TLinden16
Scotty and Ray at Jelly Rolls are the best!
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2002
- Messages
- 16,243
Day 5--Monday, October 13, 2008
I was woken up by a text message bright and early Monday morning, and I took it as Gods way of waking me up to go to the Animal Kingdom for extra magic hours. So I took a quick shower, and grabbed a quick breakfast, and headed for the bus.
Once again, the masses were out for extra magic hours, but at least this time they were definitely looking at room keys. I made it into the park pretty quickly and made my way back to Expedition Everest. I grabbed a fast pass and jumped into the standby line, which was only about 15 minutes long. My time at the Animal Kingdom consisted of 3 rides on Expedition Everest. Im not a huge fan of the Animal Kingdom, with the exception of Expedition Everest, so I decided not to wait in line for any of the other attractions.
One thing of note during my ride through the Expedition Everest is a family waiting in line. It was a mom with her three sons, including one boy with special needs. It was just the boys in line for the ride, and I have to say it was so heartwarming to see these two teenage boys with their special needs brother. They were just so fantastic with him--they were so patient with him. I could really tell how close the three brothers were, and how much love was in that family. Just in the few minutes I observed this family, I could tell just how strong the mom was, and what an amazing job she is doing raising her boys.
I walked out to the bus stop at about 9:30, and waited for a bus back to the Boardwalk. A bus came within 10 minutes labeled VIP Cast Member to take me to and a few others to the Boardwalk, and another group to Pop Century.
When I got back to the resort, I put a load of laundry on, and headed down to the pool to take a dip. It sure was refreshing, as it was a warm day. The pool was busy, but not overly crowded.
I headed back to the room to decide what to do the rest of the day. My original thought was to go to the Magic Kingdom, and have a late lunch at the Whispering Canyon Café, and I headed out to the bus stop.
One of the things thats nice about solo trips is you can change plans on the fly pretty quickly. The bus to Downtown Disney pulled up, and I decided to head there for lunch instead of the Magic Kingdom. I did some browsing around the shops, and decided to grab a bit to eat at the Earl of Sandwich. I had first tried the Earl of Sandwich back in October of 2004, and thought they had the best sandwiches ever. I havent eaten there in a while because the past couple of times, Ive been disappointed in the food Ive gotten this.
I got in a very long line, but it moved surprisingly fast. I was placing my order within about 10 minutes, and had my sandwich five minutes after that. I ordered the Hawaiian Barbecue Chicken Sandwich, and it was excellent. It was grilled barbecue chicken, smoked ham, and Swiss cheese. I wound up asking for cheddar cheese instead of Swiss. I also got a side salad and potato salad.
The sandwich was excellent. The chicken was all white meat, and the barbecue sauce was very tangy. The side salad was very good. They offered to put cucumbers and tomatoes on it, and I asked for just cucumbers. I got a balsamic vinegarette on it, and it was very tasty. The potato salad wasnt very good--it had way too much mayonnaise on it.
After lunch, the skies were starting to darken, so I decided to head to the bus stop. I cut through the Christmas store, and it was starting to drizzle as I made my way to the bus, and then the skies just opened up as I walked under the archway leading to the buses. In the 30 seconds it took me to get undercover, I got pretty drenched.
I decided to take a bus to a monorail resort and then head to the Magic Kingdom. The bus to the Wilderness Lodge and Grand Floridian came first, so I jumped on that one. It was still raining pretty hard, so I decided to browse around the shops for a bit before heading to the monorail to the Magic Kingdom.
I arrived at the Magic Kingdom shortly after 3:00 p.m. and saw the streets lined for the parade. I decided to stand in Town Square to watch the parade. It was drizzling a bit, so they announced that the parade would be replaced with the Rainy Day Character Cavalcade. I was actually glad to see this, as it is something I had never seen, and didnt even know existed.
The Character Cavalcade only lasted about five minutes, but it was a lot of fun. They had a special song for it, and there were tons of characters walking the parade route, or riding in Main Street vehicles. The characters and other cast members were having a blast in the parade. They were jumping into puddles, splashing each other and the guests. Everyone was laughing and smiling throughout the Character Cavalcade. Tigger was making some really big splashes in the puddles. They had small Main Street vehicles with Mickey and Minnie, the villains, and the princesses and their princes. I really enjoyed the Rainy Day Character Cavalcade.
After the parade, I browsed around in the Emporium, and made my way over to Tomorrowland, where I grabbed a fast pass for Space Mountain, and then headed over to the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. I really love the Laugh Floor. Its always fun to see how the people react when they realize they are on the screens. At the end, they did a parade of princesses, where they showed many of the little girls who were dressed up as princesses for the Halloween party. One little girl looked completely shocked when she saw herself--it was so adorable.
