disneynovice
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2001
- Messages
- 20
Sunday morning EE was great. The crowds from the night before were non existent. Again, we have video of us in an empty park. Big chicken that we are, we refused to do the Rockin' Roller Coaster or Tower of Terror, although we think we'll give it try our next visit. This left us and a few other chickens alone on the Great Movie Ride at 7:40 that morning. Samantha was wary of this one. She loved the Mary Poppins stuff but, SPOILER ALERT, she was a little frightened of the hijacking (we had the Wild West version, not the gangsters). We covered her eyes in the Alien part, and she took the return of our guide in Indiana in stride. She LOVES the Wizard of Oz, but got uptight about that really life like animatronic Wicked Witch that threatened us.
Our next stop was Star Tours, which Sam did not want to go on, so we wandered about while Bob and Nicholas, the great Star Wars fans enjoyed themselves. Great photo ops around here. Next was Muppet Vision, which was ruined for Sam because of Honey I Shrunk the Audience. The rest of us loved it. Sam would have, too, drat it all, if she'd been willing to keep her glasses on. As you exit Muppet Vision you are right near Al's Toy Barn. It was only 9:00 and the characters weren't supposed to appear until 9:30, but we went over and took some pics of us in front of the barn, with the cow basket. A CM began putting the queue ropes up while we were there, so we mosied over the Pizza Planet and returned at 9:15. The Toy Story and TS II soundtracks play all the time in this area, so we just got ourselves first in line (there was no one else around) and enjoyed the atmosphere. By 9:30 there were about 10 people behind us. Our from Al's comes Woody and Buzz who walk over and take Nicholas and Samantha's hands and walk them over to the picture area. These characters do not hand sign autographs, but have a stamp. In the meantime, Jessie an Bullseye are running around playing chase with each other in the area next to the line. Jessie stops her game to run over and hug Samantha (who dressed up as Jessie for Halloween and is in love with her Jessie doll). She hand signed her autograph. Sweet Bullseye can't do autographs - he lifted up his hooves sadly. But he was such a cutie. My hubby drew a horseshoe for him on his autograph card. It is now 9:55 and we have PS for Hollywood and Vine in 5 minutes! We book through the New York backstreet (which is empty) and back past Indiana Jones, which we note has its first showing at 11:00 and is giving fast passes for the second show. We grab the fast passes and get to our PS right at 10:00. This buffet was pretty good - lots of breakfast choosings. Minnie, dressed in a ball gown sits for pictures up front. Pluto, Chip and Dale came by, but Goofy never showed at our table although we saw him dancing. We were too fired up to sit and wait for him, so we headed out and ended up getting in for the first Indy show, right down front and center behind the controller's booth. I told Bob the best way to get cast as an extra is to act the fool and stand up, waving and shouting, as soon as the casting director called for volunteers. Sure enough, he was the first one picked. There's some funny stuff in this one, which probably gets old after seeing it twice, but for a first timer it is great. The opening sequence has Indy drop through the ceiling (rocks falling away) and rappel down to the ground. At this, my son leans over and whispers, "Is that Dad?" to which I reply, "It had better NOT be!" Bob appears in Turban in the next scene and does a great job just standing around. He did get to be right next to Indy and Marion for a few seconds, though. Everyone had laughed when the casting director joked about going off for costumes and waiver signing but, as Bob reported, she wasn't kidding! Death? dismemberment? too bad, you volunteered!
As we left the show we did the photo op with the tank, got Bob a shirt and pin to commemorate his brush with greatness, and walked back around to the front. There we found a family of four looking with dismay at the long stand-by line and gave them our fast passes to walk right on in for the show. That was fun. They were so surprised, I think they were looking for the hidden camera.
