SuzyQ
09-17-2003, 07:18 PM
End of Summer Bash Part 1
August 30th – September 7th
Wyndham Palace & Spa (August 30 – September 2)
Animal Kingdom Lodge (September 2 – 7)
:girlears: Myself: 32, Disney-a-holic
:boyears: DH: 30, Loves Disney – keeps me balanced
Day 1
Saturday, August 30
We took the red-eye flight out of Seattle on Friday night and arrived in Orlando at about 10:30am. Yeah! :clap: We were in sunny Orlando – the weather was warm, warm, warm (about 90+ and humid). We loved it, though. Had no problem getting our car from Alamo. We originally ordered a compact with our Costco discount for 2-days totaling $74. Now that wouldn’t normally sound like a great deal, but since it was Labor Day weekend, this was one of the best deals that we could find. I then called and added our Entertainment coupon for a free upgrade and ended up getting an Intermediate for $72! (Every two bucks count!)
Now that we have our car, we are off to Walt Disney World!! We stopped off at Goodings to grab some water and some fun drinks. Ended up with the Kahlua Mudslide 4-pak (cute little 10oz bottles of yummy drinks = $8). Again, this way we can have a fun treat, but not spend $7 a drink at the restaurants. We arrived at the Wyndham Palace at about 1pm and it was PACKED. There was some sort of convention going on and there was a line out the door to check in – I mean literally out the door. So, we figured that we would run over to Typhoon Lagoon for some fun and R&R and then come back to check in.
We grabbed our swim suits out of the trunk and headed off to the lagoon with our IDs (we will splurge once in a while for a fun cocktail) and some cash (I put it all in a cip lock baggie). We had left over PHP passes from our honeymoon that still had one more waterpark day left. We got in and changed and here came my first big mistake. DH wanted to leave everything in the locker and come back for IDs and $$ when we wanted to use them. I wanted to carry them with us so that we didn’t have to come back. So, we put them in DH’s Velcro pocket on his swim trunks.
We started off on the lazy river (love that). We just sat back and enjoyed the cool water and the warm sun. Now THIS is a vacation! 8) After a couple of rotations, we went over to the wave pool and then off to the Shark Reef. DH had never done the Shark Reef and it was great. The water is SO cold when you first get in and it can be a bit hard to breath at first (at least for me because I am not a great swimmer, so it takes me a moment just to catch my breath and breath regularly with the snorkel). We floated for quite a while enjoying the manta rays and the little sharks and fish. Afterwards, DH checked his pockets and sure enough – we still had our ziplock. Great! Let’s a couple of slides and then take a break. We rode a few of the solo slides (fun!) and went to the other side of the park to do the family raft ride. It was after that when we decided that we wanted to go grab that “It’s our first day of vacation” celebration drink, when Lo and Behold – No Ziplock! :oops:
What a bummer! We retraced our steps and asked all the CMs if anything had turned up. There was one CM who even had them turn the slides off for a few minutes so that another CM could dive in and look for our baggie (we were grateful that they went to all that trouble, but felt so bad that it stopped up the line a bit). No ziplocks there. :(
Then the thought struck me “How do we get back on the airline without our photo ID?”. :shock: Thank goodness it is our first day of vacation. We didn’t panic and just enjoyed a couple more turns around the lazy river and then headed out to our hotel to check.
Now, with no line, we were able to check in. I waited quite a while before an agent came out to help me. Let’s just say that her demeanor had a little to be desired. But once and a while you can come across CMs who are having a bad day, so I didn’t think a whole lot about it. She checked me and told me that we had received a great room on the 24th floor! Yeah!. We grabbed our bags and headed up to our room. Well, it was clean and we did have a view . . . of the conference rooms and generators! Every time we opened the glass door all we heard was this deep, loud humming. Not to say that we didn’t have a view; you would see the Epcot fireworks in the evening and part of the MGM.
Ok, so now time to relax. We found a card on our bed that ever-so-nicely states why they charge an $8/night “resort” fee on top of your rooms charge. I realized that there would be this fee since I know that the Swan/Dolphin also charge this. But, the Wyndham gave us a list of all the things that we are getting for the $8/night. We found this list to be quite a joke for the following reasons:
**Mmmmh, oooh! a terry robe! Ok . . . no robe in the room. Call guest services - their reply, we only give out the robes per availability - there are no robes available.
