose to stay behind. DW didn’t want to do Tower of Terror and since the kids didn’t come, I opted to spend time with DW rather than wait in the 40 minute line. We watched the High School Musical street party which we found pretty odd and not worth standing in the heat to watch. We caught “Voyage of the Little Mermaid” and “The Great Movie Ride” which were both entertaining. It disappointed me how Mermaid was condensed, because with the parts that were cut out you really need to watch the movie first or it won’t make sense (Finding Nemo the musical is guilty of this aswell, but is a much better performance).
Around 1:00 DW and I took advantage of the kids missing meals and used TS credits at 50’s Prime Time Café (walked up with no ADRs – no problem). The food was good, the atmosphere was nice, but our table was a bit cramped. Soon after lunch DD called and said she was feeling better and her and DS were coming to meet us.
The kids showed up around 2:00 and we watched some entertaining street performers while making our way over to the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular. We got terrible seats, but the show was pretty entertaining – we all enjoyed it. We then watched the Block Party Bash, which is a pretty good parade, though it might need to be adjusted; it seems like there are 2 parts of the parade, but it only stops long enough for you to see half of it. Afterwards the kids were hungry, so we stopped by Backlot Express. Once the kids had some food in them we headed over to “Lights Motors Action” which was a pretty cool show. DS wasn’t feeling well, so he went back to the resort afterwards. This was when DD revealed to us that DS was not really sick and just wanted to go home, but knew that wasn’t an option. DS has a hostory of faking illness to get out of school, so I was not particularly surprised. To this day I’m still confused how anyone could not have fun at Disney World – even with the heat and all the walking.
We had ADRs at Hollywood & Vine for 6pm, so the 3 of us headed over there. The food was merely ok and on par with most buffets (though far more expensive). DD was not feeling good again, so she didn’t eat much, which turned out to be a good thing because she threw up less than 10 minutes after leaving the restaurant. She promptly headed back to the resort while DW and I went to get seats for 8:30 Fantasmic. Fantasmic was amazing and it was too bad that both of the kids missed it.
Afterwards, we returned to the resort and had a long discussion with DS who eventually confessed that he wasn’t really sick. We explained to him that we were fine with whatever he wanted or didn’t want to do with his time on vacation, but he needed to be honest with us about it, so we could plan appropriately. We came to terms and I think everyone was happier (though I was still befuddled).
Thursday 4-3
On Thursday, DD, DW and I went to Magic Kingdom. We slept through the alarm and didn’t make it to MK until 10am. We started off slow, touring the Swiss Family Tree House, Checking out the Enchanted Tiki room and getting fast passes for the Jungle Cruise. While we waited for our Jungle Cruise time, we toured Tom Sawyer Island which was a good time waster if nothing else. We did the Jungle Cruise Around noon. Our tour guide Bridget was really funny and made the cruise a hoot. Afterwards, we grabbed fast passes to Splash Mountain then went to Pecos Bills for lunch. They put so much stuff on our tray that we spilled lemonade all over our fries trying to get to our table. The burgers weren’t bad though. Had I realized how gigantic the chicken wraps were, I might have had one of those instead.
After lunch, we made our way over to Haunted Mansion which had a 40 minute wait. The ride is much bigger than I thought it was goging to be – most of it must be underground. It was fun, but not particularly scary. Next was the Hall of Presidents which wasn’t particularly entertaining or informative, but I did find it more unsettling than Haunted Mansion when so many people clapped for Gearge W. Bush.
Around 2:30 we went to Splash Mountain. The fast pass line was all the way back to the Briar Patch entrance! It took us nearly 30 minutes to get through the line. I guess it was better than going through the 100 minute stand-by line. Splash mountain was fun, but by the time we had finished, we had already missed the first 10 minutes of the parade, which upset me.
After the parade, we took the World Train over to Toontown where we met up with DS who left the solitude of the resort room for dinner. DS, DD, & DW rode Cinderella’s Carousel then went to Indy Speedway while I grabbed 10:30pm fast passes for Space Mountain. Afterwards, we made our way to the castle and watched part of Dream Along with Mickey before making our way to The Crystal Palace for our 5:10 ADR. DD was not feeling well again – maybe you saw her laying on the ramp out front. Dinner was typical for a buffet, but again, overpriced. DS barely ate anything and DD ate only a few bites. Out waitress was very nice and did not charge us for DD’s meal. DS went back to the resort about half way through dinner and DD followed shortly after. We did manage to get pics with Tigger, Pooh and Piglet – Piglet played with DW’s pig tails which was funny.