As we head for the main street, we see Belle in her carriage with children following her. Once again, they are doing a Christmas show, this time right in front of the Great Movie Ride. We watch and get something to drink. We check out Voyage of the Little Mermaid but the line was long and the fast passes were for late in the afternoon, so we headed to the Beauty and the Beast Show. We did some shopping first, particularly at the Villains store and Sam got her giant golden Mickey star balloon. After a fifteen-minute wait, we were allowed in and grabbed great seats, third row center. Nicholas feasted on a giant pretzel with mustard before the start. The show was good, although Bob and I couldn't for the life of us figure out where the weird bats came from, as the rest of the plot followed the film closely. At the end, during bows, Belle spied Samantha looking adoringly up at her and winked. Another magical moment.
By this time we were ready for a break and the park was getting very full. We head back to the Lodge for a nap.
This is the part where we made a hard call. Everyone is feeling sluggish. We had 5:00 PS for the Lodge's Whispering Canyon and then our itinerary called for us to head for World Showcase to tour and end up with the 9:30 Illuminations. This would mean we would not get back until nearly midnight thanks to crowded buses, etc. The next morning, our last, we had already decided would be the EE Magic Kingdom we missed Saturday. We were foregoing Animal Kingdom this trip to have that last day at MK. But the Epcot plan made that 6:00 a.m. wake up seem nearly impossible. So we decided to stay put that evening, have our dinner, comb around the Lodge, and go to bed by 8:00 so we would be raring to go at dawn's early light. So much for those Epcot 2000 Passports I had waiting for us on arrival!
Our dinner at Whispering Canyon was wonderful. That smokehouse's meat was out of this world. Samantha, still zonked from the nap, slept through check in and seating and didn't rouse until food was brought. We were all pretty zonked and the memory of this meal is rather blurry, other than loving the food and the kids racing about the place on stick horses. They got certificates and pledged to never drink Pepsi or visit Sea World. Nicholas and Samantha each colored a picture for our waitress, which she hung on the wall in her area. We stuffed ourselves and then poked about the crannies of the Lodge, taking upper floor pictures of the giant Christmas tree in the lobby. Exhausted, we turned in. I only vaguely remember hearing the water parade outside at 9:35, and falling right back to sleep.
Our last full day, Monday, Dec. 18, found us up with the sun and at the dock for the boat. On the way, we picked up some hot chocolate (in our mugs) and munchies from Roaring Forks. The weather had turned COLD and it was freezing at the docks. We did get a bizarre scene when one of the larger birds speared a fish for breakfast and got it stuck on its beak. It went over to a step on the dock and began whacking the poor fish against the wood trying to free itself. Interesting side-show, but bad luck for us, the first boat was late and we didn't get to MK until 7:40, after gates were opened. Still, not bad, although this morning's EE did seem more crowded, perhaps because this was the start of the Christmas week and the crowds were building. We headed for Fantasyland and ride Dumbo, this time with morning breaking over the castle. We go on Pooh and Pan again, and around to Buzz Lightyear, where Bob puts us all to shame with his first time score of nearly 200,000. This was a fun one, but the lines were building, so we decided to forego the second round against Zurg. Space Mountain had a 90 minute wait, and since Nicholas was not sure he was ready for a roller coaster in the dark, we decided to leave Tomorrowland and try Adventureland. Instead of crossing, we went back round through Fantasyland and Bob volunteered to ride the Tea Cups with Sam and Nicholas. They had a BLAST. This time I remembered to both video and take pictures, which came out great. Be sure to zoom in on your party's teacup and snap quickly or you'll end up with lots of photos of the blurry backs of people's heads.
Once in Adventureland, we rode the Jungle Cruise and did the Enchanted Tiki Room. Both OK, but nothing we raved about. Samantha got scared of the Tiki goddess appearing, but nothing major.
Back to Pirates of the Caribbean. Bob decided he really wanted a picture with just him and his hero, Capt. Hook, who was working alone this morning. Samantha worried that Mr. Smee had left for good after our Saturday incident. This time Nicholas and I rode while Bob and Samantha wandered, but our wait wasn't even 10 minutes, so Bob had less of a chance to spend money!
