The how we ate and drank our way around the World Trip Report - UPDATED 05/06!

[traveldis]

We were soooo lucky to have nice weather.... a bit too humid but it didn't rain which was our main concern.

What I noticed the most about being in the park early was the store front windows. I never get to see those. Always so many people you can never get past the people to see the windows. They were charming! I wish we would have taken more pictures of them so I can look back and really see what was in them.

 

[Grumpy's Wife]

I've always wanted to do the tour. I'm so looking forward to all the secrets you can share with us.

 

[FairyGodmothers Sis]

I've always wanted to do the tour. I'm so looking forward to all the secrets you can share with us.

Tricia,

I'm excited to re-live it all. Well, all of it until my mom almost dies. Coming soon...

 

[FairyGodmothers Sis]

We were soooo lucky to have nice weather.... a bit too humid but it didn't rain which was our main concern.

What I noticed the most about being in the park early was the store front windows. I never get to see those. Always so many people you can never get past the people to see the windows. They were charming! I wish we would have taken more pictures of them so I can look back and really see what was in them.

Oh yeah... the store windows. Here's a picture of one!

 

[Pat]

Daughter #1 kept insisting she wanted to be a MK for the opening. In all the years we have been going to WDW, we have never been for the opening. Since, I, mom, didn't know about her plans, I couldn't see how she was getting upset when I was changing around our days. After all, we had a few days before the rest of our crew arrived, and why did it matter which day we did WDW.

We like to try different restaurants at WDW, but stick to Yak and Yetti at AK. The Flametree also has good food, but Y & Y is our favorite.

 

[darty]

I love being in MK before it opens. We had a Grand Gathering breakfast at Tony's in '07, and walked down Main Street without all the crowds, too. It makes for nice pictures and memories.

I love the pictures of the Tree of Life and the MK empty. Can't wait to hear more about the KttKT tour. I have always wanted to do that tour, too. I knew those ECV's were death traps especially in the hands of a dare devil like your mom. that all her aches and pains are better.

 

[FairyGodmothers Sis]

Daughter #1 kept insisting she wanted to be a MK for the opening. In all the years we have been going to WDW, we have never been for the opening. Since, I, mom, didn't know about her plans, I couldn't see how she was getting upset when I was changing around our days. After all, we had a few days before the rest of our crew arrived, and why did it matter which day we did WDW.

We like to try different restaurants at WDW, but stick to Yak and Yetti at AK. The Flametree also has good food, but Y & Y is our favorite.

Hi mom! I was wondering when you were going to join along!

 

[WDWAddict Staci]

I am really enjoying your trip report so far. Love all the pictures. I am subbing so I don't miss anything. Thanks to your mom for giving me the link. You guys always seem to have the best time at WDW.

 

[tosha27]

Your mom looks so sweet. She reminds me of someone very dear.

 

[Nuts4Donald]

Enjoying your report so far, loving the pictures

I hope you enjoyed the KTTK, I did it with my mom in 2007, we loved it.

 

[FairyGodmothers Sis]

I am really enjoying your trip report so far. Love all the pictures. I am subbing so I don't miss anything. Thanks to your mom for giving me the link. You guys always seem to have the best time at WDW.

Hi Staci!

Thanks so much for stopping by and reading. There's so much more to come! Too bad we couldn't have timed it so that we were there at the same time!

 

[FairyGodmothers Sis]

Your mom looks so sweet. She reminds me of someone very dear.

Thank you so much for reading and taking the time to comment!

My mom IS very sweet and I'm glad she reminds you of someone special.

 

[FairyGodmothers Sis]

Enjoying your report so far, loving the pictures

I hope you enjoyed the KTTK, I did it with my mom in 2007, we loved it.

Thanks so much!!!

I hope you had as wonderful of a guide as we did. We really did enjoy it!

 

[__disneygirl]

Ooh, I never noticed/knew that about the Cinderella mosaics. I will have to point out the green with envy & red with anger to my mom next time we're there. Disney is in the details!

So nice of you to surprise your mom with the tour. There are sooo many tours at WDW that I want to do but we never seem to be able to fit them in so I can't wait to hear all about the KTTK tour!

 

[WDWAddict Staci]

There are two things I always eat on vacation – but no other time of the year. One is Cap’n Crunch and the other is olive loaf. With the exception of my mom, my family’s repulsed reaction to olive loaf is welcomed because it means I don’t have to share with them.

You are not alone. I olive loaf.

It is a shame we didn't decide to go for spring this year, we are going on a cruise instead, however we are going again in July and October (that are planned so far). I am sure we will meet up there again one day.

 

[FairyGodmothers Sis]

You are not alone. I olive loaf.

It is a shame we didn't decide to go for spring this year, we are going on a cruise instead, however we are going again in July and October (that are planned so far). I am sure we will meet up there again one day.

I knew I liked you! A fellow olive loaf lover!

A cruise! How nice! That's one thing we've never done. Maybe some day and I'm sure we will meet up there again one day!

 

[FairyGodmothers Sis]

After taking our time enjoying the park practically alone, we made our way back up to the front of the park to meet with our guide for the Tour.

We checked in, chose our lunch (lunch is included at the Harbour House and you get to choose from several items on their menu), grabbed a “complimentary” water and waited for the tour to begin.