After a riding on Space Mountain, I spent some time chatting with my friend Christina, who works for DVC. It was nice to catch up with her. I then grabbed my wrist band for the Halloween party, and cut through Fantasyland, and went over to the Haunted Mansion. I ran into Adarsh, another DVC cast member I know, over in Fronteirland, and chatted with him for a while. It started raining again, so I stayed undercover with Adarsh hoping it would stop pretty quickly, but it didnt.
When the rain slowed down, I made my way over to Pecos Bills to grab some dinner. Goofy4Tink told me that the fast food burgers had gotten better, so I wound up ordering a cheeseburger with bacon. I added some ketchup and pickles to my burger, and while it was not the best burger I have ever had, it was better than the fast food burgers Ive had on previous trips.
After dinner, it was still raining, so I put on my poncho and started walking through the rain. I have really bad karma when it comes to the hard ticket events. At least half the times Ive gotten tickets to a hard ticket event at the Magic Kingdom, it has rained. I have gone to a few Mickeys Very Rainy Christmas Parties, and had a particularly rainy Pirate and Princess Party back in March. So, I was kind of bummed to see that my rainy party streak was continuing.
But I decided to make the best of it, hoping it would clear up, which it eventually did. As the party time began, I started to trick or treat--not because I wanted the candy, but because I could. I really had a lot of fun trick or treating all night long, and got a huge bag of candy, most of which will be handed out to the kids at my office Halloween party this year.
I caught some of the first parade from a distance as it came through Frontierland, and wound up getting my face painted with the enchanted eyes that evening. There was no line when I got there, so I figured Id may as well have my face painted--they always look so cool when the kids have their faces done, and since Im a big kid, I can have it done too, right?
The rain cleared up after about an hour, so at least my bad party karma wasnt in full force this evening. Its really not fun doing these special parties in the rain.
I headed out to the front of the castle to find a good spot to watch the fireworks from, and found a great spot right in front of the partners statue. I stood behind someone in a scooter, so I knew I would be able to watch without someone tall standing in front of me at the last minute. I really liked the soundtrack for the fireworks, but the fireworks themselves were good, but didnt really wow me. I prefer the regular Wishes or the Holiday Wishes.
After the fireworks, I went to town square to have my picture taken with Goofy, as a cast member had told me he would be there at 9:00. Mickey and Pluto were also there, so it was fun getting my picture taken with three characters. Goofy tried to steal all of my candy after we took the picture, but I told him that wasnt very nice, so he gave it back to me.
I did another round of trick or treating, and found a spot to watch the parade in Frontierland across the street from the buildings. I have to say that I will never stand across the street from the buildings to watch a parade again. There are lights on top of the buildings that illuminate the parade, and I found it made getting great pictures a bit of a challenge. Many of my pictures feature a glare from the lights.
I had a bit of a frustrating situation happen at the parade. I chose my spot about 25 minutes before the parade started, and I was next to a nice family of about 10 with several children in strollers. Another nice family of five stood on the other side of me. There was about six inches of space between me and the family to my right, and about an inch of space between me and the family to my left.
Well wouldnt you know that right as a the parade started, a family with three boys came in and the parents pushed their three boys into the six inches of space between me and the family on the right--I didnt realize they were there until I nearly elbowed the youngest boy in the head as I put my camera up to take a picture of a float. The space wasnt even enough for one small child, let alone three young boys. They really crowded in both me and the family to my right. As little boys tend to be, they were moving around a lot, and kept on bumping into me, and they had crowded one of the little boys in the family to my right so much that the father wound up holding him for part of the parade so that he could actually see.
Midway through the parade, the father of the three boys had the audacity to ask me to move over so that his boy could see better. Now, Im normally the first person to move aside so a kid can have a better view of the parade. I try to be considerate of others when choosing a spot for a parade or fireworks, making sure that Im not blocking anyone elses view, especially a childs view. I have made room on curbs or in front of me so that kids could get a view countless times in my 30 plus trips to Disney World.
However, this I declined the fathers request because in my opinion, if I had moved over to make room for his boy, I would have crowded and blocked the view of the little boy to my left who had waited patiently with his family for 20 minutes for the parade to begin. The father said, Im only asking you to move three inches and I replied, Im not crowding this kid, pointing to the family to my left. I know the father was not too pleased with me, but Im not going to inconvenience myself, and another family who had been waiting for 20 minutes for a family that strolled up as the parade began and expected to be catered to.