We then got in line for Splash Mountain. There was only a 20 minute posted wait, that was really maybe 10 minutes. Nicholas and I rode while Bob watched Samantha play in the Laughing Place playground for kids shorter than 40 inches. We got lucky to be in the very back and didn't get more than a light spray. Nicholas and I decided this was our favorite. I REALLY wanted our picture, but it didn't come out. We looked at every picture they had trying to find it, but no luck. When we emerged, I stayed with Sam and Bob and Nicholas rode. We met Brer Bear and Brer Fox there, too.
We broke to the Lodge for our nap and returned for 4:30 PS at Liberty Tree tavern
This was the best park food we had, fantastic house salad, which I was craving by this time, three kinds of meat, lots of good veggies, and great character interaction We will do this one again, as well as Cinderella's. Great atmosphere, and we had the Ben Franklin room almost to ourselves for the first 15 minutes.
5:15 and we were seeing our final hours slip away. We went to Ariel's' grotto and saw Baloo and Rafiki at the Character Area in Fastasyland, lines for each, not too bad, but that put us late looking for a viewing spot for the Electric Light Parade. We headed back for the Tavern and grabbed a seat behind a man that had pulled up one of the benches to the rope. His wife, mom-in-law, and two kids appeared soon after and we struck up a conversation. They shared their bench with us and we had a great spot, far enough from the turn to get some great angled pictures.
After the parade we headed for Toontown, which we had neglected. It was nearly empty (the park closed at 8:00 and it was 7:00). We toured Mickey and Minnie's houses, not stopping for another Mickey autograph. We rode Goofy's Barnstormer, which Samantha will now tell you is her "favorite roller coaster", despite it being her ONLY roller coaster. I had promised her a last ride on Cinderella's carousel, so Bob and Nicholas rode the Barnstormer again while she and I headed for the ponies. When we got there it was stopped in anticipation of the fireworks, so we just caught the end of Tinkerbell's flight around to the castle (we were on the wrong side to get a good view) and watched the fireworks overhead. Try to see them from the front of the castle so it looks like they are over the castle. Since we were behind, the perception was different. Rode the carousel afterwards, even though it was officially closing time. We spent the last hour shopping on Main Street (which stays open an hour later) and returned to Lodge, depressed and already planning our return.
Tuesday morning, Dec. 19 we packed up and had breakfast at the Grand Floridian with Mary Poppins, Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter, Pinnochio, and Gepetto. We had to wait nearly 45 minutes for Alice. Alice nearly made me punch her. She asked what we were doing that day and we told her we had to go home. She then asked if we had gotten to do everything we wanted and I said sadly, "Everything but stay longer," to which she replied (to my daughter), "Well, you'll just have to get mommy to plan better next time, huh." I wanted to scream, "I've been planning and saving for two years woman!" but I thought better of it. The food was good, including made to order omelettes, but don't try to get the omelette chef to crack a smile. He was the surliest person I saw my entire time at Disney.
We splurged on the big double snow globe and the villains snow globe at the big GF store. Afterwards, we inquired about being monorail pilots. The CM told us to wait inside (it was freezing) until we saw the yellow (striped) monorail. That was the GF's "color" that day and it would guarantee us an entire round trip up front. In 10 minutes we were off. I took a last picture on a roll as we got on and to my horror, the automatic rewinder didn't work. There is no manual control, wither. NOTE: take your camera's manual along to save on pain and panic. In the process of trying to rewind it we lost our Alice picture and a couple of other from around the GF. It could have been worse, but the ordeal did dampen our monorail piloting experience, as Bob and I were alternately punching every button combination imaginable on the way trying to get the **@%$* thing to rewind. I did have the presence of mind to ask for the monorail licenses, which our driver gave us gladly.
Back at the Lodge we sat and watched The Little Mermaid on the big screen TV until Tiffany Towncar showed up, this time in a white car. Our driver didn't seem to be in too good a mood and didn't say two words to us. That's alright, we were pretty surly about having to leave, too. I videotaped, from the back window of the car, the big toll booth sign that has Magic Kingdom across it, as we sped away. That part on the videotape always makes me teary. C'est la vie.