After dinner, DW and I rode the Liberty Square Riverboat which was relaxing. The weather was looking pretty rough, so we moved things inside. We went to the Laugh Floor which had a relatively short wait. Then, we made our way to the castle to claim a spot for 9pm Spectromagic. There was some concern about whether or not they would do the parade in the rain, but we waited it out. The parade did go on, but some of the floats were absent and it went by much faster than last time. We left to ride Transit Authority before the fireworks, but discovered that they were having technical issues and it was shut down. We did Carousel of Progress instead.
After CoP, it was still raining and DW was pretty whipped, so we left the park just as Wishes started, so we could beat the crowds to the bus. I did get some pics from out front which I found to be pretty nice having the trainstation in front of the fireworks instead of the castle – something different.
Friday 4-4
Friday was Miniature Golf & Blizzard Beach day, so DS was more chipper than the rest of the week. We played a single round at Fantasia Gardens which was fun, but not as cool as I expected it to be. The we made our way to Coronado Springs to eat lunch at Pepper Market. Let me say this, Pepper Market is by far the best bang for your buck for DDP counter Service. We saved a good 55% by using the DDP and the food was pretty good.
After lunch we made our way to Blizzard Beach where we did Slush Gusher, Teamboat Springs (x2), Run Off Rapids (x2), Cross Country Creek and Melt-Away Bay before I had enough of the stairs. DW, DS, & DD did Toboggan Racer, Downhill Double Dipper and Snow Stormers before DW and I went back to the resort for a quick nap before heading out to Hollywood Studios.
This time was originally slated for World Showcase at Epcot, but I didn’t really care for the park when we went on Tuesday, so we chose to got to DHS to see Fantasmic again. We waited quite a while for the bus and by the time we got to the park it was raining pretty hard. We were 10 minutes late for our ADR at Sci Fi Drive-In Theater, but didn’t mind waiting since it was pouring outside. Sci Fi has a great atmosphere and is pretty cool, but it is not built for fat people. I was incredibly uncomfortable squeezed into the back seat of our car. If you are overweight, try getting one of the few tables with chairs (you’ll need to have a party of 4).
After Dinner, the rain had let up, so we made our way to Fantasmic to get good seats. There was a great deal of concern about more rain coming, but we crossed our fingers. Once the show started, it was clear that they were rushing it. Sections of the performance were missing entirely and the rest was rushed whenever possible. I was pretty disappointed, but ultimately it turned out they knew what they were doing because not a minute after the end of the show it started pouring rain again. From there we made our way out of the park, stopping at a few shops along the way.
Saturday 4-5
Saturday morning we checked out of the resort and made our way to Wilderness Canyon Café for an early lunch. Maybe it’s not as lively at 11:30, but I expected something more fun. A cute 12 y/o girl, eating lunch with her family, sang “Part of Your World” from Little Mermaid and was pretty amazing. From there, we went to DTD for some last minute shopping and were on the road back to Michigan by 2:30pm.
So, that’s it. Any questions?
Where we’re from: Michigan
Where we stayed: Port Orleans French Quarter
Number of Pictures Taken: 5235
Here is our original commando itinerary that we kind of stuck to.
Saturday 3-29
I decided to drive, pretty much, straight through from Michigan stopping only for a 2 hour nap. As a result, we arrived at POFQ around 11am which was 4 hours ahead of schedule. Check-in was a breeze and we were unpacked and on the ferry to DTD by noon.
We were hungry, so after a little browsing, we stopped at Earl of Sandwich. The sandwiches were goo, but not the god send people make them out to be. We managed to check out nearly every shop, but didn’t buy anything yet. I had mnanaged to get sun screen in my eye, so my eye was watering the erst of the day even after washing it out twice. People probably thought I was crying.
By 6pm we were pretty much spent (I was working on only 2 hours sleep), so we stopped by Wolfgang Puck Café an hour before our 7pm ADR and were able to get in. The food was merely ok though I didn’t really have time to taste mine. I had ordered my steak medium rare and they brought it to me well done. By the time they fixed it, everyone else was done eating, so I wolfed mine down. I had pre-ordered a birthday cake for DD & DS which was nice, but not as nice as I expected after seeing some of the amazing cakes others had ordered. I asked for a supper chocolate cake and what we got was basically a store bought cake with chocolate covered strawberries on it. Fortunately they counted it as our dessert for the DDP, so we didn’t have to pay extra for it. What really stunk was that DD & DS were not feeling well and didn’t eat any of it. It ended up sitting in our room until the strawberries molded and we threw it away.