**Ok, no robes, but that complimentary glass of champagne each evening sounds lovely . . . . "Oh, we discontinued that a few months ago"
They also mentioned their exquisite brand of toiletries. They gave us shampoo and a bar of soap. That was it. I had to call housekeeping to get some lotion and what not.
**Complimentary service to the parks - at that time, beginning at 9:30 - what? a half hour AFTER park opening? So, the list isn't all that great.
Oh yeah, and did I mention that if you put anything in the bar refrigerator that is personal (your own beverage/cheese), you will be charged $10/day)?
Note: our overall experience at the hotel was poor (all the staff was either grumpy or acting unprofessional (talking about “getting wasted on Tequila” and their paychecks, biting on nails for extended periods of time – ugh! These are all the reasons that we have vowed now to only stay at a Disney resort from now on. Even when you get a grumpy cast member from time-to-time, the overall experience is one of professionalism and Disney Magic (more on that later).
OK, enough about the hotel. Like I said, we paid only $60/night on Priceline and felt that it was worth $60, but no more than that (and for sure we wouldn’t pay $125 – the special they were running). We would definitely choose to stay at the ALL Stars next time we are on a strict budget.
We decided to head over to the Poly to see if any of my old buddies were working and to grab a drink before heading on to MK. Upon arriving at the guard booth, we were told that under no circumstances could we park at the Poly without having a form of official picture ID (license, Passport). Bummer. So we scraped our Poly idea and headed to MK parking and took a tram to the TTC. We got there at about 8pm and there were a ton of people heading into the park! We were amazed that so many people were showing up so late. In our more than full tram (always a fun ride) we grabbed a monorail and headed to the MK – yeah! Finally at the PARK!!
Once in, SpectroMagic was about to begin. We were starving so we decided to grab dinner at Tony’s. The food there was great, the service was very friendly, and we were able to see the parade as it went by. What a perfect first night at Disney.
DH ordered steak and a iced tea and I ordered a salad and the smoothie with the Lady and Tramp souvenir mug. They served break with marinara which aided in filling us up. Our total bill (incl tip) was about $42.
Afterwards, we headed to Adventure Land to ride PoC. No wait there. :D We love this ride because that is when it finally sinks in that we are at Disney! We noticed that the waits in Fantasy Land were still pretty long (40 min and no more FP). We just strolled around and took it easy. Taking in the fireworks and all the people. We also stopped by the watch shop on Main Street to grab me a “wedding” ring. Del picked out a ring that was silver with stones all around it and a little Mickey head ever 5th stone or so (looks like and anniversary band). It came to $22 and was perfect (not the real thing, but it would do since I was missing my own).
Finally feeling tired from our travels, we headed to the hotel and off to bed.
Day 2
Sunday August 31
Slept in until 10:15!! (That is REALLY late for us, but we are on the East Coast). We grabbed the hotel bus to Epcot and made the rounds to pick up everyone else.
FYI: The Downtown Disney hotels share the same busses to the parks. They begin at the Wyndham and then head counter clockwise from the Hilton to the Grosvenor. It does take about 45 minutes or so the grab everyone and get to the park.
The line for SSE was looking pretty long, so we headed straight over to Electric Umbrella. We shared the double cheeseburger plate ($5.99) and an ice tea ($1.99). They have a fixin’s bar, but no grilled mushrooms and onions. :(
We watched the Jaminators for a bit and then headed over to Ellens Energy Adventure and then off to World Showcase (our favorite). We did Mexico first and it was crowded. There was a live band inside playing by RDT. They were good, but we decided to take our little boat ride and scooted over to RDT. Afterwards, we walked out and were being entertained by the CMs who work at the “market place”. They were doing some Mexican dancing and it was so fun to watch. That was until the fight broke out.
OK, so there were no fists, but it was pretty shocking to see – I mean we are at Disney! Apparently, something happened between this woman who was with her husband and this gentleman who was with his friend. Not knowing what started it, all we saw was her running up to him and pushing him and then they argued until security came. The ladies husband had to literally hold her back as she kept wanting to fight the man. Very odd.
