Welcome, Foolish Muggles! IoA/US/MK/SW July 2011* Top Ten "Things" *

[DutchsMommy]

Really enjoying your TR. I am tossing aroud the idea of bringing the fam to the DISapalloza at WWoHP and taking a few days to tour Universal. We have been to WDW many times but never Universal so your impressions are really helping me. DS is 9yo so it may be the time to break into the bigger rides. Looking forward to the rest of the TR and I may have some questions to pester you with in the coming months! Thanks for taking the time to do this - I know it is alot of work.

 

[AnjieNet]

I really enjoyed your recap of Sea World, Shamu portion. While we've never gone to Sea World in Orlando, we've been to the San Antonio park several times and Shamu is always a must-do, usually several times! Thanks for sharing.

 

[natebenma]

Really enjoying your TR. I am tossing aroud the idea of bringing the fam to the DISapalloza at WWoHP and taking a few days to tour Universal. We have been to WDW many times but never Universal so your impressions are really helping me. DS is 9yo so it may be the time to break into the bigger rides. Looking forward to the rest of the TR and I may have some questions to pester you with in the coming months! Thanks for taking the time to do this - I know it is alot of work.

Thank you! We will be taking a break from Universal/IoA for a few more updates, but I'll be back with two more visits to US and 3 more to IoA on this trip.

It was really nice for my family to enjoy some new experiences!

Fire away with any questions you have and I will do my best to answer.

And good for you for realizing this journey may indeed take us a couple of months!

I really enjoyed your recap of Sea World, Shamu portion. While we've never gone to Sea World in Orlando, we've been to the San Antonio park several times and Shamu is always a must-do, usually several times! Thanks for sharing.

Sea World was a nice change from the ride and attraction-centered theme parks, but even here, rides were what my teenager preferred.

 

[RAPstar]

Just read you TR! Its grwea,t and I love the pics! Can't wait for more!!

 

[LuckyMamaInDE]

Just read straight through Thanks for all the pictures! We'll be at Universal Saturday and Sunday for our first-ever visit. Your pictures are really helping me to visualize what I've been reading about for months!

 

[natebenma]

Just read you TR! Its grwea,t and I love the pics! Can't wait for more!!

Thank you so much for your kind feedback!

Just read straight through Thanks for all the pictures! We'll be at Universal Saturday and Sunday for our first-ever visit. Your pictures are really helping me to visualize what I've been reading about for months!

Glad you enjoyed what you read and saw.

Have a fantastic trip!!!

Hope to "see" you when you return! I would love to hear what you think of your trip.

 

[natebenma]

Let’s recap:

We have left Sea World and we are headed to City Walk to find something to eat.

We arrive at City Walk and find:

A swarm of people. Most of them heading out of City Walk. We were like salmon swimming upstream.

At this point we start wandering a bit aimlessly- we don’t know City Walk, the locations of the restaurants, how long the waits for a table are…

We see the sign for the “Food Court” type area- Panda Express, Burger King Whopper Bar, Moe’s Southwest Grill.

Someone mentions that will be fine. Ben loves Chinese food and he enjoyed a meal he had at a Panda Express in some airport (Washington, DC?). This food area is on the second floor at City Walk. When we got in and looked at the food, though, it really didn’t appeal to any of us. Except Ben. So he ordered a dinner, but none of the rest of us wanted to eat there.

While he was eating, I volunteered to scout out some sit down places. My obvious choice, based on my adoration of Jimmy Buffett, was Margaritaville.

Down the stairs. Over to Margaritaville.

The hostess said it would be a 40 minute wait. I took the beeper and returned to tell the family at Panda Express.

Up the Stairs.

I check in with them, and then I decide to check on Bubba Gumps.

Down the Stairs. Over to Bubba’s.

They tell me 10-15 minutes, so I give my name there (actually I think this is where they ask you your favorite drink instead of your name. Mine is Ting, a Jamaican Grapefruit drink)

Up the Stairs.