Sunday 3-30
We made it to the park in time for rope drop and headed to KS first and were on the trail by 9:10am. Got some good pics, but there were no lions. DW & DS needed to use the rest room, so DD & I ran over to Everest to grab fast passes. When we got back, the 4 of us hit Pangani Forest Trail where I got some amazing Gorilla pics. By 10am we were at Kali River Rapids which only had a 10 minute wait (which was mostly walking from the entrance to the ride), so we hit that really quick. After KRR, DD and I rode used our 4 fast passes and rode Everest back to back in about 15 minutes. The standby line was 40 minutes by then (11:45). While DD and I rode everest DW & DS grabbed 12:10 fast passes for Dinosaur. We walked through Dinoland for a bit, but didn’t find it to be much more exciting than a typical county fair. We opted against Primeval Whirl as none of us wanted to throw up. We rode Dinosaur, which was fun, but not nearly as fun as Everest.
For lunch we at at Frame Tree BBQ which was good, but not amazing. It did take us longer to find a seat than it took us to ride Everest twice however, which I found humorous. After lunch, we headed over to the 2pm Flights of Wonder which was pretty entertaining. We then went to the 3:15 showing of Finding Nemo - The Musical which I think is amazing. We were amazed to find second row seats to be empty despite a near full house. I wish we were allowed to take pictures because they’d have been amazing. Seats further back would probably had been better, but we were still able to see everything fine. After Nemo we headed over to watch the Parade which was entertaining, but not quite worth the heat stroke waiting for it. After the parade we headed over to “It’s Tough To Be a Bug”. Despite watching the parade right outside the entrance, we still got stuck being a LOT of people that charged the entrance as soon as the parade was over. It was well worth it and probably one of my favorite attractions of the entire trip.
After ITTBAB we rode Kali River rapids again which only had a 5 minute wait at 4:20pm. This time I put my camera in a zip-lock bag and managed to take some good pics. Afterwards, we headed to the 5:00 showing of Lion King, which I was not terribly pleased with after seeing Nemo.
After Lion King, we hopped on a bus to the Poly and had dinner at the Kona Café which was one of our better meals of the week.
After Dinner, we headed over to Magic Kingdom for EMH and caught the end of Spectromagic. We made our way up Main Street and claimed a spot at the corner in front of the castle for Wishes. By this time, we were all pretty much spent, but we toughed it out since the lines were so short for everything. We did Pirates, Flying Carpets, Laugh Floor and Stitch before we gacve in for the night. I must say, no one should ever wait more than 10 minutes for Pirates – It was pretty boring. Stitch is the dumbest, waste of time at WDW and had it not been a walk-on I’d have been really mad. We headed back to eth resort a little before midnight.
Monday 3-31
We got a late start on Monday and didn’t get up until after 10am. We’d planned to do miniature golf from 10 to noon, but skipped it and drove to DTD around 11am. We started out with lunch at Wolfgang Puck Express which was bland, but eatable, then headed to Disney Quest.
Disney Quest was a mixed bag. It was great to be able to play old arcade games for free, but it was so amazingly hot inside that it was hard to enjoy it. Though fun, the Aladdin simulator gave me borderline motion sickness and the Jungle Cruise simulator just wore me out – it was too much like exercise for vacation. By 3pm DS was feeling sick, so we headed back to the resort.
Later that day we headed up to the Amway Arena to watch wrestling and made it back to the resort by about midnight.
Tuesday 4-1
Tuesday morning was a turning point in our vacation. DW and I had to force the kids out of bed, so we could get to Epcot to ride Soarin. We missed rope drop, but managed to ride Soarin by 8:45 and grab fast passes for 9:36. After Soarin, DS had had enough of WDW, he claimed to be sick (we discovered later that he was faking) and went back to the resort where he spent about 50% of the rest of out trip watching TV – I was not pleased, but wasn’t about to force him. DW, DD and I did Living with the Land before hitting Soarin for a second time. By that time the stand-by line was 55 minutes long and fast passes were going out for 12:36.
After Soarin, we watched “Circle of Life” them headed over to Nemo and friends. The line was pretty long, so we decided to come back later. We headed over to Ellen’s Energy Adventure which was entertaining, but only if you think Ellen is funny. The Line for Spaceship Earth was pretty long and none of us were all that excited about doing Test Track or Mission Space, so we headed back over to Nemo which was much easier to get on by then. Nemo and Friends was pretty lame, so I’m gald we didn’t wait earlier. It’s cool how they get the animated characters to look like they are in the tank with the real fish, but that was the only thing that inspired me.