What I really wanted to do was tell that father is that the world does not revolve around his children, and if having a spot on a rope was that important to him, he should have gotten there earlier like the hundreds of others who lined the streets. We all make choices in life, and we have to live with them. The boys werent complaining about not being able to see--they may have been jockeying each other for position because they were squished into a space that wasnt big enough for them, but they werent complaining. It was the father that was the problem--he thought his kids were more entitled to a spot up front than me or the other families around me. The father had many choices he could have made without involving me or the other families around us--he could have chose a spot for his family, he could have held his younger boy so he could see, he could have walked further to try to find a better spot where his family could actually fit in, but he chose to not do those things.
The parade itself was fun. There were lots of cast members handing out candy along the route, and the floats were fun. It was neat seeing the headless horseman go by. It wasnt as long as I recall the Christmas parade being, but it was still a lot of fun.
After the parade, I did some more trick or treating, and just enjoyed the atmosphere of the park. I had made the decision not to go on any rides during the party, as I wanted to just really enjoy all the extras at the party. I really enjoyed watching the kids dancing with the characters at the dance parties. They seemed to be having a blast.
Late in the evening, I was walking along the wooden pathway in Fronteirland. It had been hosed down, and was a bit slippery. I had walked the same pathway an hour earlier, and it was dry, but it had saturated since my last visit. My right foot slid away from me, and I went down hard on my left leg, banging up my knee pretty hard. A nice family heard me fall and came back to make sure that I was OK--even they were commenting on how slick it was. My knee was swollen and stiff, but I was able to walk on it.
I thought about stopping at first aid, but kept on walking up to City Hall, where I stopped to report the incident. While my knee felt fine at the moment, I didnt know how it would feel in the morning. A cast member at guest relations filed an incident report, and offered me assistance to get to the monorail, which I declined since I was walking OK.
I had a long wait for the bus to take me back to the Boardwalk--I must have just missed one, as I was the first person in line. My leg was pretty sore by then, and starting to swell up. When the bus arrived, I took a seat near the door, and waited for everyone else to get on the bus.
It was nearly 1:00 a.m. by the time I got back to the room. I wound up icing down my knee for 20 minutes before bed. The knee was still swollen and bruised the next day (and I still have a huge bruise on my knee 9 days later), but thankfully, it didnt hold me back the rest of my trip.
I was woken up by a text message bright and early Monday morning, and I took it as Gods way of waking me up to go to the Animal Kingdom for extra magic hours. So I took a quick shower, and grabbed a quick breakfast, and headed for the bus.
Once again, the masses were out for extra magic hours, but at least this time they were definitely looking at room keys. I made it into the park pretty quickly and made my way back to Expedition Everest. I grabbed a fast pass and jumped into the standby line, which was only about 15 minutes long. My time at the Animal Kingdom consisted of 3 rides on Expedition Everest. Im not a huge fan of the Animal Kingdom, with the exception of Expedition Everest, so I decided not to wait in line for any of the other attractions.
One thing of note during my ride through the Expedition Everest is a family waiting in line. It was a mom with her three sons, including one boy with special needs. It was just the boys in line for the ride, and I have to say it was so heartwarming to see these two teenage boys with their special needs brother. They were just so fantastic with him--they were so patient with him. I could really tell how close the three brothers were, and how much love was in that family. Just in the few minutes I observed this family, I could tell just how strong the mom was, and what an amazing job she is doing raising her boys.
I walked out to the bus stop at about 9:30, and waited for a bus back to the Boardwalk. A bus came within 10 minutes labeled VIP Cast Member to take me to and a few others to the Boardwalk, and another group to Pop Century.
When I got back to the resort, I put a load of laundry on, and headed down to the pool to take a dip. It sure was refreshing, as it was a warm day. The pool was busy, but not overly crowded.
I headed back to the room to decide what to do the rest of the day. My original thought was to go to the Magic Kingdom, and have a late lunch at the Whispering Canyon Café, and I headed out to the bus stop.
One of the things thats nice about solo trips is you can change plans on the fly pretty quickly. The bus to Downtown Disney pulled up, and I decided to head there for lunch instead of the Magic Kingdom. I did some browsing around the shops, and decided to grab a bit to eat at the Earl of Sandwich. I had first tried the Earl of Sandwich back in October of 2004, and thought they had the best sandwiches ever. I havent eaten there in a while because the past couple of times, Ive been disappointed in the food Ive gotten this.