I return to Panda Express, Ben is finishing up his meal, and we all head to Bubba’s.

Down the Stairs.

When we arrive, they tell us they have already called our name (drink?) and are ready to seat us.

This saved an evening that was going downhill rapidly. We were wet, tired and hungry and some of us may have been a wee bit cranky. I won’t mention any names here.

We ordered our drinks and meals.

As we waited for the food to be delivered, the waitress came over and asked us some trivia questions from the movie Forrest Gump. I did ok, considering I haven’t seen the movie since it came out in theaters.

I also had another task I had to do- return the beeper I had from Margaritaville.

Out the door, over to Margaritaville and back again.

Somebody earned her supper!!!


Maybe not surprisingly, the menu at Bubba Gumps Shrimp Company consists of mostly shrimp!


Mark ordered:

Shrimp New Orleans
An authentic spicy recipe from our staff in the
French Quarter. Lots of tender Shrimp broiled
with Butter, Garlic, and Spices, and served with
Jasmine Rice. 17.29

He loved this!


My meal:

Pear & Berry Salad
Fresh Greens with charbroiled Chicken,
Strawberries, Pears, and glazed Pecans.
We toss it all together with Raspberry
Vinaigrette, and top it with Feta Cheese. 11.99

Here is a second picture, because I noticed halfway through the meal that there were no glazed pecans!

Nate, who doesn’t really like shrimp, ordered this:

Prime Top Sirloin
A tender 11 oz. USDA Prime Top Sirloin served
with Mashed Potatoes, a crispy Onion Ring
and juicy sliced Tomato. 20.99


Ben was not finished eating for the evening, he wanted a Caesar salad, so I ordered a side salad to go with my meal ($5.59)


I think I just took one picture of the inside of the restaurant, and none of the exterior!

Our check total was $70.75 before tip. Since this is a chain restaurant, there was no AAA discount.

It was close to 9 PM when we finished our meal. We didn’t order dessert, but Nate wanted to get a churro from a stand he had seen at City Walk.

Mark and Ben decided to go back to the Portofino, and Nate and I stayed to pay for the meal.

Nate got his churro ($3.19) and we waited for a boat back to the Portofino.

City Walk is beautiful at night!

We stopped by the club lounge for some sweet treats- tonight it was cannoli and a tiramisu thing.

Next up- Day 3: Open to the Close (almost)- 12 ½ hours at the Magic Kingdom

 

[natebenma]

Why Wednesday?

Our original plan was to go to the Magic Kingdom on Thursday. One of my Beach Club DIS friends, Robyn, (disneymomx7) was going to meet us at the park as she would be staying at the Grand Floridian that night prior to her stay at the Beach Club.

Our plan had the week looking like this:
Mon- arrival/US
Tues- IoA/Sea World
Wed- Sea World/ Then either IoA or US in the afternoon
Thurs- MK
Friday- Back to IoA/US

The main reason we decided to change to Wed for the Magic Kingdom was that Thursday was Extra Magic Hours early opening there. We always attend the early EMH at MK, but since we were not staying on-site at Disney we wouldn’t be able to take advantage of this. We would be starting out an hour behind all of the resort guests.

Our new-improved itinerary looked like this:

Mon- arrival/US
Tues- IoA/Sea World
Wed- MK
Thurs- Sea World/ Then either IoA or US in the afternoon
Friday- Back to IoA/US

There were a lot of advantages to this lineup:

It breaks up our Sea World days

We hoped to stay late at MK, and our original plan had us going the next morning to the 7 am opening at IoA for Harry Potter. With our revision, Sea World would be our next day, which did not require an early start. And that afternoon was freestyle, so we could get in as early as we wanted to be ready for Friday’s early morning.

It made perfect sense!

And we learned one more thing that really made the decision a no-brainer. Have I mentioned yet that there was a Harry Potter fan convention (Leaky Con) at Universal while we there? On Wednesday night, there was a convention-only event scheduled at the Wizarding World after hours:

Open at the Close (isn’t that a fantastic name!)

