we're home :( live updates started page 2, summary on page 7

[karentan]

the seaworld one includes lunch at dine with shamu, i just couldnt believe how quiet the park was on sunday. i presumed that being a sunday it might be a bit busier because the locals may be out, but it was dead. we walked through wild arctic and didnt see anyone. there was one staff member in there, but no guests at all.
with the tour i got to skip the queues on the rides by either going in the staff entrances or up the exits. when we got to manta, there was only about 6 people on the loading platform.
the 11.30 dine with shamu slot had about 20 people in it. it was so quiet in the park.

MK on saturday night was quite busy, but we got there just as spectro was finishing and wishes was due to start within about half an hour. main street was heaving, but i'm sure the rest of the park wasnt as busy. we went on stitch's great escape (at garys request), then went back to the hotel as we were shattered at that point.

epcot yesterday was quiet too. the restaurants round WS were busy, due to the free dining i guess, but the usual hoards of crowds that are normally there for illuminations just werent there. it was cool walking back round a deserted WS after dinner though.

weather has been quite good too, very warm and humid but not too much rain. it chucked it down just as we were leaving seaworld on sunday, and we got caught in that before we got to the car, but its been good apart from that.

dropped the hire car (PT cruiser!!) back this morning, and off to MK later, with MNSSHP later!! i'm dosing myself up with cold and flu stuff at the mo, and hoping that this cold goes soon

 

[wayneg]

the seaworld one includes lunch at dine with shamu,

It included a really nice buffet at side of the whales when we did it, is it the same? all you can eat Seaworld carrot cake

 

[karentan]

yeah its the one next to the killer whale tanks, its still all you can eat and drink, includes beer, so gary was happy!!
we thought it was great value for money, even better that we were the only people on the tour, so we blasted through the whole park. amanda our tour guide was amazing too, ended up giving her a big tip and went and filled in one of the comment forms at guest services, i know at disney that they go on their employment records, i'm guessing its the same at seaworld?

 

[gemmybear83]

Your trip is sounding fantastic I am looking forward to reading more updates

 

[hunty]

Sounds cool, we are in the Grandstand we arrived Saturday as well so hello, and I agree its really quiet, but did the behind the scenes tour yesterday at Disney and there were 32 of us! wasnt what I expected

Just finished a round of golf at LBV and only took 3 hours 20 minutes just the 2 of us nobody else infornt or behind, just how golf should be. Now lets see what Epct is like

 

[sandshal]

the seaworld one includes lunch at dine with shamu, i just couldnt believe how quiet the park was on sunday. i presumed that being a sunday it might be a bit busier because the locals may be out, but it was dead. we walked through wild arctic and didnt see anyone. there was one staff member in there, but no guests at all.
with the tour i got to skip the queues on the rides by either going in the staff entrances or up the exits. when we got to manta, there was only about 6 people on the loading platform.
the 11.30 dine with shamu slot had about 20 people in it. it was so quiet in the park.

MK on saturday night was quite busy, but we got there just as spectro was finishing and wishes was due to start within about half an hour. main street was heaving, but i'm sure the rest of the park wasnt as busy. we went on stitch's great escape (at garys request), then went back to the hotel as we were shattered at that point.

epcot yesterday was quiet too. the restaurants round WS were busy, due to the free dining i guess, but the usual hoards of crowds that are normally there for illuminations just werent there. it was cool walking back round a deserted WS after dinner though.

weather has been quite good too, very warm and humid but not too much rain. it chucked it down just as we were leaving seaworld on sunday, and we got caught in that before we got to the car, but its been good apart from that.

dropped the hire car (PT cruiser!!) back this morning, and off to MK later, with MNSSHP later!! i'm dosing myself up with cold and flu stuff at the mo, and hoping that this cold goes soon

Hi Karen ... was the polar bear awake? I've only ever caught him swimming once and it was a real treat .... the last 3 visits he's been sleeping!!!!

I've always worried he's lonely but apparently they have 3 polar bears and rotate their time on view in separation.

Sharon xx

 

[karentan]

nah he was asleep!!

MK was so quiet today, we got the bus in and got to the park about 11.30. splash mountain was closed when we got to that part of the park due to a technical problem, but was back up working within about half an hour. within the first hour and a bit we'd had a look through a load of the shops (i was looking for a cool pair of ears i like, but didnt find any), went on splash mountain once, and BTMRR 3 times. even managed to get gary to ride BTMRR, he doesnt like coasters at all, so was really surprised that hee went on it, and he even enjoyed it!! (plan on trying to get him on tower of terror next!!)the waits for all the rides were non existant, we did pretty much all the rides today, and most of them were max of 5 minutes standby. the longest queue i saw all day was 25 mins for snow white, but that had come down to 5-10 mins later too.
had dinner in the castle, not as great as last year, but still not too bad. MNSSHP was great, we managed to fill our trick or treat bags up to the top, between us we've probably got about 4lbs of candy!! the fireworks were great as always, and loved the parade!

going to have a lie in tomorrow, and then AK for the day and EMH, then off to the wilderness lodge for dinner at whispering canyon cafe!

hunty, how busy is it over in the grandstand? we've been here since saturday, and today is the first day we've seen anyone in our whole building!!

