the Legend
Master of Attractions and TourGuide Hopeful!
- Joined
- Jun 2, 2001
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The Legend returns: Day 3 - American Idle or Too much time on our hands!The Cast of 'Pocahontas'!
Rob aka the Legend as the Wise Old Willow - Thats me. 36 year old Systems Analyst playing the Counsellor, Adviser and Big Brother.
Lance as Pocahontas - My 30 year old Brother in his role as the confused but excited Youth in a new World. This is his first time to WDW.Summary for Sunday 22 September.
- Morning - Magic Kingdom
- Afternoon break at the Wilderness Lodge
- Evening - Free time but early night planned
Breakfast on High!We were up bright and early because today was our first real park day! Magic Kingdom was our Park of choice and it was important that we were at the Castle rope drop by 9am. Please forget that we were there last night and had already ridden most of the Fantasyland rides. Please forget that we got to walk on to Buzz and Space Mountain twice and please, please forget that we had found a Dance Dance Revolution Game at the Tomorrowland Arcade! Today, we started with a clean slate because today, we start with the most important ride of all, that blue elephant we affectionately know as Dumbo!
Fully loaded for our trip into the Magic Kingdom, I decided to save the money I normally reserve for my favourite Magic Kingdom Breakfast spot, the Main Street Bakery, and take advantage of the Concierge Breakfast offering. Of all the food served by Concierge throughout the day, Breakfast was the closest to a full meal. There were several cereals, fruits, and juices to choose from as well as muffins, bagels and a lot of different breads for toasting (Toasters provided, of course). The Breakfast 'menu' started at 7am and is dutifully cleared by the Concierge staff at 10am. Filling our plates with toast and some fruit, we made our way over to the tables that overlooked the Lobby by the big Totem Poles. What a great way to start the day,
relaxing on the Concierge floor, people watching while having a good wholesome breakfast. You really get that feeling of exclusiveness that a 7th floor stay provides when you dine up here. It was a shame that more people didnt join us, opting to hit-and-run back to their rooms, as I believe they have missed something that is truly unique to the Lodges Concierge level.
Anyway Mickeys big hand was on the 12 and his little hand was on the 8, time to get to the Dock. Now I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth and say no, so with permission of the Concierge staff and the bewilderment of those around us, we filled our empty water bottles with ice and some of the 'good stuff'.
Not exactly Evian but any water served from a wine bottle must be good, right? (I think it was Azzo or something like that). That little exercise just saved me $5.00 (2 x $2.50 for bottled water in the Parks) and would turn out to be the only water we would need this morning! Tip: Concierge serve a variety of food offerings throughout the day. Although the choice of food is always top notch, they are not intended as a meal replacement and one should not plan times around these offerings. However, Juice, water and coffee is available all day and constantly topped up by Concierge. They did not mind that we filled our water bottles with the expensive bottled water, so there is some savings to be had here. (Remember Bottled water is $2.50 in the Parks!) Given the chance and a flask, I would've been tempted to take some coffee with us as well.
- 7am-10am: Continental Breakfast including coffee, tea, milk, cereal, bagels, muffins, fruit (Toasters included).
- 11:30am-3pm: Refreshments including Coffee, Juice and the light snacks like nuts, pretzels etc.
- 3pm-4pm: Afternoon Tea
- 5pm-7pm: Wine and Cheese Selection including Soup, salad, sandwiches, cheese and crackers, candy and Wine
- 8pm-10pm: Cordials and Desserts including Desserts wines.
How The Legend got his Groove Back!Remember Miguel from Concierge in yesterdays story, well it was time for his second test and boy, did I have a doozie today! If you have been following our adventures to date, you'll know I've been having credit card problems with Amex since we left New Zealand two days ago. The Amex Guy back home said everything will be fine on Monday, which funnily enough was today (New Zealand is a day ahead due to the International Date Line). Miguels test was to hook us up with room charging privileges, something I didn't push for during check-in the other night. Never skipping a beat, Miguel had our new room keys with charging privileges in as little as 10 minutes. The little Concierge who could, had delivered once again. Thank you Miguel!
There is something strangely empowering about having charging on your room keys! After spending the last two days sifting through funny American money and breaking travellers cheques everywhere we went, it would be nice to get back to the simplicity of charging once again. All those trinkets which eluded us last night like that essential light-spinning toy, the mouse heads on springs and a light sabre could now be ours at a flick of the wrist!
Feeling like I had got control of my life once again, we bid good day to Miguel and went to the Dock.
More of a Science than an Art.Reaching the Magic Kingdom forecourt, the lines to the turnstiles were long but in no way intimidating. We passed through Security and joined the smallest line on the right by Guest Services. In previous trips to the Magic Kingdom, Guests were admitted up to 30 minutes before Park opening and held by rope at key points until the official countdown! It seems they have dropped this in favour of a single countdown at the turnstiles and a free for all rush to wherever you want to go! I didn't mind either way but I was thankful we had breakfast at the Wilderness Lodge!