Convention guests could enter IoA starting at 4 PM, so we feared a mob scene at the park. It was a good to be out of Dodge on this day!

The only downside to changing the day was that I wouldn’t get a chance to meet with Robyn

Plan in place, we made a dinner reservation at Kona for 5 PM on Wednesday. We figured that it would be nice to take a break from the MK, ride the monorail for a while in air conditioning, then return to the MK in the evening, hopefully refreshed.


The Surprise! Who put this huge honkin’ castle in the hub of Sea World?

It is Wednesday morning, and so far, we have managed to keep our visit to the Magic Kingdom a secret.

We had a very close call on the ride from the airport to the Portofino. I had e-mailed the towncar company and said we may want to arrange for a roundtrip from Portofino to the Contemporary resort mid-week, but we hadn’t decided if we were using them yet, or a cab. It would depend on how flexible they could be when we wanted to go back. We were able to arrange to call our driver 45 minutes before we wanted to be picked up, so that worked. But the driver started to ask us about it on the ride over from the airport, and I had to talk over him so the kids would not hear. He said “Magic Kingdom”. Did the kids hear that? They didn’t say anything.

We told the boys we were going back to Sea World today and that we had hired the same company to drive us. Had breakfast in the club lounge, and we were picked up at 8 AM. I reminded the driver that this was a surprise and that we told the kids we were going to Sea World.

Next scary moment - from the highway, I could see the Sea World observation tower. Did the kids notice that we went right past the exit? They didn’t say anything.

The driver was great- he got off the highway and took back roads.

When we were around 5 minutes away from the Contemporary, it became clear that we were on Disney property. Mark and I started to see the back sides of mouse-eared Disney signs and then we started to see Disney buses. We looked back at Nate, and he was smiling.

Ben still has a non-committal face on.

Driving under monorail tracks, we see the Contemporary and Space Mountain, right in front of us.

I ask the driver “Did we take a wrong turn?”

Not missing a beat, he replies “No, I have to pick up another family here.”

We stop in the parking lot of the Contemporary and I order the kids to get out of the van.

“Why?” they ask.

DUH!

“We are going to the Magic Kingdom today!”

“We are? Really? REALLY?”

They were in shock and it took almost the whole 10 minute walk over to the Magic Kingdom gates for them to believe it.

I still don’t know what Nate was smiling about in the van.

Mark’s observant conclusion- “We must not lie to the boys enough. They trusted us”

We did it!!!

Next up: Open to the Close (almost): What can our family do with 12 ½ hours at Magic Kingdom?

 

[reelmom]

That's awesome that you got to surprise the boys.

 

[AnjieNet]

I love surprises! We surprised our daughter with a trip to Disneyland a couple of years ago. I'd packed her bags and we'd headed to the airport before she'd even asked where we were going. We told her were we taking a plane to a hotel. Fine, she didn't ask anything further. At 6 she was just happy for the plane ride and a hotel. Guess we could have saved some money! We made it all the way to the Disneyland resort and she finally saw a Mickey statue outside and figured it out. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry she was so excited! She knows about WDW/Universal this time and I haven't heard the end of it. I think I prefer the surprise. I'm sure it gets much harder as they get older though. Your boys' expressions just crack me up.

 

[Seeker615]

I can't wait to hear how you spent the Magic Kingdom day. I am doing one day there the end of the month and would love any advice!

 

[natebenma]

That's awesome that you got to surprise the boys.

It could not have gone any better!!!

I love surprises! We surprised our daughter with a trip to Disneyland a couple of years ago. I'd packed her bags and we'd headed to the airport before she'd even asked where we were going. We told her were we taking a plane to a hotel. Fine, she didn't ask anything further. At 6 she was just happy for the plane ride and a hotel. Guess we could have saved some money! We made it all the way to the Disneyland resort and she finally saw a Mickey statue outside and figured it out. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry she was so excited! She knows about WDW/Universal this time and I haven't heard the end of it. I think I prefer the surprise. I'm sure it gets much harder as they get older though. Your boys' expressions just crack me up.

