LisaG
12-02-2003, 02:18 PM
Cast:
Lisa (36) – air quality tech
DH, Darrell (38 ) – archaeologist
Departure Day 10/30/03 –
We wake up to smoke all through town from the forest fires for the 2nd day. Most of the schools are closed, even trick-or-treating is being cancelled. Highways have been closing from time to time due to poor visibility so we decide we need to leave early, just in case.
We both worked until we couldn’t take it anymore, around 2:30pm. Head home to finish cleaning before our ride arrives. (Don’t you love coming home to a clean house from vacation…) Our friend, Katie, arrives at 5pm for our drive to Ontario, CA airport. The ride down is uneventful and we arrive by 6:30pm. Our flight is not until 9:51pm so we prowl the airport looking for something to do.
We actually find a tv and hope that they will show Survivor, but it is not to be, Friends is on. (By now I have already talked to family and friends back East and have a blow-by-blow description of Survivor – the night the voted out returned!)
Flight takes off on time and we are able to see the old fire and the grand prix fire from above. Very eerie. Land in Vegas on time and hang out for 2 hours. Next flight takes off and when I wake up we are landing at MCO – 7:34AM Friday!
Day One 10/31/03 EPCOT and MNSSHP–
Go to Avis counter and pick-up rental car (why do they ask if a cavalier is good then give you a sunfire, why not just ask if a sunfire is ok?). Load the luggage and off to AKL!
We arrive at the AKL at 9am and check-in with bell services they take our luggage. While Darrell parks the car I go check into the hotel. Our room is ready and we’ve been upgraded from standard to pool view. So off to the room to await bell services bring our luggage.
Our initial plan was to go to bed for a few hours then go over to MK early for the Halloween party. But of course now that we are here can’t wait to get to a park. So we shower and head off to EPCOT. We arrive at EPCOT at 10:40am. After activating our AP’s we head for Spaceship Earth. I really hope they don’t change this as we love this ride!
Off to Mexico for lunch next, ummm nacho’s….. We decide to walk around the World Showcase after a quick trip on the Mexico boat ride. Next up Norway, walked right onto the boat ride there as well. As we approach France I feel the chocolate croissants calling to me so Darrell gets a seat outside while get in line. As I’m approaching the table I hear him telling friends on the cell phone we are at a bagel shop! As if….
OK now we are thinking maybe World Showcase was way more walking then our tired bodies could handle so we start top head back to the buses. One quick stop for Journey into Imagination – had not been on this since they changed it. Luckily it was a walk-on cause I can’t say either of us really enjoyed it.
Back to AKL for naps at 2pm.
At 5pm, we are up and putting on our costumes. If you saw us we were the ones wearing the pumpkin t-shirts from Target. LOL (probably 1/3 of everyone at the parks was wearing them!). We arrive at the MK and receive our trick-or-treat bags and head for tomorrowland. The party started at 7pm so they were directing everyone already there for it to tomorrwland as the rest of the park emptied. We got fast passes for Buzz then headed for TTA (or Wedway as I still like to call it). Walk onto Space Mountain then back to Buzz. Where I thoroughly defeated Darrell. The only time this trip – he is definitelt getting better at this.
This party was sold-out and there were definitely a lot of people in the park but they weren’t on the rides. We walked on almost everything. The lines for pictures were really long everywhere except the Hall of Presidents. We walked right in and they actually sent us 2 copies this time (2 years ago we only got 1). Oh and we trick-or-treated throughout the park and collected about 4-5 lbs. of candy! By the end of the night when we hit Toon town which was way too crowded earlier they were dropping handfuls in everyones bags. And the trick-or-treaters were more adults than kids by then too!
The only special things we did were the Riverboat with scary storytelling and saw the headless horseman leading the parade. By 11:30 fantasyland had emptied out enough that we were able to walk on Winnie the Pooh and only waited 5 minutes for Peter Pan.
We arrived back at AKL at 1am.
