dianeschlicht
<font color=blue>DVC-Trivia Contest, Apr-2006: Hon
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2000
- Messages
- 36,449
We started out March 1st with a delayed flight. We arrived at the airport at 4:30 AM for a 6 AM flight only to find NWA's computers were down, and the line to check in ran the entire length of the terminal, and this is one long terminal! The line started moving about 4:45, and it still took an hour and 15 minutes to get through it with more than 20 agents working. We had E tickets and were already checked in with boarding passes, but we needed to check luggage. Our flight had been delayed, and by the time we got to the gate it was boarding. Then they closed the door, and we sat for 30 minutes while they repaired the plane! We were finally off about 45 minutes late, but we made up most of it and actually only arrived in Orlando about 15 minutes late. We headed right over to AKL to check in, and then we went to Epcot, as we always do on our arrival day. Sunday we moved to our concierge room (it wasn't ready that early, but we wanted to check in before we started our day). We spent the morning at MK with friends from another board. Even though it was Sunday and MK, we were able to do quite a few things before the crowds got bad. Several of us rode Space mountain, and we all did Buzz and got creamed by Mrs. Squid! We did Haunted Mansion, Mickey's Philharmagic, and Splash all before lunch. The others were headed to Wilderness camp for lunch, so Dick and I had lunch at Pecos Bill's and saw the presidents and Carousell of Progress before heading back to AKL to see what our concierge room looked like.
Our 1 bedroom concierge villa faced the pool instead of the savanna, but the view was fine, and I knew it wouldn't be guaranteed, so no problem. We figured we were going to have plenty of animal viewing time this trip anyway. BTW, the food at AKL concierge is fantastic! Most of it comes from Jiko and Boma. They had wonderful breakfast offerings, and some very interesting juice selections. In the afternoon they had cookies and treats, and about 8 they put out desserts from Jiko. It didn't take everyone very long to figure out that those didn't last long!
Sunday evening we had gone to Epcot to do Illuminations and take in a few rides like Soarin', Imagination, and Living Seas. We went back in time to see Illuminations that night, and I (unfortunately) had one of my "intestinal things" going on, so we didn't do much except sit on a bench and wait for the show.
Monday we went to AK early and took in most of the animal trails before heading over to SSR to sign the papers declining the 15 additional years added on to the OKW contracts. We then toured the Kidani house sample rooms again (mostly to see how they differed from the ones we were in at Jambo), and headed back to AKL for my DIS/DVC meet and to check in for our Sunset Safari. As it turned out, we needed to be ready for the safari a lot earlier than we were lead to believe we would, so I actually missed most of my own meet! I saw a half a dozen folks before I had to leave for the safari. The Sunset safari was INCREDIBLE!!! Two of the animal care team took 10 of us around in an open truck. We went through all 3 of the Animal Kingdom Lodge savannas and drove right up to all the animals as they were eating the freshly placed browse left for them for the evening. As we did this, the animal keepers told us each animal's name, and details about them. We saw the baby giraffe and her mother on the Arusha savanna, and also saw 3 male giraffes up close and personal on the sunset savanna. The dominant male had a very strong "scent" about him that the trainers said is what marks him as the dominant male. Two of the lesser males who were bigger, but not dominant were 'arguing' until Jay came along. They both settled down the minute he walked up, so it was quite obvious of his rank.
The sunset savanna tour gave us great views of the new Kidani village construction too. I can hardly wait to stay there!
After the 90 minute safari, we were all taken to a special table at Jiko where they served us a family style meal that included choices of 3 appetizers, 3 main courses, and 3 desserts from their menu. We ended up eating there again the next night, and the samples helped us decide what to order then! Food at Jiko is amazing, and ranks with our other two favorites, Artist Point and Teppan Edo.