While we were waiting, we spied these chracters trying to sneak away.

My mom is so happy in this picture, anticipating the tour, not realizing that something pretty awful happens to her within a few hours that I’ll get to later.

Here is our AWESOME guide, James.

James was born to work for Disney. He lives, breaths and I’m pretty sure bleeds Disney. I loved, loved, loved him and I honestly can’t say enough good about him. Our group, however, was not a friendly bunch. Granted, we all had earphones on so it’s not like we could socialize with each other but I just didn’t get a friendly vibe from any of them.

He did a brief intro of what we were to expect and then we all put our earphones on, which was actually pretty slick because we were able to walk around the park with all the park happenings going on and we could hear him perfectly.

Mom happily anticipating the tour! (Little did she know…)

While walking through MK, we would follow James as he held up his umbrella, which fortunately, he never had to use!

He led us back to a little alley to start the tour.

He started off by telling us that Walt was all about show. That’s why Disney employees are not called employees – they’re cast members. When you get to the park, the front of the train station…

… is supposed to be the curtain, hiding the “show”, i.e., the castle.

The tunnels on each side of the train station are the lead up to the show and I’ve always noticed posters in the tunnels but never really thought about it and James commented that they are to represent posters you would see at a show.

While you’re walking through the tunnels, what do you smell? Fresh popcorn –just what you would find at a show. Again, I never really wondered who would be eating popcorn at 9:00 in the morning?!

When you are on main street, walking towards the “show”, you are surrounded by the buildings on main street with writing on the windows. These are considered the credits. Several windows give credit to instrumental people who helped bring Magic Kingdom to life. There are also names of some of the fake companies that Walt created to purchase all the land. In case you are wondering, Walt does have a window and here it is.

And this is where it is located:

An interesting sidenote that James told us… as you may or may not be aware, Walt created all of these fake companies to buy up all the land because he didn’t want Florida to know what he was doing and he was creative with the names like M.T.Lot. Get it? (Empty lot) and Ayefour Corporation (pun on I-4 freeway).

Anyway, I can’t remember the exact numbers but Walt was purchasing the land at something like $80 an acre and he knew if word got out that it was Disney buying up all the land, the prices would skyrocket.

He had purchased the majority of the land when he had to attend some type of town meeting. There was a reporter there who came out and asked Walt if he was the one who was buying all the land to build another theme park and Walt looked at her said something to the effect of “why would I build a theme park here when your soil is poor … it contains too much so and so and it’s the lightening capital of the world, etc.” She saw right through him because he knew way too much about the quality of the soil and so the very next day the paper read in large, bold letters, DISNEY IS COMING TO FLORIDA!

The land went from $80 and acre to something like $80,000 an acre. Like I said, I can’t remember the exact numbers, but it was something astronomical like that. Pretty balsy of that reporter, if you ask me.

Another of many little tidbits that I’m sure I will be throwing in this travel report is that James told us that if you notice when you are walking at MK, the sidewalk color and street colors are always different to help prevent people walking off sidewalks not realizing they’re stepping down onto the street. Just another one of the zillion details that Disney takes into account.

We then walked to Adventure Land and as we were walking there, James was having us pay attention to the change of music in the different lands and you honestly don’t even notice it – unless you’re really listening for it.

On to the Jungle Cruise! He took us on that because it’s Walt’s favorite ride. We got our own private boat and my mom was even able to go on without getting out of her scooter.

Hi!

We still had a “driver”…

However, James was our guide on this cruise because he told us all kinds of fun stuff, like…

Every, single morning, CM’s are sent out via pontoon to the place where the elephants are playing in the water and they scrub them down because the dark water discolors them and you can’t have that in Disney! They can also get mossy and moldy with all the humidity.

The trees and plants that surround the Jungle Cruise are actually from the Amazon. There are built-in heaters that were pointed out to us to heat the trees and plants because during some of the colder Florida evenings, some of the plants were dying and it was too expensive to replace so why not install heaters, right? It was humorous to hear him talk about the “cold Florida evenings” when we live in Minnesota. He has no idea what cold really is!

At the end of the ride, there are natives that are chanting to you. Apparently, one of the Disney engineers who were working on them really liked disco (it was the 70’s) and he didn’t want disco to die so if you listen really carefully, you can hear one of the natives say, “I love disco.” Cute little factoid.

When we exited the Jungle Cruise, we went “behind the scenes” for the first time. We saw where they house all of the day and evening floats. (Oh, any time we were "behind the scenes", we were instructed to put cameras away so sorry... no photos. I guess they want you to pay for that part of the tour!)

Did you know that someone actually hand checks every single lightbulb on each of the evening parade floats? She was doing it while we were standing there – and it didn’t look staged – because it didn’t look like she was enjoying her job too much.

Next up – how we avoided a near-death experience backstage and how we almost ended up with billions!

 

[Pat]

James also noted the the color of the sidewalk changes from one land to another.
We thought we might see some of the cast members in their character outfits, but they all stayed hidden.

 

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

Joining in!!! I'm really enjoying your recap of the Keys to the Kingdom tour! I've never been on one of the tours, they sound so interesting!

All of your foreshadowing is making me nervous! I hope your mom was okay!

 

[Meetmeinmontauk]

Joining in!