You can email me any questions at mask1@myriad.net.
<HTML><img src=http://torimask.tripod.com/Disney/anitink.gif><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="http://torimask.tripod.com/pluto1.jpg" WIDTH="100" HEIGHT="150">
Our next stop was Star Tours, which Sam did not want to go on, so we wandered about while Bob and Nicholas, the great Star Wars fans enjoyed themselves. Great photo ops around here. Next was Muppet Vision, which was ruined for Sam because of Honey I Shrunk the Audience. The rest of us loved it. Sam would have, too, drat it all, if she'd been willing to keep her glasses on. As you exit Muppet Vision you are right near Al's Toy Barn. It was only 9:00 and the characters weren't supposed to appear until 9:30, but we went over and took some pics of us in front of the barn, with the cow basket. A CM began putting the queue ropes up while we were there, so we mosied over the Pizza Planet and returned at 9:15. The Toy Story and TS II soundtracks play all the time in this area, so we just got ourselves first in line (there was no one else around) and enjoyed the atmosphere. By 9:30 there were about 10 people behind us. Our from Al's comes Woody and Buzz who walk over and take Nicholas and Samantha's hands and walk them over to the picture area. These characters do not hand sign autographs, but have a stamp. In the meantime, Jessie an Bullseye are running around playing chase with each other in the area next to the line. Jessie stops her game to run over and hug Samantha (who dressed up as Jessie for Halloween and is in love with her Jessie doll). She hand signed her autograph. Sweet Bullseye can't do autographs - he lifted up his hooves sadly. But he was such a cutie. My hubby drew a horseshoe for him on his autograph card. It is now 9:55 and we have PS for Hollywood and Vine in 5 minutes! We book through the New York backstreet (which is empty) and back past Indiana Jones, which we note has its first showing at 11:00 and is giving fast passes for the second show. We grab the fast passes and get to our PS right at 10:00. This buffet was pretty good - lots of breakfast choosings. Minnie, dressed in a ball gown sits for pictures up front. Pluto, Chip and Dale came by, but Goofy never showed at our table although we saw him dancing. We were too fired up to sit and wait for him, so we headed out and ended up getting in for the first Indy show, right down front and center behind the controller's booth. I told Bob the best way to get cast as an extra is to act the fool and stand up, waving and shouting, as soon as the casting director called for volunteers. Sure enough, he was the first one picked. There's some funny stuff in this one, which probably gets old after seeing it twice, but for a first timer it is great. The opening sequence has Indy drop through the ceiling (rocks falling away) and rappel down to the ground. At this, my son leans over and whispers, "Is that Dad?" to which I reply, "It had better NOT be!" Bob appears in Turban in the next scene and does a great job just standing around. He did get to be right next to Indy and Marion for a few seconds, though. Everyone had laughed when the casting director joked about going off for costumes and waiver signing but, as Bob reported, she wasn't kidding! Death? dismemberment? too bad, you volunteered!
As we left the show we did the photo op with the tank, got Bob a shirt and pin to commemorate his brush with greatness, and walked back around to the front. There we found a family of four looking with dismay at the long stand-by line and gave them our fast passes to walk right on in for the show. That was fun. They were so surprised, I think they were looking for the hidden camera.
As we head for the main street, we see Belle in her carriage with children following her. Once again, they are doing a Christmas show, this time right in front of the Great Movie Ride. We watch and get something to drink. We check out Voyage of the Little Mermaid but the line was long and the fast passes were for late in the afternoon, so we headed to the Beauty and the Beast Show. We did some shopping first, particularly at the Villains store and Sam got her giant golden Mickey star balloon. After a fifteen-minute wait, we were allowed in and grabbed great seats, third row center. Nicholas feasted on a giant pretzel with mustard before the start. The show was good, although Bob and I couldn't for the life of us figure out where the weird bats came from, as the rest of the plot followed the film closely. At the end, during bows, Belle spied Samantha looking adoringly up at her and winked. Another magical moment.
