kirkharrod
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2004
- Messages
- 292
See my earlier posts for trip reports on Days 1- 3 pt1.
After a wonderful dinner at Boma, we caught the bus from AKL to Downtown Disney. The AKL is beautiful, but it is just too far away from everything for me to consider staying there. Downtown Disney was awash in light pollution. Searchlights scanned the sky. We walked down to DisneyQuest (5 out of 5). Our Ultimate Park Hoppers got us into DisneyQuest free . After you enter, you take an elevator up to the third floor. The building is 5 floors, and each floor has MANY games. The first floor has the Virtual Jungle Cruise (5 out of 5) and the Pirates of the Caribbean. The VJC has a real inflatable raft and real paddles set up in front of a big video screen. The paddles (oars?) have ball on the bottom that interact with the cushions around the raft to determine your path down the jungle river. The raft moves with the video. It has many different channels in the river you can take, creating many different possibilities. Lots of fun to be had by all! I have done white water rafting, so I actually called out commands to my family and we were able to make turns, back up, paddle fast, etc. It was very impressive. We did not do Pirates because, here is another big tip for you folks .YOU CANT DO IT ALL IN ONE TRIP!!! The second floor has the Aladdins Flying Carpet Virtual Reality ride (2 out of 5). It is an animated ride that you put on a visor and helmet and can control your carpet. I am not sure if I actually was controlling it or if it was going on its own. At the very end, I started getting hot and motion sick! I was ready to pull off the helmet when the game ended. Thank goodness! The third floor has every video game, air hockey, foosball, football game, etc. that I have ever seen. All are free play and no tokens are necessary. Here are some of the games I can remember: Asteroids, Mr & Mrs. Pacman, Defender, Xevious, Space Invaders, and literally HUNDREDS more. It was incredible. DisneyQuest is a true must see for any video arcade fan. On the 4th floor, they had a bumper car ride called Buzz Lightyears Something or Other (4 out of 5). The bumper cars are enclosed and they roll over nerf soccer balls, which are sucked into the cabin of the car. The passenger puts the nerf ball in a cannon and fires it at other cars. If you hit the target, the cars spin out of control! Lots of fun, but it is slow loading, only holds about 10 cars, and probably is impossible when it is crowded. There are interactive group games on this floor as well as a pay game area that gives tickets redeemable for prizes. The fifth floor has a Cheesecake Factory. The selections looked incredible but I was full from the Boma.
Now I want to open a sensitive topic for discussion. That subject is, what I call, Disney Gas. I will be the one to bring it up. After riding the buses and monorail at Disney for 5 days, it seems to me that there are a lot of people at WDW who are having a hard time intestinally with the food there. Frankly, people, the busses get pretty gassy. One late night riding back from the parks, the bus was quiet because people were tired. Up towards the front, a little girl of about four says Mommy, whats that smell? Is it him?, pointing to a man in front of her. Everyone on the bus hears her, and is trying not to crack up. I look up towards the little girl and her mother has her hand clamped over the little girls mouth! It was too funny. So I will now get back to DisneyQuest. I must admit that on Wednesday night after eating at the Cape May Clambake, I began to feel a little nauseous. However, I did not want to bum everyone else out so I did not complain about it to my family, but after that I continued to feel a little sick. No one else in my family felt sick, and they ate everything I ate. I was not sick enough to not eat, but I really could not enjoy the food (read stuff myself) like I had planned on doing on this trip. Well, at the DisneyQuest, it hit me. I needed to find a bathroom immediately! I was on the first floor. I scrambled to find a bathroom. I could not find a bathroom, or a staff member to ask, so I go to the second floor, third floor, fourth floor, searching every floor in desperation. Finally, I went up to the fifth floor, and found a bathroom by the restaurant. The point is, DQ has a very confusing layout and the bathrooms are hard to find. Be warned. I did learn today that every park has drugstore products such as rolaids, cough medicine, etc. Go to one of the shops and ask where to get the product you need. They will take you to a back room or a closet that has the products stocked and priced on a shelf. We also bought some children's motrin in the First Aid room of the AK. It was only $1 more than the price at our local drug store.
There came a certain point at the DQ when I looked at my wife and we said We gotta get out of here! So we gathered our 2 kids and steamed out of the DQ, out onto the DD, which then seemed calm over the sound of hundreds of arcade games. We got some snacks at the candy shop, choked on the smoke from all the cigars people were smoking from the cigar shop and walked back to the bus stop to catch a bus back to Coronado Springs. By this time, it was 11:00 pm. Next up: Day Four, MGM, Blizzard Beach and more.