Anyone who knows anything about the Magic Kingdom knows, if Dumbo is on your list of attractions you best get there as early as possible! With 32 riders and a loading/unloading process which takes longer than the ride itself, lines for the blue Elephant will push out to 20 minutes in no time at all. Last year, we started our Magic Kingdom day with Dumbo so I was adamant that we would start this years Magic Kingdom day with Dumbo! My 30 year old Brother couldn't understand my obsession with the little blue guy, I told him it was a tradition and ... voila ... just like that, a new family tradition was born.
We boarded in back-to-back Elephants and took flight. With cameras out, we played 'Follow the Leader' going up and down while taking photos of each other. What a hoot! When we landed, my Brother was energized. He'd just had fun Disney style and liked it. 'What a great tradition!', he said and with that the tone was set. The crowds were very light and noticeably smaller than when we were here last fall. Ride after ride fell victim to our Master Plan, Pooh, Snow Whites Scary Adventure and Peter Pans Flight. So far, there was no need for any Fastpasses and we could've re-ridden any ride without wait but we decided against that so we could make Lunch on time. We skipped 'Its a Small World' deciding that once a trip was more than enough. Although we had dropped our Manliness for Dumbo, there was no way we were getting on Cindys Carousel so that only left one ride to do, the Teacups!
(Play "Jaws" music here!) Now I'm no chicken. 200-foot Roller coasters. No problems! 70-foot drops in logs. In my Sleep! But Spinning Teacups. No Way! I looked at Lance. Lance looked at me. Haunted Mansion here we come! As we left Fantasyland and rounded the corner to the Mansion, HM CMs were literally dragging people off the street like they had some quota to make. With the closure, much of the morning crowds were passing it by not knowing it was indeed open. As we entered the Stretching room, you could count the number of people on both hands (OK I cheated, there was 12 of us!). The ride seemed longer and much colder than I remembered although I knew nothing had changed. It was actually good to get back in the sun and I was pleased to see the HM CMs in much better Spirits than they were last night (no pun intended)!
The weather was in the low 70's. It was still humid but nowhere as hot as the last 2 days. We were questioning whether we should ride Splash or not. We decided to grab a fastpass, our first of the day, and ride Big Thunder. Well one Big Thunder ride turned into two, two into three, finally ending with ride four. Despite all these rides, our FP for Splash was not up yet so we decided to hump it through Stand-by and take our chances. Well as luck would have it, Stand-by was a walk-on. In fact it was so light at Splash that we were given the opportunity to stay on and go around a second time.
We declined and moved on to Pirates, which we thoroughly enjoyed. Passing through the Pirates Shop we got to meet our first characters of the day, Cap'n Hook and Mr Smee. We got in line and took some classic shots of the Cap'n and Mr Smee hanging loose with Lance and then we went on to Jungle Cruise. The line to Jungle Cruise was up to 25 minutes but fortunately for us Aladdins Magic Carpets were a walk-on (Go Figure!) so we did that. The Tiki Room wasn't open yet and we had missed the Country Bears by a few minutes so we were looking for something to do. Well talk about your perfect timing? Who should come out to the Agrabah Marketplace but the Genie himself. Before I could say 'Hey, There's the Gen... ', Lance was gone and trying his best to make a line to meet the Genie! Wow, he was really bitten by this character meet and greet bug. We got the pictures and decided it was time for Lunch. Looking around, we settled on Pecos Bills and ordered the obligatory Burger, Coke and chilli cheese fries ($7.73).Over lunch, we decided to skip the rest of Frontierland/Adventureland and called it a day at 11:30. So in 2.5 hours, we had done the left side of the Magic Kingdom with multiple rides on Big Thunder and at a leisurely pace to boot. We were missing out on the Tiki Room, Jungle Cruise and the Country Bears but we could do these attractions at Disneyland next week (Dang! Forgot that the Bears had closed at Anaheim well over a year ago!
). Anyway, I never got to exhibit my skill in the dark science that is Attraction planning because the crowds were so light and there were no queues to be seen. We found it would stay this way throughout our WDW stay. Only Test Track, RnRC and ToT were the real tests on this trip and even they were ridden with relative ease. With a stop in the Emporium to pick up some pins and gifts for the folks back home, we made our way to the dock and the boat back to the Wilderness Lodge. 8800 miles for Pizza and some Football!Well, with nothing planned for tonight and the afternoon free, there was nothing to do!
Lance went off for a swim and I decided to do some looking around. Visited the merchantile and bought some more stuff for the folks back home. I had a quick look at the Cub Den, the Arcade and was thinking of going over to the Villas but decided against it. With camera in hand, I started taking some photos of the Lobby, Whispering Canyon, Silver creek falls and the Pool area. I was seriously thinking of hiring a Water mouse or taking a bike ride to Fort Wilderness before Lance tracked me down with a problem. Seems in his haste to swim, he had forgotten his room key so he needed me to let him in. 