Tuesday was a Studios day, and we started out with our usual Great Movie Ride. We then did a drawing at Animation (got to do a laughing Chip this time), and then headed over to "sounds dangerous" to take part in the grand prize voting for this years America's Funniest Video show. They gave us AFV T-shirts for our efforts, and then we headed over to see Lights, motors, action. The studios have been less and less interesting to us in the past year or so, and we decided all the building they are doing there is probably badly needed. We then took a boat over to the Swalphin and walked the rest of the way to Epcot where we took in the Voices of Liberty a couple of times, and then did Soarin' again before leaving for our Jiko reservation. We had a lovely meal, and then went over to MK to watch Wishes from the roof of the train station. We have always watched from the square in front of the castle before, but this location was a great spot too, and I would do it again. The problem is that you have to get there pretty early to get a chair. We had just had our big meal, so sitting and chatting was a good thing at that time.
Thursday we got up early for our sunrise safari experience. This was just as amazing as the sunset one, and special for our group, since we had the animal curator in our truck! The breakfast is now done in a room at the back of Pizzafari, and the food was spectacular! We had to rush off early so we could be sure to get to Fort Myers in time for the 1:05 baseball game. As it turned out, we were approaching the entrance at about 12:50, but it took until 1:30 to get parked!!!! Lots of folks were upset about the situation, but we figured we wouldn't miss much in the first inning of a spring training game anyway. WRONG! We came in at the top of the second inning, and it was already 4-1! Twins ended up winning 9-6, but it was NOT a well played game on their part. Got to see our new acquisisition (Livon Hernandez) pitch, and he was NOT impressive. The thing that really was awful though was the lack of fielding on the left side of the infield. Our supposed new 3rd baseman (Mike Lamb) actually tripped on the edge of the grass trying to make a play and did a backward sumersault! He tried to cover it up by untieing and retieing his shoe, but it was a klutz move for sure! We are also going to SEVERLY miss Torii Hunter's glove in center. We saw 4 different guys play in center the two games we went to, and they all belong in the minors yet, as far as I'm concerned. After the game, we watched hall of famer Rod Carew teaching minor league infielder Tommy Watkins some batting stance issues in the cages. It was amazing to watch, and really made you understand why Carew is still around as a teacher. Friday and Saturday we just went to the ballpark in the mornings and watched Carew and Oliva train batters while former manager, Tom Kelly did infield practice. This was with the members of the team that did NOT go on the road trip. It was fun, but VERY windy, and my skin felt like shoe leather after blowing around out there for a few hours.
Saturday we went to the Edison and Ford winter estates. That was VERY interesting, and while we were there about 5-6 hours, we could have stayed much longer. I highly reccomend that museum if you are in the area. As it turned out, our hotel was directly across the water from the Edison estate, and once we knew that, we could actually see it with our binoculars from our balcony. Both Friday and Saturday evenings we went out to eat with different groups of friends who live or at least winter in the area.
Sunday was the Twins/Yankees game, and while the final score was 6-4 Yankees, the Twins REALLY played awful! I did get a HUGE sunburn out of it too. I was slathering the sunscreen on my shoulders and chest and forgot all about the top of my head! Yep, that thinning pate of mine got even shinier and VERY RED and sore! All week I have had to endure people pointing out to me that my head was sunburned! Yeah, well, I already KNEW that!! After the game, we hurried back to Orlando and decided to skip our birthday dinner we had planned for Dick because he had a bit of a stomach bug and didn't feel like eating. Instead, we took in Soarin' and Illuminations again and just walked around the countries a bit.
Monday was another park day, and we started at the studios specifically so we could go to Starring Rolls and have bagles and lox! After that, we rode the boat over to Epcot again and took in the future world rides again. This would be a good place to tell you about the new Spaceship Earth redo. I have seen lots of reviews of it, but I wanted to form my own opinions. We LOVED it! I missed the ending part a bit, but the scenes and the opening were so much better! The new narator is hard to listen to, but mostly because I would have prefered an American accent instead of an English one. The first scene with the mamoth and cavemen must have been computer animation. It was 100 times better than the old picture! The animatronics on all the scenes were better too, as was the costuming and staging. Even the picture of earth was improved! The little cartoon interaction at the end was cute, and it has your pictures in it. When you exit the ride, there is a big map. Your photos show up in the oceans shortly after you exit, and after a minute or so, they sail to your hometown location and disappear. Pretty cool!