From there we headed to our 1:10 lunch ADR at Le Cellier. The food was good, but it’s not the five star steak house people claim it is.
After lunch we did “Honey I shrunk the Audience” and “Turtle Talk with Crush”. Both were merely ok attractions. DD wasn’t feeling well and I was pretty unsatisfied with Epcot as a whole, so we went back to the resort around 3:30.
We all took a nap, then headed out to DTD for dinner at Planet Hollywood and La Nouba. We drove over to DTD where DD suddenly got a stomach ache and promptly threw up in the bushes outside Planet Hollywood. She claimed to feel much better after that, so once she was composed we went inside for dinner ( a decision I later regretted). After a considerable wait, we were seated and ordered. DD ended up spending the whole time in the restroom and DS basicly sat at the table and stared at his food the whole time. Considering this was our one OOP meal, I was pretty disappointed. The good news is that the food was pretty good.
After dinner, DD took a bus back to the resort while the rest of us went to La Nouba. We tried getting rid of our extra La Nouba ticket, but couldn’t even give it away. The box office was willing to give us a voucher for a different day, but the trip was such a huge expense for us I didn’t think we’d be back to see the show within the 2 year window they offered. So, basically, we ate a $70 ticket. In the end, I didn’t mind, because the show was amazing. Even DS who had yet to like anything to that point thought it was “cool but weird”.
Wednesday 4-2
DW and I showed up at Hollywood Studios around 9:30. Both kids chose to stay behind. DW didn’t want to do Tower of Terror and since the kids didn’t come, I opted to spend time with DW rather than wait in the 40 minute line. We watched the High School Musical street party which we found pretty odd and not worth standing in the heat to watch. We caught “Voyage of the Little Mermaid” and “The Great Movie Ride” which were both entertaining. It disappointed me how Mermaid was condensed, because with the parts that were cut out you really need to watch the movie first or it won’t make sense (Finding Nemo the musical is guilty of this aswell, but is a much better performance).
Around 1:00 DW and I took advantage of the kids missing meals and used TS credits at 50’s Prime Time Café (walked up with no ADRs – no problem). The food was good, the atmosphere was nice, but our table was a bit cramped. Soon after lunch DD called and said she was feeling better and her and DS were coming to meet us.
The kids showed up around 2:00 and we watched some entertaining street performers while making our way over to the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular. We got terrible seats, but the show was pretty entertaining – we all enjoyed it. We then watched the Block Party Bash, which is a pretty good parade, though it might need to be adjusted; it seems like there are 2 parts of the parade, but it only stops long enough for you to see half of it. Afterwards the kids were hungry, so we stopped by Backlot Express. Once the kids had some food in them we headed over to “Lights Motors Action” which was a pretty cool show. DS wasn’t feeling well, so he went back to the resort afterwards. This was when DD revealed to us that DS was not really sick and just wanted to go home, but knew that wasn’t an option. DS has a hostory of faking illness to get out of school, so I was not particularly surprised. To this day I’m still confused how anyone could not have fun at Disney World – even with the heat and all the walking.
We had ADRs at Hollywood & Vine for 6pm, so the 3 of us headed over there. The food was merely ok and on par with most buffets (though far more expensive). DD was not feeling good again, so she didn’t eat much, which turned out to be a good thing because she threw up less than 10 minutes after leaving the restaurant. She promptly headed back to the resort while DW and I went to get seats for 8:30 Fantasmic. Fantasmic was amazing and it was too bad that both of the kids missed it.
Afterwards, we returned to the resort and had a long discussion with DS who eventually confessed that he wasn’t really sick. We explained to him that we were fine with whatever he wanted or didn’t want to do with his time on vacation, but he needed to be honest with us about it, so we could plan appropriately. We came to terms and I think everyone was happier (though I was still befuddled).
Thursday 4-3
On Thursday, DD, DW and I went to Magic Kingdom. We slept through the alarm and didn’t make it to MK until 10am. We started off slow, touring the Swiss Family Tree House, Checking out the Enchanted Tiki room and getting fast passes for the Jungle Cruise. While we waited for our Jungle Cruise time, we toured Tom Sawyer Island which was a good time waster if nothing else. We did the Jungle Cruise Around noon. Our tour guide Bridget was really funny and made the cruise a hoot. Afterwards, we grabbed fast passes to Splash Mountain then went to Pecos Bills for lunch. They put so much stuff on our tray that we spilled lemonade all over our fries trying to get to our table. The burgers weren’t bad though. Had I realized how gigantic the chicken wraps were, I might have had one of those instead.