I got in a very long line, but it moved surprisingly fast. I was placing my order within about 10 minutes, and had my sandwich five minutes after that. I ordered the Hawaiian Barbecue Chicken Sandwich, and it was excellent. It was grilled barbecue chicken, smoked ham, and Swiss cheese. I wound up asking for cheddar cheese instead of Swiss. I also got a side salad and potato salad.
The sandwich was excellent. The chicken was all white meat, and the barbecue sauce was very tangy. The side salad was very good. They offered to put cucumbers and tomatoes on it, and I asked for just cucumbers. I got a balsamic vinegarette on it, and it was very tasty. The potato salad wasnt very good--it had way too much mayonnaise on it.
After lunch, the skies were starting to darken, so I decided to head to the bus stop. I cut through the Christmas store, and it was starting to drizzle as I made my way to the bus, and then the skies just opened up as I walked under the archway leading to the buses. In the 30 seconds it took me to get undercover, I got pretty drenched.
I decided to take a bus to a monorail resort and then head to the Magic Kingdom. The bus to the Wilderness Lodge and Grand Floridian came first, so I jumped on that one. It was still raining pretty hard, so I decided to browse around the shops for a bit before heading to the monorail to the Magic Kingdom.
I arrived at the Magic Kingdom shortly after 3:00 p.m. and saw the streets lined for the parade. I decided to stand in Town Square to watch the parade. It was drizzling a bit, so they announced that the parade would be replaced with the Rainy Day Character Cavalcade. I was actually glad to see this, as it is something I had never seen, and didnt even know existed.
The Character Cavalcade only lasted about five minutes, but it was a lot of fun. They had a special song for it, and there were tons of characters walking the parade route, or riding in Main Street vehicles. The characters and other cast members were having a blast in the parade. They were jumping into puddles, splashing each other and the guests. Everyone was laughing and smiling throughout the Character Cavalcade. Tigger was making some really big splashes in the puddles. They had small Main Street vehicles with Mickey and Minnie, the villains, and the princesses and their princes. I really enjoyed the Rainy Day Character Cavalcade.
After the parade, I browsed around in the Emporium, and made my way over to Tomorrowland, where I grabbed a fast pass for Space Mountain, and then headed over to the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. I really love the Laugh Floor. Its always fun to see how the people react when they realize they are on the screens. At the end, they did a parade of princesses, where they showed many of the little girls who were dressed up as princesses for the Halloween party. One little girl looked completely shocked when she saw herself--it was so adorable.
After a riding on Space Mountain, I spent some time chatting with my friend Christina, who works for DVC. It was nice to catch up with her. I then grabbed my wrist band for the Halloween party, and cut through Fantasyland, and went over to the Haunted Mansion. I ran into Adarsh, another DVC cast member I know, over in Fronteirland, and chatted with him for a while. It started raining again, so I stayed undercover with Adarsh hoping it would stop pretty quickly, but it didnt.
When the rain slowed down, I made my way over to Pecos Bills to grab some dinner. Goofy4Tink told me that the fast food burgers had gotten better, so I wound up ordering a cheeseburger with bacon. I added some ketchup and pickles to my burger, and while it was not the best burger I have ever had, it was better than the fast food burgers Ive had on previous trips.
After dinner, it was still raining, so I put on my poncho and started walking through the rain. I have really bad karma when it comes to the hard ticket events. At least half the times Ive gotten tickets to a hard ticket event at the Magic Kingdom, it has rained. I have gone to a few Mickeys Very Rainy Christmas Parties, and had a particularly rainy Pirate and Princess Party back in March. So, I was kind of bummed to see that my rainy party streak was continuing.
But I decided to make the best of it, hoping it would clear up, which it eventually did. As the party time began, I started to trick or treat--not because I wanted the candy, but because I could. I really had a lot of fun trick or treating all night long, and got a huge bag of candy, most of which will be handed out to the kids at my office Halloween party this year.
I caught some of the first parade from a distance as it came through Frontierland, and wound up getting my face painted with the enchanted eyes that evening. There was no line when I got there, so I figured Id may as well have my face painted--they always look so cool when the kids have their faces done, and since Im a big kid, I can have it done too, right?
The rain cleared up after about an hour, so at least my bad party karma wasnt in full force this evening. Its really not fun doing these special parties in the rain.
I headed out to the front of the castle to find a good spot to watch the fireworks from, and found a great spot right in front of the partners statue. I stood behind someone in a scooter, so I knew I would be able to watch without someone tall standing in front of me at the last minute. I really liked the soundtrack for the fireworks, but the fireworks themselves were good, but didnt really wow me. I prefer the regular Wishes or the Holiday Wishes.