Monday night we had reservations at Artist Point, so Dick had his birthday dinner a day late. He had the wild caught salmon, and I had scallops, because I had salmon Saturday when we went out with our friends. We each had appetizers, but no room for dessert, so we just finished the evening with a Mickey bar after we got back to OKW. We did some laundry and went to bed early enough so we could get up early and pack.
Tuesday we were packed and out of our OKW 1 bedroom by 8:15 and were headed to AK, arriving just in time for the rope drop. We took the bus and left our rental car with the luggage inside parked near the first bus stop at OKW, since our parking card was still good for the day.
After seeing Festival of the Lion King and the first showing of Finding Nemo for the day (this is such a spectacular show), we did the safari one last time and then headed over to Epcot for another chance to see the Voices of Liberty prior to our 2:30 Teppan Edo reservations. After another spectacular meal, we headed down to see the Chinese acrobats and then just strolled around Epcot taking in the preparations that were already in place for the start of the Flower and Garden festival next week. It made me sad that we were going to miss it all, but we plan to do that again next year. We boarded the bus to OKW about 6 PM and went over to the restrooms at Olivias and changed into our long pants for travel back to the frozen north. We got to the airport only to find our flight had been delayed. We left about 50 minutes late, and arrived in Mpls about 12:45. It was 1:30 AM before we got home, and that 5:30 alarm was a total shock when it went off! This was one of our most memorable trips, and if none of you have ever done a "couple only" trip, I highly reccomend it!
Now for a few observations about rooms etc. First of all, the studios at AKV are WAY TOO DARK in the bathroom! It's impossible to see a mirror with any ease at all. It would have helped if they would have had a swinging makeup mirror, but these are absent. The 1 bedroom bath lighting was a bit better, but still not great. Also, the little room that holds the toilet in the 1 bedroom could use some decor. Not much, but a picture on the wall or something would help a lot. LOVED the rest of the decor though, but I do think the space was tight in the bedroom with the king bed and all those throw pillows to contend with on the bed.
At OKW we got one of those "not yet refurbed" rooms in building 38. This room still had the old style sofa bed, but it didn't matter to us, since we didn't use it, It was just an observation. The rest of the room looked fine though, just a different sofa. I missed the throw pillows on the sofas though. I had to go get the extra pillow from the master closet to use in the living room. Oh, and the closet door in 3818 was broken, and the right half wouldn't open. It looked like someone tried to force it, and the louvers were all pulled out. I did report this at check-out and called maintenance.
Our 1 bedroom concierge villa faced the pool instead of the savanna, but the view was fine, and I knew it wouldn't be guaranteed, so no problem. We figured we were going to have plenty of animal viewing time this trip anyway. BTW, the food at AKL concierge is fantastic! Most of it comes from Jiko and Boma. They had wonderful breakfast offerings, and some very interesting juice selections. In the afternoon they had cookies and treats, and about 8 they put out desserts from Jiko. It didn't take everyone very long to figure out that those didn't last long!
Sunday evening we had gone to Epcot to do Illuminations and take in a few rides like Soarin', Imagination, and Living Seas. We went back in time to see Illuminations that night, and I (unfortunately) had one of my "intestinal things" going on, so we didn't do much except sit on a bench and wait for the show.
Monday we went to AK early and took in most of the animal trails before heading over to SSR to sign the papers declining the 15 additional years added on to the OKW contracts. We then toured the Kidani house sample rooms again (mostly to see how they differed from the ones we were in at Jambo), and headed back to AKL for my DIS/DVC meet and to check in for our Sunset Safari. As it turned out, we needed to be ready for the safari a lot earlier than we were lead to believe we would, so I actually missed most of my own meet! I saw a half a dozen folks before I had to leave for the safari. The Sunset safari was INCREDIBLE!!! Two of the animal care team took 10 of us around in an open truck. We went through all 3 of the Animal Kingdom Lodge savannas and drove right up to all the animals as they were eating the freshly placed browse left for them for the evening. As we did this, the animal keepers told us each animal's name, and details about them. We saw the baby giraffe and her mother on the Arusha savanna, and also saw 3 male giraffes up close and personal on the sunset savanna. The dominant male had a very strong "scent" about him that the trainers said is what marks him as the dominant male. Two of the lesser males who were bigger, but not dominant were 'arguing' until Jay came along. They both settled down the minute he walked up, so it was quite obvious of his rank.