We have never done a trip surprise with the boys. We always tell them fairly early on and involve then in the planning. So this was really cool for us.

I love their expressions, too!

I can't wait to hear how you spent the Magic Kingdom day. I am doing one day there the end of the month and would love any advice!

Thanks! I'll post the first part of the day tomorrow.

 

[wdwfanatic316]

Just read your whole trip report and I'm loving it! Can't wait for your next post!

 

[natebenma]

Just read your whole trip report and I'm loving it! Can't wait for your next post!

Glad you are enjoying it.

More coming right up.

 

[natebenma]

We walked from the Contemporary Resort parking lot to the Magic Kingdom turnstiles.

We had paper vouchers, so we needed to stop at Guest Relations to turn our vouchers into tickets. We had about 10 minutes to rent a locker before the Opening Show started, so we did that (locker 305) and stowed our backpack (change of clothes, ponchos) away.

We had a pretty bad vantage point for the opening show. As soon as the “ropes” were dropped, we melted into the crowd of people and made our entrance onto Main Street USA.

Warning: The following post contains some serious, hard core touring. People with heart conditions, women who are expecting and anyone with small children should avoid this section of the report.

Do NOT attempt this on vacation!

Those of you who joined in on my previous trip report know that we have a serious Disney commando reputation to uphold:

From 2009, we have “Hey Tara, I’m headed to my 4th park of the day”
Last year’s installments from our two mornings at Magic Kingdom were:
I promise the boys 3 Mountains and an Island by 11 am. Can I deliver?
and my family’s personal favorite: Double Triple Mountain Whammy!


Will we be able to live up to our past personal accomplishments with our one day at MK? Will we make it until dark at the park? And is there any hope of passing along touring expertise to our children?


Of all of my husband’s admirable traits (there are many), his ability to maximize fast passes may be my favorite! His belief that you should not let a minute expire once your new FP window is open, and being able to plan so that we are in the right place at the right time, are great qualities.

As card carrying commandos, we of course discussed our strategy in advance. Peter Pan is usually our first stop when we are doing EMH. Peter Pan- you have to either hit this early, or get a Fast Pass, or both. Do not wait in the stand-by line here!!! The line is hot. The line is boring. The wait time board LIES!!!

Unfortunately, in the past, we have been screwed getting a FP here- we always end up with the maximum 2 hour window when we pull one, shutting us out from further gathering.

But still, the strategy we discussed for this morning was for Mark to pull FP for Peter Pan, the boys and I would walk over to Big Thunder, and meet Mark there, to ride.

When Mark arrived with FP in hand, he informed us that we could pull another FP in 40 minutes!!! Score! He also had a bonus FP for Mickey’s Philharmagic.


We had asked Ben a couple of weeks before our trip, hypothetically, IF we were going to Disney World, what would he like to do most. He said our question was cruel (since we were not going), but he answered anyway- BTM. This is a family favorite. So much fun!

BTM was a walk-on.

Then we travelled next door to Splash- also a walk-on.

When the ride was over, it was almost time to pull another FP- maybe a minute or so to go. So we waited at the machine and pulled a FP for Splash when it was time.

Big Thunder Mountain was still a walk-on, so we rode that again.

Our rollercoaster junkie was getting antsy to ride Space Mountain, so we started to make our way to Tomorrowland.

Along the way, we stopped off at Haunted Mansion. They have new, interactive monuments, activities, etc. in the queue line. I think. We didn’t have time to explore, because we were let right into the stretching room, but here is one of the new pieces.

Here’s a picture of how the Fantasyland construction is coming along- I think this is Belle’s castle?

By the time we made it to Space Mountain, it was time to pull another FP, so we got one to ride Space again. Up to this point, the FPs window time was around 40 minutes. Next one would be available at 11:45, right around lunchtime.

The stand-by line for Space Mountain was probably 15-20 minutes.