After a wonderful dinner at Boma, we caught the bus from AKL to Downtown Disney. The AKL is beautiful, but it is just too far away from everything for me to consider staying there. Downtown Disney was awash in light pollution. Searchlights scanned the sky. We walked down to DisneyQuest (5 out of 5). Our Ultimate Park Hoppers got us into DisneyQuest free . After you enter, you take an elevator up to the third floor. The building is 5 floors, and each floor has MANY games. The first floor has the Virtual Jungle Cruise (5 out of 5) and the Pirates of the Caribbean. The VJC has a real inflatable raft and real paddles set up in front of a big video screen. The paddles (oars?) have ball on the bottom that interact with the cushions around the raft to determine your path down the jungle river. The raft moves with the video. It has many different channels in the river you can take, creating many different possibilities. Lots of fun to be had by all! I have done white water rafting, so I actually called out commands to my family and we were able to make turns, back up, paddle fast, etc. It was very impressive. We did not do Pirates because, here is another big tip for you folks .YOU CANT DO IT ALL IN ONE TRIP!!! The second floor has the Aladdins Flying Carpet Virtual Reality ride (2 out of 5). It is an animated ride that you put on a visor and helmet and can control your carpet. I am not sure if I actually was controlling it or if it was going on its own. At the very end, I started getting hot and motion sick! I was ready to pull off the helmet when the game ended. Thank goodness! The third floor has every video game, air hockey, foosball, football game, etc. that I have ever seen. All are free play and no tokens are necessary. Here are some of the games I can remember: Asteroids, Mr & Mrs. Pacman, Defender, Xevious, Space Invaders, and literally HUNDREDS more. It was incredible. DisneyQuest is a true must see for any video arcade fan. On the 4th floor, they had a bumper car ride called Buzz Lightyears Something or Other (4 out of 5). The bumper cars are enclosed and they roll over nerf soccer balls, which are sucked into the cabin of the car. The passenger puts the nerf ball in a cannon and fires it at other cars. If you hit the target, the cars spin out of control! Lots of fun, but it is slow loading, only holds about 10 cars, and probably is impossible when it is crowded. There are interactive group games on this floor as well as a pay game area that gives tickets redeemable for prizes. The fifth floor has a Cheesecake Factory. The selections looked incredible but I was full from the Boma.
Now I want to open a sensitive topic for discussion. That subject is, what I call, Disney Gas. I will be the one to bring it up. After riding the buses and monorail at Disney for 5 days, it seems to me that there are a lot of people at WDW who are having a hard time intestinally with the food there. Frankly, people, the busses get pretty gassy. One late night riding back from the parks, the bus was quiet because people were tired. Up towards the front, a little girl of about four says Mommy, whats that smell? Is it him?, pointing to a man in front of her. Everyone on the bus hears her, and is trying not to crack up. I look up towards the little girl and her mother has her hand clamped over the little girls mouth! It was too funny. So I will now get back to DisneyQuest. I must admit that on Wednesday night after eating at the Cape May Clambake, I began to feel a little nauseous. However, I did not want to bum everyone else out so I did not complain about it to my family, but after that I continued to feel a little sick. No one else in my family felt sick, and they ate everything I ate. I was not sick enough to not eat, but I really could not enjoy the food (read stuff myself) like I had planned on doing on this trip. Well, at the DisneyQuest, it hit me. I needed to find a bathroom immediately! I was on the first floor. I scrambled to find a bathroom. I could not find a bathroom, or a staff member to ask, so I go to the second floor, third floor, fourth floor, searching every floor in desperation. Finally, I went up to the fifth floor, and found a bathroom by the restaurant. The point is, DQ has a very confusing layout and the bathrooms are hard to find. Be warned. I did learn today that every park has drugstore products such as rolaids, cough medicine, etc. Go to one of the shops and ask where to get the product you need. They will take you to a back room or a closet that has the products stocked and priced on a shelf. We also bought some children's motrin in the First Aid room of the AK. It was only $1 more than the price at our local drug store.
There came a certain point at the DQ when I looked at my wife and we said We gotta get out of here! So we gathered our 2 kids and steamed out of the DQ, out onto the DD, which then seemed calm over the sound of hundreds of arcade games. We got some snacks at the candy shop, choked on the smoke from all the cigars people were smoking from the cigar shop and walked back to the bus stop to catch a bus back to Coronado Springs. By this time, it was 11:00 pm. Next up: Day Four, MGM, Blizzard Beach and more.