After lunch, we made our way over to Haunted Mansion which had a 40 minute wait. The ride is much bigger than I thought it was goging to be – most of it must be underground. It was fun, but not particularly scary. Next was the Hall of Presidents which wasn’t particularly entertaining or informative, but I did find it more unsettling than Haunted Mansion when so many people clapped for Gearge W. Bush.
Around 2:30 we went to Splash Mountain. The fast pass line was all the way back to the Briar Patch entrance! It took us nearly 30 minutes to get through the line. I guess it was better than going through the 100 minute stand-by line. Splash mountain was fun, but by the time we had finished, we had already missed the first 10 minutes of the parade, which upset me.
After the parade, we took the World Train over to Toontown where we met up with DS who left the solitude of the resort room for dinner. DS, DD, & DW rode Cinderella’s Carousel then went to Indy Speedway while I grabbed 10:30pm fast passes for Space Mountain. Afterwards, we made our way to the castle and watched part of Dream Along with Mickey before making our way to The Crystal Palace for our 5:10 ADR. DD was not feeling well again – maybe you saw her laying on the ramp out front. Dinner was typical for a buffet, but again, overpriced. DS barely ate anything and DD ate only a few bites. Out waitress was very nice and did not charge us for DD’s meal. DS went back to the resort about half way through dinner and DD followed shortly after. We did manage to get pics with Tigger, Pooh and Piglet – Piglet played with DW’s pig tails which was funny.
After dinner, DW and I rode the Liberty Square Riverboat which was relaxing. The weather was looking pretty rough, so we moved things inside. We went to the Laugh Floor which had a relatively short wait. Then, we made our way to the castle to claim a spot for 9pm Spectromagic. There was some concern about whether or not they would do the parade in the rain, but we waited it out. The parade did go on, but some of the floats were absent and it went by much faster than last time. We left to ride Transit Authority before the fireworks, but discovered that they were having technical issues and it was shut down. We did Carousel of Progress instead.
After CoP, it was still raining and DW was pretty whipped, so we left the park just as Wishes started, so we could beat the crowds to the bus. I did get some pics from out front which I found to be pretty nice having the trainstation in front of the fireworks instead of the castle – something different.
Friday 4-4
Friday was Miniature Golf & Blizzard Beach day, so DS was more chipper than the rest of the week. We played a single round at Fantasia Gardens which was fun, but not as cool as I expected it to be. The we made our way to Coronado Springs to eat lunch at Pepper Market. Let me say this, Pepper Market is by far the best bang for your buck for DDP counter Service. We saved a good 55% by using the DDP and the food was pretty good.
After lunch we made our way to Blizzard Beach where we did Slush Gusher, Teamboat Springs (x2), Run Off Rapids (x2), Cross Country Creek and Melt-Away Bay before I had enough of the stairs. DW, DS, & DD did Toboggan Racer, Downhill Double Dipper and Snow Stormers before DW and I went back to the resort for a quick nap before heading out to Hollywood Studios.
This time was originally slated for World Showcase at Epcot, but I didn’t really care for the park when we went on Tuesday, so we chose to got to DHS to see Fantasmic again. We waited quite a while for the bus and by the time we got to the park it was raining pretty hard. We were 10 minutes late for our ADR at Sci Fi Drive-In Theater, but didn’t mind waiting since it was pouring outside. Sci Fi has a great atmosphere and is pretty cool, but it is not built for fat people. I was incredibly uncomfortable squeezed into the back seat of our car. If you are overweight, try getting one of the few tables with chairs (you’ll need to have a party of 4).
After Dinner, the rain had let up, so we made our way to Fantasmic to get good seats. There was a great deal of concern about more rain coming, but we crossed our fingers. Once the show started, it was clear that they were rushing it. Sections of the performance were missing entirely and the rest was rushed whenever possible. I was pretty disappointed, but ultimately it turned out they knew what they were doing because not a minute after the end of the show it started pouring rain again. From there we made our way out of the park, stopping at a few shops along the way.
Saturday 4-5
Saturday morning we checked out of the resort and made our way to Wilderness Canyon Café for an early lunch. Maybe it’s not as lively at 11:30, but I expected something more fun. A cute 12 y/o girl, eating lunch with her family, sang “Part of Your World” from Little Mermaid and was pretty amazing. From there, we went to DTD for some last minute shopping and were on the road back to Michigan by 2:30pm.
So, that’s it. Any questions?