After the fireworks, I went to town square to have my picture taken with Goofy, as a cast member had told me he would be there at 9:00. Mickey and Pluto were also there, so it was fun getting my picture taken with three characters. Goofy tried to steal all of my candy after we took the picture, but I told him that wasnt very nice, so he gave it back to me.
I did another round of trick or treating, and found a spot to watch the parade in Frontierland across the street from the buildings. I have to say that I will never stand across the street from the buildings to watch a parade again. There are lights on top of the buildings that illuminate the parade, and I found it made getting great pictures a bit of a challenge. Many of my pictures feature a glare from the lights.
I had a bit of a frustrating situation happen at the parade. I chose my spot about 25 minutes before the parade started, and I was next to a nice family of about 10 with several children in strollers. Another nice family of five stood on the other side of me. There was about six inches of space between me and the family to my right, and about an inch of space between me and the family to my left.
Well wouldnt you know that right as a the parade started, a family with three boys came in and the parents pushed their three boys into the six inches of space between me and the family on the right--I didnt realize they were there until I nearly elbowed the youngest boy in the head as I put my camera up to take a picture of a float. The space wasnt even enough for one small child, let alone three young boys. They really crowded in both me and the family to my right. As little boys tend to be, they were moving around a lot, and kept on bumping into me, and they had crowded one of the little boys in the family to my right so much that the father wound up holding him for part of the parade so that he could actually see.
Midway through the parade, the father of the three boys had the audacity to ask me to move over so that his boy could see better. Now, Im normally the first person to move aside so a kid can have a better view of the parade. I try to be considerate of others when choosing a spot for a parade or fireworks, making sure that Im not blocking anyone elses view, especially a childs view. I have made room on curbs or in front of me so that kids could get a view countless times in my 30 plus trips to Disney World.
However, this I declined the fathers request because in my opinion, if I had moved over to make room for his boy, I would have crowded and blocked the view of the little boy to my left who had waited patiently with his family for 20 minutes for the parade to begin. The father said, Im only asking you to move three inches and I replied, Im not crowding this kid, pointing to the family to my left. I know the father was not too pleased with me, but Im not going to inconvenience myself, and another family who had been waiting for 20 minutes for a family that strolled up as the parade began and expected to be catered to.
What I really wanted to do was tell that father is that the world does not revolve around his children, and if having a spot on a rope was that important to him, he should have gotten there earlier like the hundreds of others who lined the streets. We all make choices in life, and we have to live with them. The boys werent complaining about not being able to see--they may have been jockeying each other for position because they were squished into a space that wasnt big enough for them, but they werent complaining. It was the father that was the problem--he thought his kids were more entitled to a spot up front than me or the other families around me. The father had many choices he could have made without involving me or the other families around us--he could have chose a spot for his family, he could have held his younger boy so he could see, he could have walked further to try to find a better spot where his family could actually fit in, but he chose to not do those things.
The parade itself was fun. There were lots of cast members handing out candy along the route, and the floats were fun. It was neat seeing the headless horseman go by. It wasnt as long as I recall the Christmas parade being, but it was still a lot of fun.
After the parade, I did some more trick or treating, and just enjoyed the atmosphere of the park. I had made the decision not to go on any rides during the party, as I wanted to just really enjoy all the extras at the party. I really enjoyed watching the kids dancing with the characters at the dance parties. They seemed to be having a blast.
Late in the evening, I was walking along the wooden pathway in Fronteirland. It had been hosed down, and was a bit slippery. I had walked the same pathway an hour earlier, and it was dry, but it had saturated since my last visit. My right foot slid away from me, and I went down hard on my left leg, banging up my knee pretty hard. A nice family heard me fall and came back to make sure that I was OK--even they were commenting on how slick it was. My knee was swollen and stiff, but I was able to walk on it.
I thought about stopping at first aid, but kept on walking up to City Hall, where I stopped to report the incident. While my knee felt fine at the moment, I didnt know how it would feel in the morning. A cast member at guest relations filed an incident report, and offered me assistance to get to the monorail, which I declined since I was walking OK.
I had a long wait for the bus to take me back to the Boardwalk--I must have just missed one, as I was the first person in line. My leg was pretty sore by then, and starting to swell up. When the bus arrived, I took a seat near the door, and waited for everyone else to get on the bus.
It was nearly 1:00 a.m. by the time I got back to the room. I wound up icing down my knee for 20 minutes before bed. The knee was still swollen and bruised the next day (and I still have a huge bruise on my knee 9 days later), but thankfully, it didnt hold me back the rest of my trip.
I meant that I know songs that old. 