By this time we were ready for a break and the park was getting very full. We head back to the Lodge for a nap.
This is the part where we made a hard call. Everyone is feeling sluggish. We had 5:00 PS for the Lodge's Whispering Canyon and then our itinerary called for us to head for World Showcase to tour and end up with the 9:30 Illuminations. This would mean we would not get back until nearly midnight thanks to crowded buses, etc. The next morning, our last, we had already decided would be the EE Magic Kingdom we missed Saturday. We were foregoing Animal Kingdom this trip to have that last day at MK. But the Epcot plan made that 6:00 a.m. wake up seem nearly impossible. So we decided to stay put that evening, have our dinner, comb around the Lodge, and go to bed by 8:00 so we would be raring to go at dawn's early light. So much for those Epcot 2000 Passports I had waiting for us on arrival!
Our dinner at Whispering Canyon was wonderful. That smokehouse's meat was out of this world. Samantha, still zonked from the nap, slept through check in and seating and didn't rouse until food was brought. We were all pretty zonked and the memory of this meal is rather blurry, other than loving the food and the kids racing about the place on stick horses. They got certificates and pledged to never drink Pepsi or visit Sea World. Nicholas and Samantha each colored a picture for our waitress, which she hung on the wall in her area. We stuffed ourselves and then poked about the crannies of the Lodge, taking upper floor pictures of the giant Christmas tree in the lobby. Exhausted, we turned in. I only vaguely remember hearing the water parade outside at 9:35, and falling right back to sleep.
Our last full day, Monday, Dec. 18, found us up with the sun and at the dock for the boat. On the way, we picked up some hot chocolate (in our mugs) and munchies from Roaring Forks. The weather had turned COLD and it was freezing at the docks. We did get a bizarre scene when one of the larger birds speared a fish for breakfast and got it stuck on its beak. It went over to a step on the dock and began whacking the poor fish against the wood trying to free itself. Interesting side-show, but bad luck for us, the first boat was late and we didn't get to MK until 7:40, after gates were opened. Still, not bad, although this morning's EE did seem more crowded, perhaps because this was the start of the Christmas week and the crowds were building. We headed for Fantasyland and ride Dumbo, this time with morning breaking over the castle. We go on Pooh and Pan again, and around to Buzz Lightyear, where Bob puts us all to shame with his first time score of nearly 200,000. This was a fun one, but the lines were building, so we decided to forego the second round against Zurg. Space Mountain had a 90 minute wait, and since Nicholas was not sure he was ready for a roller coaster in the dark, we decided to leave Tomorrowland and try Adventureland. Instead of crossing, we went back round through Fantasyland and Bob volunteered to ride the Tea Cups with Sam and Nicholas. They had a BLAST. This time I remembered to both video and take pictures, which came out great. Be sure to zoom in on your party's teacup and snap quickly or you'll end up with lots of photos of the blurry backs of people's heads.
Once in Adventureland, we rode the Jungle Cruise and did the Enchanted Tiki Room. Both OK, but nothing we raved about. Samantha got scared of the Tiki goddess appearing, but nothing major.
Back to Pirates of the Caribbean. Bob decided he really wanted a picture with just him and his hero, Capt. Hook, who was working alone this morning. Samantha worried that Mr. Smee had left for good after our Saturday incident. This time Nicholas and I rode while Bob and Samantha wandered, but our wait wasn't even 10 minutes, so Bob had less of a chance to spend money!
We then got in line for Splash Mountain. There was only a 20 minute posted wait, that was really maybe 10 minutes. Nicholas and I rode while Bob watched Samantha play in the Laughing Place playground for kids shorter than 40 inches. We got lucky to be in the very back and didn't get more than a light spray. Nicholas and I decided this was our favorite. I REALLY wanted our picture, but it didn't come out. We looked at every picture they had trying to find it, but no luck. When we emerged, I stayed with Sam and Bob and Nicholas rode. We met Brer Bear and Brer Fox there, too.