Day 2 11/01/03 MGM and AK–
Even with a late night we still made it to MGM for EE. Onto RnRC 3 times then breakfast at the ABC commissary. After breakfast we did the Great Movie Ride – cowboy version. Then the backlot tour which is really lacking with residential street missing. Went and played WWTBAMPI, both of us made the top 10 at least once but no hot seat this trip. Next we toured Haunted Mansion sets which was ok, interesting but wouldn’t do it again. We lucked into walking into Indy just before the show started and seats weren’t too bad. Star Tours was our last stop in MGM.
Next onto AK for lunch. We went to Flame Tree BBQ where we tried the meal plus deal – great savings, and the food was great! We were actually able to walk onto Dinosaur. Then we strolled through the stores on our way to the Safari. Another walk-on. After grabbing and ice cream and popcorn with the last of our coupons we headed back to AKL for a dip in the hot tub.
OK here is my opinion of AKL, and while I know I’m in the minority I’m going to voice it anyway. I don’t think I would stay here again. Yes the hotel is beautiful and the animals are nice but it was usually dark when we got back to the hotel or we were sleeping. The CM’s weren’t as helpful or even as friendly as we have had at the Moderates. When we went to the pool and hot tubs there were towels laying everywhere and both hot tubs were full of children even a couple in diapers (and I’m not talking swimees) in the one so we went to the one with children not in diapers. After a couple of more adults arrived the children were collected from the hot tubs by their parents who weren’t around earlier. After the hot tub we went to the food court. Again not impressed by the selection and had a 20 minute wait for a cheese pizza at 7pm on Saturday. And the place was not busy, maybe they had a lot of room service orders but it seemed to take forever. I really like the Pepper Market at CS for this reason as they cook right in front of you so service is fast. OK enough ranting about the hotel. Not bad just not worth the price difference in my opinion.
After dinner we went and experimented with the Night Vision goggles they had available. Then went exploring for hidden mickeys. Make sure you ask at guest services for this list (not the bell desk as they will just tell you to go stand in the check-in line…).
Lisa (36) – air quality tech
DH, Darrell (38 ) – archaeologist
Departure Day 10/30/03 –
We wake up to smoke all through town from the forest fires for the 2nd day. Most of the schools are closed, even trick-or-treating is being cancelled. Highways have been closing from time to time due to poor visibility so we decide we need to leave early, just in case.
We both worked until we couldn’t take it anymore, around 2:30pm. Head home to finish cleaning before our ride arrives. (Don’t you love coming home to a clean house from vacation…) Our friend, Katie, arrives at 5pm for our drive to Ontario, CA airport. The ride down is uneventful and we arrive by 6:30pm. Our flight is not until 9:51pm so we prowl the airport looking for something to do.
We actually find a tv and hope that they will show Survivor, but it is not to be, Friends is on. (By now I have already talked to family and friends back East and have a blow-by-blow description of Survivor – the night the voted out returned!)
Flight takes off on time and we are able to see the old fire and the grand prix fire from above. Very eerie. Land in Vegas on time and hang out for 2 hours. Next flight takes off and when I wake up we are landing at MCO – 7:34AM Friday!
Day One 10/31/03 EPCOT and MNSSHP–
Go to Avis counter and pick-up rental car (why do they ask if a cavalier is good then give you a sunfire, why not just ask if a sunfire is ok?). Load the luggage and off to AKL!
We arrive at the AKL at 9am and check-in with bell services they take our luggage. While Darrell parks the car I go check into the hotel. Our room is ready and we’ve been upgraded from standard to pool view. So off to the room to await bell services bring our luggage.
Our initial plan was to go to bed for a few hours then go over to MK early for the Halloween party. But of course now that we are here can’t wait to get to a park. So we shower and head off to EPCOT. We arrive at EPCOT at 10:40am. After activating our AP’s we head for Spaceship Earth. I really hope they don’t change this as we love this ride!