The sunset savanna tour gave us great views of the new Kidani village construction too. I can hardly wait to stay there!
After the 90 minute safari, we were all taken to a special table at Jiko where they served us a family style meal that included choices of 3 appetizers, 3 main courses, and 3 desserts from their menu. We ended up eating there again the next night, and the samples helped us decide what to order then! Food at Jiko is amazing, and ranks with our other two favorites, Artist Point and Teppan Edo.
Tuesday was a Studios day, and we started out with our usual Great Movie Ride. We then did a drawing at Animation (got to do a laughing Chip this time), and then headed over to "sounds dangerous" to take part in the grand prize voting for this years America's Funniest Video show. They gave us AFV T-shirts for our efforts, and then we headed over to see Lights, motors, action. The studios have been less and less interesting to us in the past year or so, and we decided all the building they are doing there is probably badly needed. We then took a boat over to the Swalphin and walked the rest of the way to Epcot where we took in the Voices of Liberty a couple of times, and then did Soarin' again before leaving for our Jiko reservation. We had a lovely meal, and then went over to MK to watch Wishes from the roof of the train station. We have always watched from the square in front of the castle before, but this location was a great spot too, and I would do it again. The problem is that you have to get there pretty early to get a chair. We had just had our big meal, so sitting and chatting was a good thing at that time.
Thursday we got up early for our sunrise safari experience. This was just as amazing as the sunset one, and special for our group, since we had the animal curator in our truck! The breakfast is now done in a room at the back of Pizzafari, and the food was spectacular! We had to rush off early so we could be sure to get to Fort Myers in time for the 1:05 baseball game. As it turned out, we were approaching the entrance at about 12:50, but it took until 1:30 to get parked!!!! Lots of folks were upset about the situation, but we figured we wouldn't miss much in the first inning of a spring training game anyway. WRONG! We came in at the top of the second inning, and it was already 4-1! Twins ended up winning 9-6, but it was NOT a well played game on their part. Got to see our new acquisisition (Livon Hernandez) pitch, and he was NOT impressive. The thing that really was awful though was the lack of fielding on the left side of the infield. Our supposed new 3rd baseman (Mike Lamb) actually tripped on the edge of the grass trying to make a play and did a backward sumersault! He tried to cover it up by untieing and retieing his shoe, but it was a klutz move for sure! We are also going to SEVERLY miss Torii Hunter's glove in center. We saw 4 different guys play in center the two games we went to, and they all belong in the minors yet, as far as I'm concerned. After the game, we watched hall of famer Rod Carew teaching minor league infielder Tommy Watkins some batting stance issues in the cages. It was amazing to watch, and really made you understand why Carew is still around as a teacher. Friday and Saturday we just went to the ballpark in the mornings and watched Carew and Oliva train batters while former manager, Tom Kelly did infield practice. This was with the members of the team that did NOT go on the road trip. It was fun, but VERY windy, and my skin felt like shoe leather after blowing around out there for a few hours.
Saturday we went to the Edison and Ford winter estates. That was VERY interesting, and while we were there about 5-6 hours, we could have stayed much longer. I highly reccomend that museum if you are in the area. As it turned out, our hotel was directly across the water from the Edison estate, and once we knew that, we could actually see it with our binoculars from our balcony. Both Friday and Saturday evenings we went out to eat with different groups of friends who live or at least winter in the area.