We just strolled around the various countries from Mexico to Italy, just taking in all the beauty and effort that is put into making each area seem authentic. We also grabbed some very tasty danishes at Norway for breakfast tomorrow. We needed to get back to our hotel by 5 to meet up with my best friend from high school and her husband. We grabbed a bus to DD from the Beach Club and met up with our friends. We all headed over to the Orlando Ale House for my favorite meal at Disney . . . Zingers!
History: I used to work at the Poly and often times we would go over to the OAH to grab the zingers: chicken breast pieces fried and covered with hot wing sauce that gets as hot as “Mount Saint Helens”. They are gooood! Also, if you like draft beers, they serve a lot of microbeers on tap.
We had a great (and affordable) dinner and then headed over to DD. It drizzled a bit while we were eating, but not much. (Overall, we were surprised that we really didn’t get much rain throughout our stay.) We shopped around a bit (the guys love playing with the Tinker Toys at World of Toys) and then grabbed a Carmel Apple Sunday at Ghirardeli’s. It was tasty, but I think that we will stick the ol’ fashioned hot fudge Sunday next time (yum!).
After reaching the point of comfortably full, we headed back to our hotel room and watched the Epcot fireworks and relaxed a bit. We also needed to fill out a Police Report for our missing IDs. The Orange County Sheriff’s department was terrific. They offered to send an officer down when we got back (no matter how late) and fill one out for us. It is so weird to get a call from the Front Desk “Um, can you come down to the lobby? There is a sheriff here to see you.” We got a kick out of it because it felt like we were criminals the way people were staring at us. The sheriff was great and we done fairly quickly.
We then had some pool time. The main pool was overly full due to the conference staying there, so we took in some swim time at the quiet pool. It was refreshing and nice. There is no real theme at this resort, but the grounds are well-kept and nice looking. After our midnight (by this time) swim, we headed to bed. :sleep:
Day Three
Monday, September 1
Slept in (yes, again – but we are waiting to do our early rise-and-shines for when we are in a resort hotel). Had danish and coffee in our room and headed out to return our car and grab a bus to MK.
By the time we got to MK, it was almost 11:30 and we were expecting Labor Day crowds. There were no people! :shock: I mean, sure there were a few people out and about Main Street and Fantasy Land, but we basically got to walk on or wait 5 minutes for all of the rides.
Some of the highlights were riding Buzz 3 times in a row (husband was a Cosmic Commander, me: just a Space Ace), Dole Whip Float (delicious!) Splash Mountain and Space Mountain. We went to check Goofy’s Jamboree and, though it was humorous and seemed great for kids, we will probably skip it until we have children. We didn’t notice it being so crowded and disorganized (as I have read) – the characters did a lot of entertaining on the stage and once in a while would come down to “teach” a dance. We headed out, though before the very end.
We just missed being able to get DH a haircut at the Barber, so we strolled around Main Street for a bit and then stayed to watch the Flag Retreat. After one more train ride, we took the monorail to Epcot, meandered around (again, we are taking things pretty easy this trip) and headed to DD to get back to our hotel. We were too bushed to swim, so we packed up and fell asleep excited about checking into AKL the next day!
Day Four
Tuesday, September 2
OK, so we slept in again (until about 9am) and relaxed and read for a bit. We took a cab with our luggage to the Animal Kingdom Lodge to check in. Wow! It is such a beautiful hotel! As you drive up, you already feel like you’re in a different world (much less country). The lobby was breathtaking and check in was a snap with a very friendly CM who even upgraded us from Standard View (aka Parking Lot) to a Savannah! :fairymagic:
We were in room 4528 which is on the Zebra trail facing opposite of the main centralized savannah (right on the border between the smoking and non-smoking rooms. At first I thought (in the spoiled side of me) that the view wasn’t that great, but the bellman told us that it was one of the most popular areas due to all the animals that frequent that area. Sure enough, it didn’t take long before giraffes, bongos, ankole cattle and all sorts of beautiful birds were stopping by for a visit!
We unpacked and headed out to AK.
Note: Throughout our stay at AKL, we rode the bus numerous times a day and only once had to wait more than 5 minutes.