Off to Mexico for lunch next, ummm nacho’s….. We decide to walk around the World Showcase after a quick trip on the Mexico boat ride. Next up Norway, walked right onto the boat ride there as well. As we approach France I feel the chocolate croissants calling to me so Darrell gets a seat outside while get in line. As I’m approaching the table I hear him telling friends on the cell phone we are at a bagel shop! As if….
OK now we are thinking maybe World Showcase was way more walking then our tired bodies could handle so we start top head back to the buses. One quick stop for Journey into Imagination – had not been on this since they changed it. Luckily it was a walk-on cause I can’t say either of us really enjoyed it.
Back to AKL for naps at 2pm.
At 5pm, we are up and putting on our costumes. If you saw us we were the ones wearing the pumpkin t-shirts from Target. LOL (probably 1/3 of everyone at the parks was wearing them!). We arrive at the MK and receive our trick-or-treat bags and head for tomorrowland. The party started at 7pm so they were directing everyone already there for it to tomorrwland as the rest of the park emptied. We got fast passes for Buzz then headed for TTA (or Wedway as I still like to call it). Walk onto Space Mountain then back to Buzz. Where I thoroughly defeated Darrell. The only time this trip – he is definitelt getting better at this.
This party was sold-out and there were definitely a lot of people in the park but they weren’t on the rides. We walked on almost everything. The lines for pictures were really long everywhere except the Hall of Presidents. We walked right in and they actually sent us 2 copies this time (2 years ago we only got 1). Oh and we trick-or-treated throughout the park and collected about 4-5 lbs. of candy! By the end of the night when we hit Toon town which was way too crowded earlier they were dropping handfuls in everyones bags. And the trick-or-treaters were more adults than kids by then too!
The only special things we did were the Riverboat with scary storytelling and saw the headless horseman leading the parade. By 11:30 fantasyland had emptied out enough that we were able to walk on Winnie the Pooh and only waited 5 minutes for Peter Pan.
We arrived back at AKL at 1am.
Day 2 11/01/03 MGM and AK–
Even with a late night we still made it to MGM for EE. Onto RnRC 3 times then breakfast at the ABC commissary. After breakfast we did the Great Movie Ride – cowboy version. Then the backlot tour which is really lacking with residential street missing. Went and played WWTBAMPI, both of us made the top 10 at least once but no hot seat this trip. Next we toured Haunted Mansion sets which was ok, interesting but wouldn’t do it again. We lucked into walking into Indy just before the show started and seats weren’t too bad. Star Tours was our last stop in MGM.
Next onto AK for lunch. We went to Flame Tree BBQ where we tried the meal plus deal – great savings, and the food was great! We were actually able to walk onto Dinosaur. Then we strolled through the stores on our way to the Safari. Another walk-on. After grabbing and ice cream and popcorn with the last of our coupons we headed back to AKL for a dip in the hot tub.
OK here is my opinion of AKL, and while I know I’m in the minority I’m going to voice it anyway. I don’t think I would stay here again. Yes the hotel is beautiful and the animals are nice but it was usually dark when we got back to the hotel or we were sleeping. The CM’s weren’t as helpful or even as friendly as we have had at the Moderates. When we went to the pool and hot tubs there were towels laying everywhere and both hot tubs were full of children even a couple in diapers (and I’m not talking swimees) in the one so we went to the one with children not in diapers. After a couple of more adults arrived the children were collected from the hot tubs by their parents who weren’t around earlier. After the hot tub we went to the food court. Again not impressed by the selection and had a 20 minute wait for a cheese pizza at 7pm on Saturday. And the place was not busy, maybe they had a lot of room service orders but it seemed to take forever. I really like the Pepper Market at CS for this reason as they cook right in front of you so service is fast. OK enough ranting about the hotel. Not bad just not worth the price difference in my opinion.
After dinner we went and experimented with the Night Vision goggles they had available. Then went exploring for hidden mickeys. Make sure you ask at guest services for this list (not the bell desk as they will just tell you to go stand in the check-in line…).