We broke to the Lodge for our nap and returned for 4:30 PS at Liberty Tree tavern
This was the best park food we had, fantastic house salad, which I was craving by this time, three kinds of meat, lots of good veggies, and great character interaction We will do this one again, as well as Cinderella's. Great atmosphere, and we had the Ben Franklin room almost to ourselves for the first 15 minutes.
5:15 and we were seeing our final hours slip away. We went to Ariel's' grotto and saw Baloo and Rafiki at the Character Area in Fastasyland, lines for each, not too bad, but that put us late looking for a viewing spot for the Electric Light Parade. We headed back for the Tavern and grabbed a seat behind a man that had pulled up one of the benches to the rope. His wife, mom-in-law, and two kids appeared soon after and we struck up a conversation. They shared their bench with us and we had a great spot, far enough from the turn to get some great angled pictures.
After the parade we headed for Toontown, which we had neglected. It was nearly empty (the park closed at 8:00 and it was 7:00). We toured Mickey and Minnie's houses, not stopping for another Mickey autograph. We rode Goofy's Barnstormer, which Samantha will now tell you is her "favorite roller coaster", despite it being her ONLY roller coaster. I had promised her a last ride on Cinderella's carousel, so Bob and Nicholas rode the Barnstormer again while she and I headed for the ponies. When we got there it was stopped in anticipation of the fireworks, so we just caught the end of Tinkerbell's flight around to the castle (we were on the wrong side to get a good view) and watched the fireworks overhead. Try to see them from the front of the castle so it looks like they are over the castle. Since we were behind, the perception was different. Rode the carousel afterwards, even though it was officially closing time. We spent the last hour shopping on Main Street (which stays open an hour later) and returned to Lodge, depressed and already planning our return.
Tuesday morning, Dec. 19 we packed up and had breakfast at the Grand Floridian with Mary Poppins, Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter, Pinnochio, and Gepetto. We had to wait nearly 45 minutes for Alice. Alice nearly made me punch her. She asked what we were doing that day and we told her we had to go home. She then asked if we had gotten to do everything we wanted and I said sadly, "Everything but stay longer," to which she replied (to my daughter), "Well, you'll just have to get mommy to plan better next time, huh." I wanted to scream, "I've been planning and saving for two years woman!" but I thought better of it. The food was good, including made to order omelettes, but don't try to get the omelette chef to crack a smile. He was the surliest person I saw my entire time at Disney.
We splurged on the big double snow globe and the villains snow globe at the big GF store. Afterwards, we inquired about being monorail pilots. The CM told us to wait inside (it was freezing) until we saw the yellow (striped) monorail. That was the GF's "color" that day and it would guarantee us an entire round trip up front. In 10 minutes we were off. I took a last picture on a roll as we got on and to my horror, the automatic rewinder didn't work. There is no manual control, wither. NOTE: take your camera's manual along to save on pain and panic. In the process of trying to rewind it we lost our Alice picture and a couple of other from around the GF. It could have been worse, but the ordeal did dampen our monorail piloting experience, as Bob and I were alternately punching every button combination imaginable on the way trying to get the **@%$* thing to rewind. I did have the presence of mind to ask for the monorail licenses, which our driver gave us gladly.
Back at the Lodge we sat and watched The Little Mermaid on the big screen TV until Tiffany Towncar showed up, this time in a white car. Our driver didn't seem to be in too good a mood and didn't say two words to us. That's alright, we were pretty surly about having to leave, too. I videotaped, from the back window of the car, the big toll booth sign that has Magic Kingdom across it, as we sped away. That part on the videotape always makes me teary. C'est la vie.
You can email me any questions at mask1@myriad.net.
<HTML><img src=http://torimask.tripod.com/Disney/anitink.gif><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="http://torimask.tripod.com/pluto1.jpg" WIDTH="100" HEIGHT="150">
