Yay! I got the celebrity guessing game right! I hope you got some pics to document the sighting!
I went over to big thunder next and then decided to call it a day at MK and came home and took a nap with Melissa. I didnt get to see it, but apparently, they had a mini-parade at OKW with the castmembers getting prices for most decorative golf cart. Here is one of those:
I think this picture is of us smiling b/c we know a slushie is in our near future!
Actually, this time, we both kinda liked it. We next walked over to Italy to look at the shops, but Melissa didnt see anything she wanted. I ended up getting a funnel cake b/c I couldnt wait for our late dinner. A Bon Jovi cover band was playing 
and I was surprised at how many people were watching the show. As an aside, I have never been to epcot on new years ever, but we could definitely tell the crowds were thicker than usual, but as others have said, epcot holds it better so I never felt trapped in a sea of people at least. Heres a pic showing off some of the crowds:
Surprisingly, the restaurant wasnt completely filled up at all. I was also surprised to learn we couldnt use our dining experience card b/c of the holiday, but I looked it up afterward, and that was correct. We started our later dinner with the cheese plate, then Melissa got the fish and chips and a got the steak, all were fine. Would we eat there a lot if not for the fireworks, probably not. The special fireworks were great however. 
It was the regular fireworks and then a five minute or so add on at the end. I remember hearing someone say at the start of the add-on section it was no big deal, well, by the end, you could FEEL the thunder of the fireworks and almost had to cover your ears it was so strong. (One thing I had never seen before, during the christmas fireworks add-ons was that they also shot off fireworks from behind the american adventure building) After the fireworks, we rushed out to get on the road, but it took maybe like fifteen-twenty minutes just to get from BCVs parking lot out onto the main street (buena vista drive I believe). Eventually, we made it home safe and sound.
, so we ended up doing Soarin three times straight using just the stand by line (and got the center top row two times too!) . That took up most of the EMH time, so we did living w. the land and then went back over to get our second set of Soarin fastpasses before heading over to the seas. We did Turtle Talk with Crush without any wait - that show is just too cute!We then split up with the idea of me getting pics with the fab five while Melissa got more soarin Fastpasses. The idea was the part was still pretty dead, but the castmember at the entrance estimated that the line was like 35-45 minutes, so I bailed and found Melissa. After reuniting, we headed over and did Spaceship Earth which only had a couple minute wait. Of course, by now we needed to get our test track on, so we did that first together and then I did it a second time with Melissa doing some shopping at mousegears. Instead, we decided to try electric umbrella for the first time ever. Unfortunately we got in right behind a Brazilian tour group, so the line was pretty long, but still pretty decent fast food. Once lunch was over, we used two of our three sets of Soarin fastpasses (I gave the third set away) before leaving the park and hitting the quiet pool at OKW right at the time it started monsooning, so left the pool after like 5 minutes and came back for a nap.
Those are wonderful pictures of OKW! I love that resort.
Sunday, July 5th]
Sunday was early entry day at Epcot. Prior to leaving for the morning, we heard the news on TV about the monorail accident, so we were saddened to learn of the situation. Having said that, we marched on and drove over w/o any hassle, despite the fog (see below).
. I'm considering OKW for our 2010 trip.
Oooh, cool shot of the Icon at Epcot. I've never seen the fog enveloping it before. Thanks for sharing your trip report. I'm waiting on pins and needles to hear the next segment!
We went to Epcot the same morning you did (July 5th). Had no idea of the accident and didn't even realize the monorails weren't working - duh. I have to mention my favorite part of Epcot - the iced cappuccino in France. The best I've ever tasted. Maybe my favorite part of my Disney trip.
"Risk re-entry"? Do you mean the park hits max capacity and they don't let anyone else in after noon?
BTW...enjoying the dryer report
, drinks and even a fastpass photographer. We saw Spectromagic go by, but were a bit too far away to really see it. From 9 to around 9:45 all we did was sit, eat and hang out, and then eventually, I saw others starting to stake out positions for the Wishes fireworks, so I did that as well. The view was great - Tinkerbell flew right over us - overall, a great experience we would do again in a heartbeat. Here are some pics:
The cast member said it had been down for a couple hours and they werent even running any of the empty logs, so I didnt think it would reopen anytime soon. We went over to do Big Thunder (which surprisingly didnt have too bad a line) and we get to the gate when a train comes in, but they let the people stay on to ride again! I was wondering what was going on, when as the train went by, I saw someone I thought I recognized - JOHN TRAVOLTA AND HIS WIFE KELLY PRESTON! I asked Melissa if she saw them and she said she didnt, so at that point, I wasn't really sure. Anyway, next train comes in and we get on it and enjoy the ride. As we get off the ride, there is a huge crowd of people standing near the rides entrance, and sure enough IT WAS TRAVOLTA! The giveaway was there were 2 or 3 of the special castmembers in the red plaid vests and blue skirts. Didnt think to stop and take a picture, as we saw Splash was working, so we ran over there. (priorities I guess?!? 
) We ended up doing splash twice and a row w/o any wait (using our fastpass the second time) It wasnt running perfectly, as there were a lot of backups throughout the ride. As we got to the gate for our second ride, I saw Kelly Preston standing across the way in the exit with one of the CMs and then John Travolta came into the unload area to get off the ride. People started to take pictures, so I got out my camera when a CM physically blocked me from taking a picture, putting his hand over my lens, saying that Travolta and his family were on vacation too! 
I agreed with the point in principle, but if others got the picture without CM interference, I should have been allowed to too! So sorry everyone, no photographic proof of my story! 
July 5th (cont.)
For dinner that night, we went to Olivias (the idea was to get a later start on things since we were doing EMH at MK that night). It had more people in it than it did when we did lunch, but by no means was it crowded. Melissa got the chicken special and I got the prime rib. Melissa liked her meal better than I did (the prime rib wasnt bad, just OK). After dinner we headed over to MK, but not before we had our longest bus wait of the trip (and really, the only bad wait I could recall). Eventually, we made it over to MK and the first thing I did was to get us fastpasses to Splash (and it was running at the time, a point which we will address later). It didnt look to crowded over in that area and the stand by times for splash was 40 minutes and Big thunder was only 20 minutes!
Once I met back up with Melissa, we went over to the noodle station area and got in line around 8:45 for the new Wishes fireworks dessert party. I had booked this the day it became open to the public and was interested to see how good it would be (we had done something similar at Disneyland for fantasmic back in the day). After waiting in line for like 10-15 minutes, we were let in and seated to our table. They had an all you could eat dessert buffet (tiramisu chocolate-covered strawberries, rice krispy treats, brownies, cookies, cannoli (sp?), etc)
After the fireworks were over at 10:10 pm or so, we looped around the park to get to haunted mansion, which we did twice in a row without any major wait. We next went over to Splash and OF COURSE, it was down!
Also, apparently, they had previously extended the park hours and I didnt know it, as a second spectromagic took place at 11pm. We saw it go by near Splash and hardly anyone was lined up for it over in frontierland. Anyway, by the time we were done with Splash, Big Thunder only had a 10 minute wait, but Melissa didnt want to go on it anymore, so we headed over and did Pirates as a walk on before calling it a night (but not before having to deal with all the crazy bus issues b/c of the monorail being down still that day).
Heres some more MK pics:
COMING UP - I TRY TO BREAK MY TOY STORY MANIA RECORD ONE MORE TIME!!
Nice to see (hear) John T.& Kelly P. are having fun.