The interactive games in line were operating, so the boys tried one of them

After Space Mountain, we rode Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin. I don’t know what Ben hit, but his score was pretty decent!

At this point, I will spend a little time explaining that Universal and Disney have finally started to take steps to eliminate “Red Neck Ride Photos”. This is when you are viewing your picture taken by the theme park staff while on a ride, and you snap a picture of the picture instead of paying the ridiculous $12 or $15 or whatever it is to take home this souvenir. I will admit that I always feel guilty when I try to sneak a picture of one of these, but I do it anyway. I noticed at Universal that they are running words across the pictures- “You can view and purchase this photos at blah,blah,blah" I thought this was pretty smart of them, and wondered why Disney hadn’t joined the bandwagon. Well, it seems they have. They don’t have the words quite as quickly or frequently as the ones at Universal, but it certainly makes it harder to get a decent photo.


We were right by another family favorite, the Peoplemover- I love that there is never a wait for this peaceful tour of Tomorrowland. I love the views you get on this ride and the corny narration/soundtrack. Apparently others do too, because there was a furor when some of the script was changed (paging Mr. Morrow, Mr. Tom Morrow) and the original dialogue was restored.

When we were finished with that, Nate decided he wanted to stash his hat at the locker, so he and Mark went to do that, and we made plans to meet back at Pirates of the Caribbean.

On our way to Adventure land, I snapped a couple of pictures of the castle:

When Mark and Nate returned, Mark told me “You can’t go to the front of the park!” “Why not?” Apparently, there were a lot of people coming into the park who needed some serious touring/park assistance, and Mark was afraid that if I went there, I would be trying to give (unsolicited but sorely needed) advice. “You can’t help them”, he said sadly.

The line for Pirates looked pretty long, so we decided to not to ride at this time, and instead head for lunch at Columbia Harbor House.

Next up: I got a pocket, got a pocket full of FP!

 

[Brownie54]

Still enjoying your trip report. The Columbia Harbor was an excellent choice for lunch. Hope you enjoyed it.

 

[AnjieNet]

Is Mickey's Philharmagic one of those shows you can always get a FP with even when you already have one that the time isn't up on? I've heard that Mickey's M&G is like that. I'm always one to try to maximize my fastpasses as well but hadn't heard of that work-around. Love your pictures of the castle.

I always take a lot of them myself and it amazes me every time I look at them how utterly breathtaking and magical it can be. Haven't been to Columbia House. May have to put that on my "to do" list for next trip!

 

[Rags]

 

[natebenma]

Still enjoying your trip report. The Columbia Harbor was an excellent choice for lunch. Hope you enjoyed it.

Thank you! You will get to read all about our meal at CHH in a couple of days. With pictures, of course! This was kind of a do-over. I made a mistake when I ordered last year, but I corrected myself this time around.

Is Mickey's Philharmagic one of those shows you can always get a FP with even when you already have one that the time isn't up on? I've heard that Mickey's M&G is like that. I'm always one to try to maximize my fastpasses as well but hadn't heard of that work-around. Love your pictures of the castle.

I always take a lot of them myself and it amazes me every time I look at them how utterly breathtaking and magical it can be. Haven't been to Columbia House. May have to put that on my "to do" list for next trip!

Yes, I think you often get a Philharmagic FP when you FP Peter Pan or Winnie the Pooh. I don't even know if there is a FP machine dedicated to this show, I think the extras just spit out. Some attractions will also give you a bonus FP for Carousel of Progress. I don't think you actually need the FP for these attractions, but I believe Disney is trying to remind you about these and drum up some interest by giving you a FP.

The castle is just so beautiful from so many angles!

Columbia Harbor House is definitely a hidden jewel- especially the upstairs seating. It doesn't get very crowded and feels almost like a TS atmosphere. But more about that in the next post.

Thank you so much!!!

 

[Seeker615]

Hi - Being I have not been to the Magic Kingdom in years where do you suggest we start when we arrive? It will be myself and my 24 year old daughter.

Do we head to one certain location and work our way through?