 

[Pegasus928]

Pleased to hear that you enjoyed MNSSHP - we are really looking forward to our night there.
We have Whispering Canyon booked as well - though they had toned down the interaction between the guests and servers due to complaints when we were last there so I would be interested to hear about your experience.
Hope you have a good day

 

[jayduk]

Where is the gun range you speak of??...Is there a website for this? Sounds like an experience!

 

[T16GEM]

Looks like you are having a fantastic time Karen!

Honestly I don't know how you all manage to get into MK after your flight! We are always too tired to even think about going to a park!

I saw on Facebook that you had got lots of sweeties from the Halloween Party!

Looking forward to hearing more!

 

[wideeyes]

hi everyone from orlando!!
we got here saturday after a very long day travelling, delta flights were very good, our plane didnt have the seatback tvs but we kinda knew about this beforehand so we took laptops and mp3 players. the international leg of our flight got in an hour early, at one point we had a 121mph tail wind!! the 4 and 3/4 hour stopover in atlanta turned into a 6 hour one..... we would fly indirect again, but would make the point of getting a shorter stopover.
ME was excellent, our bus left about 1 minute after we got on it, i think we got lucky with our timing, we stopped at OKW first, then SSR. we checked in at SSR, and immediately were sooo glad we cancelled ASMu and rented DVC points (thanks claire!!).

Hi, glad you checked in okay and everything went okay with ME, hope you enjoy the rest of your stay.

 

[wayneg]

Honestly I don't know how you all manage to get into MK after your flight! We are always too tired to even think about going to a park!

If we fly indirect we can't manage it but if we go direct and get there mid afternoon its plenty of time to drop bags at hotel, quick shower and out to MK, Did it last Xmas day, even DMIL in her 70's.

 

[hunty]

Hi Karen, the Grandstand is empty, we havent seen anyone in our block other than a huge (and I mean huge) Moth

Maybe they all leave before us and arrive after us at night, there are 5 cars in the car park outside our block so there must be others here. The pool also had 5 people sun bathing yesterday.
We went to Epcot yesterday and the wait time for Soarin and fasttrack was 45 minutes each, but everything else was walk on.

 

[karentan]

jay, the gun range we went to was reigs gun shop and shooting range, 5512 south orange blossom trail, orlando, 32839, its about 5 mins from the florida mall.
i found it by googling it last year, and went back this year because gary liked it so much (he went to military school so grew up with guns). they have changed the rules this year so you have to go into the range in 2s. the second person doesnt have to shoot but both people have to be in there.

 

[karentan]

there's about a half dozen cars outside our block too, but only seen 2 other rooms in the whole building that look like they've got people in them. we were taking the bus back from MNSSHP last night and the majority of the bus got off at grandstand stop, so i'm guessing thats one of the busier areas of the resort right now.

off to AK today, EMH tonight, then whispering canyon cafe tonight. i hope they havent taken all the fun out as thats the reason i booked it.

 

[jayduk]

jay, the gun range we went to was reigs gun shop and shooting range, 5512 south orange blossom trail, orlando, 32839, its about 5 mins from the florida mall.
i found it by googling it last year, and went back this year because gary liked it so much (he went to military school so grew up with guns). they have changed the rules this year so you have to go into the range in 2s. the second person doesnt have to shoot but both people have to be in there.

Cool thanks, enjoy AK!!

 

[karentan]

when we were going round magic kingdom during MNSSHP getting all the candy we noticed that a lot of the stations were giving out boxes of raisins (i guess to try and give the kids something healthy?).
well we've just counted them and between me and gary we've got 25 boxes of raisins!! mmmm, NOT!!

 

[wayneg]

well we've just counted them and between me and gary we've got 25 boxes of raisins!! mmmm, NOT!!

We like the raisens but dump any Hersheys choc.

 

[Mrs Doubtfire]

Enjoyng your reports so far - Sea World tour sounds great - glad you enjoyed your birthday present

 

[jockey]

Really enjoying your reports, will look forward to hear what you think of WCC, we ate there in may they food was OK but great atmosphere! We are staying at WL next trip and will eat at WCC again, the kids love it