Grabbing some food and juice from Roaring Fork, we went back to the room where Football was on. In fact, Football always seemed to be on in our room. Oh well, we decided to chill out watching the game, eating pizza and drinking juice. Such was the pace of this holiday that we never felt rushed for anything and after 8800 miles to Orlando, isn't that what a vacation is really about? 
That's Amore @ DisneyQuest!Seems I fell asleep during the baseball and didnt get up until 6:30pm! Whoa! We had a long day tomorrow (Busch Gardens and the Monday night game @ Tampa) so tonight was going to be an early night, right? Well after my midday nap I was pretty much ready to stay up all night! We decided to get something to eat and maybe hit a movie at Downtown Disney.
Well one thing lead to another and next thing you know, its 9pm and we're in the elevator at DisneyQuest!
With a DC discount on a special evening admission price, I managed to get Lance into DQ for $16.43. That wasn't bad for all the video games you could ever want to play in one night. Exiting the elevator, we entered one of the many zones which make up DQ and what was the first video game you think we saw! You guessed right, it was a Dance Dance Revolution (DDR USA for the aficionados out there!) on free play no less, so we could shake our big booties to our hearts content, which we did!After a game or four, Lance and I went our separate ways and started exploring. I moved to the Mighty Ducks Pinball slam and he went upstairs to all the sports games. Pinball slam sure is a strange game and I was getting edged out by kids a third my age, so with my head down, I cowardly slipped out the side unnoticed.
There were a lot of video games including classics like Kong and Pacman but they also had a lot of the new 3D games that required the wearing of visors to participate. I met up with Lance at one such game, some Light Sabre thing where your team take on bad guys from a comic I hadn't heard of. Despite that, we kicked bad guy butt and staggered out of there triumphant! Totally gamed-out, if there is such a condition, we entered the Create Zone. This area included such treats as Make a Toy, some stations where you create the most grotesque of playthings from toy parts and have the chance to buy it if you want (e.g. babys head on a dinosaurs body with other grouse body appendages and parts). You could learn to draw Disney characters and even perform plastic surgery on yourself via photo capture. Ever wanted to know what you would look like with those green eyebrows? how about Mr Potato heads moustache? Or that red Afro? You could do it here as often as you liked and when you're done you can even print it out or send it home via e-mail, which would be great if I could figure out how to do that!
However, the one thing which really caught our attention was the Make a CD booths. We had a great time composing songs and remixing them to suit our tastes. I left Lance to explore the remainder of DQ, we had an hour before closing at 11pm so I wanted make sure I saw as much as possible. He had a different agenda to me so I left him to it.Going downstairs, there was another section with Virtual Jungle Cruise and Pirates but the thing that got my attention was all the people shouting 'Left!' ... 'No, Right!' ... 'Straight ahead and turn left at the next intersection!'. It was a virtual Jeep/Treasure hunt game but the difference was the maze and Jeeps were visible through the glass floor. Each Jeep in the maze was numbered and matched the number on a video game cabinet against the wall. The action in the video game was reflected in real time in the maze under the glass. Couples had separated into Driver and Guide, one driving the Jeep through the video game and the other guiding the model jeep through the maze in the floor. There must've been at least 5 couples chanting instructions to each other in a multitude of languages. Sure made for some entertaining arguments!
Anyway it was closing time and I made my way upstairs looking for Lance. He was still in the booth cutting a CD for his partner and I caught the tail-end of his recording. Now, I know it was a love song of sorts but I wasn't sure how well the lines about puffy eyes and big thighs would go down but hey, at least he was thinking of her, right? Bought the CD ($10.60) and left DQ smiling! (Fortunately for Lance, his Partner, Lisa, did see the funny side of it and got as much enjoyment out of it as we did!). Yeah, He's a big Softie but wotchagonnado, right? Checking out the Nightlife!After the fun of DQ, we decided to grab something to eat however most of the restaurants on the Westside were closed or closing up. With little options left, we decided to enter Pleasure Island looking for something to eat! Missing the last show of the Comedy Warehouse, we proceeded down the Main St of PI and were fortunate enough to find a hot dog place still open. Grabbing some combos from there, we took a seat across the path and people watched.
There sure were a lot of people out for a Sunday night however judging by the accents, most of them were British so that made complete sense to us. After the meal, we visited most of the clubs, just to have a look see but there wasn't much on, so we decided to call it a night. Our early night ended with us falling asleep to baseball highlights around 2am.The Legend ratings for Sunday 22 September.
The Weather! Concierge Breakfast, DisneyQuest. Magic Kingdom cleared by Lunchtime. Room charging. DDR at DisneyQuest. Eating too much and having plenty of time to lounge around. Having late night despite a long day tomorrow.Staying up late can't be good for our Lads especially with the Tampa trip tomorrow? Read what happens in our next instalment 'The Legend returns: Day 4 - Paying the Price!'