Sunday was the Twins/Yankees game, and while the final score was 6-4 Yankees, the Twins REALLY played awful! I did get a HUGE sunburn out of it too. I was slathering the sunscreen on my shoulders and chest and forgot all about the top of my head! Yep, that thinning pate of mine got even shinier and VERY RED and sore! All week I have had to endure people pointing out to me that my head was sunburned! Yeah, well, I already KNEW that!! After the game, we hurried back to Orlando and decided to skip our birthday dinner we had planned for Dick because he had a bit of a stomach bug and didn't feel like eating. Instead, we took in Soarin' and Illuminations again and just walked around the countries a bit.
Monday was another park day, and we started at the studios specifically so we could go to Starring Rolls and have bagles and lox! After that, we rode the boat over to Epcot again and took in the future world rides again. This would be a good place to tell you about the new Spaceship Earth redo. I have seen lots of reviews of it, but I wanted to form my own opinions. We LOVED it! I missed the ending part a bit, but the scenes and the opening were so much better! The new narator is hard to listen to, but mostly because I would have prefered an American accent instead of an English one. The first scene with the mamoth and cavemen must have been computer animation. It was 100 times better than the old picture! The animatronics on all the scenes were better too, as was the costuming and staging. Even the picture of earth was improved! The little cartoon interaction at the end was cute, and it has your pictures in it. When you exit the ride, there is a big map. Your photos show up in the oceans shortly after you exit, and after a minute or so, they sail to your hometown location and disappear. Pretty cool!
Monday night we had reservations at Artist Point, so Dick had his birthday dinner a day late. He had the wild caught salmon, and I had scallops, because I had salmon Saturday when we went out with our friends. We each had appetizers, but no room for dessert, so we just finished the evening with a Mickey bar after we got back to OKW. We did some laundry and went to bed early enough so we could get up early and pack.
Tuesday we were packed and out of our OKW 1 bedroom by 8:15 and were headed to AK, arriving just in time for the rope drop. We took the bus and left our rental car with the luggage inside parked near the first bus stop at OKW, since our parking card was still good for the day.
After seeing Festival of the Lion King and the first showing of Finding Nemo for the day (this is such a spectacular show), we did the safari one last time and then headed over to Epcot for another chance to see the Voices of Liberty prior to our 2:30 Teppan Edo reservations. After another spectacular meal, we headed down to see the Chinese acrobats and then just strolled around Epcot taking in the preparations that were already in place for the start of the Flower and Garden festival next week. It made me sad that we were going to miss it all, but we plan to do that again next year. We boarded the bus to OKW about 6 PM and went over to the restrooms at Olivias and changed into our long pants for travel back to the frozen north. We got to the airport only to find our flight had been delayed. We left about 50 minutes late, and arrived in Mpls about 12:45. It was 1:30 AM before we got home, and that 5:30 alarm was a total shock when it went off! This was one of our most memorable trips, and if none of you have ever done a "couple only" trip, I highly reccomend it!
Now for a few observations about rooms etc. First of all, the studios at AKV are WAY TOO DARK in the bathroom! It's impossible to see a mirror with any ease at all. It would have helped if they would have had a swinging makeup mirror, but these are absent. The 1 bedroom bath lighting was a bit better, but still not great. Also, the little room that holds the toilet in the 1 bedroom could use some decor. Not much, but a picture on the wall or something would help a lot. LOVED the rest of the decor though, but I do think the space was tight in the bedroom with the king bed and all those throw pillows to contend with on the bed.
At OKW we got one of those "not yet refurbed" rooms in building 38. This room still had the old style sofa bed, but it didn't matter to us, since we didn't use it, It was just an observation. The rest of the room looked fine though, just a different sofa. I missed the throw pillows on the sofas though. I had to go get the extra pillow from the master closet to use in the living room. Oh, and the closet door in 3818 was broken, and the right half wouldn't open. It looked like someone tried to force it, and the louvers were all pulled out. I did report this at check-out and called maintenance.
Want to get up in morning and make the walk to DTD for my coffee and enjoy the view.
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I will be following in your footsteps (to Starring Rolls in MGM) in about 2 months.
I love Chef Mickey's and Yacht Club Galley for breakfast specifically for the lovely bagels and lox on their buffets.