The weather was hot and humid (though enjoyable) and we headed straight for Kali River Rapids. I grabbed a pair of water socks for $14 from the kiosk outside the ride entrance (note: we also found watersocks at the Rainforest Café at AK for only $6.99). We got on the raft and wouldn’t ya know, we got totally soaked! You know you are the ones who will get drenched when you are heading down the main drop first. It was fun and we were already wet, so we rode not once more, but twice more! We had so much fun and we got the big one on our last round.
Now, totally drenched, we walked around the Maharajah trail. DH noticed that there is a sign regarding the “theme” of the trail. I don’t want to give away too much detail, but be sure to read it. It tells the tale of an old hunting lodge and other neat things that capture your interest throughout the walk and adds some flavor to the whole experience.
We headed off to ITTBAB (still VERY wet) and then went over to DinoLand. Let me just say that there are just NO people here! ITTBAB was only about a quarter full and we only waited about 5 minutes or so for Dinosaur.
Note: Just about every time we go to ITTBAB there is always one set of parents who think that their kids can handle the show. To their dismay, their kids freak out. Actually at this particular show, we had parent who had a very sad and frightened child and they stayed the whole show! With the child screaming during the really scary scenes (Hopper, stink, bees, etc.).
Anyway, onto Dinosaur and it was nice and cool – not to mention that the ride is a ton of fun! The air was pretty humid today, so the air conditioning felt great.
We also rode Primevil Whirl. Now, we’ve done this ride before and remembered that it got a little spinny, but we didn’t remembered being jerked and tossed around so much as this time! I mean, all four of us (us and the couple we shared with) left the ride groaning from all the jerkiness. I would caution anyone with back or neck trauma about this one.
Finally, we decided to head back to the hotel to rest a bit and to change out of our still pretty damp clothes.
After a little R&R we headed off to MGM Studios. We got there at about 6ish and Fantasmic was at 8:30, so we just decided to grab some dinner and walk around a bit until Fantasmic. We went to Sci Fi Drive in for the first time and had a lot of fun! Now, I’ve gathered from the boards that the burgers and shakes are good here, but that the “regular” dinners were nothing to write home about. So, what do I order? Onion rings and a chocolate shake please! And let me tell you – they both were delicious! The onion rings were $6.99, but you got a ton of them and they were quite tasty. The shake was so good that DH ordered a strawberry shake. Not quite as yummy as the chocolate (more like fake strawberry taste), but good none-the-less. DH though, did not take my advice and ordered the pork medallions. The way he described them as “well, they aren’t so much bad as they just taste like the way food was made back in the 50’s – dry and flavorless.” So there ya have, yet another review to keep to what ya know – burgers. We did very much enjoy the atmosphere and had a lot of fun in the backseat . . . watching the movie clips of course! ;) We also had a great server and our experience was a really positive one as a whole. Out total bill for this dinner was about $43.
Afterwards, we planned on walking around a bit but were told by a CM that Fantasmic was filling up pretty quick, so we headed over there. At this point, the skies were getting a little bit iffy and we were wondering if there would be some rain in the near future. It was about an 50 minutes or so until showtime and we got a seat in the middle of the left section. Though there are spectacular seats to be had, I think that all of the seats are great seats here. I really well thought our design.
We had a great conversation with a family from Texas and were talking about the rain in Seattle when all of a sudden, there are a few sprinkles coming down. Then a few more and a few more. We hear the announcement that the show may be cancelled due to rain, but we will no more in a while. All of the consession people who were selling sparkly light-up toys were now selling ponchos at $6 a pop. My theory, Disney will not let you know that the show is cancelled until just before the show is to begin – think of how they bank on poncho sales alone! LOL Anyway, we did get quite a bit of rain and a couple more announcements, but 5 minutes before the show was to start, the rain let up! Yeah!
Fantasmic was terrific, as usual, and the crowds herding out at the end were the usual bottle-necked crowds, but not terrible. At least it had cooled off some from the rain. Luckily, there was a bus waiting for AKL when we got to the stop – double yeah!
Once we got back to the resort we took in some Jacuzzi time. Ah! Now that is relaxing! There was still some lightening in the air and a threat of it getting closer, so we (my DH relented as I was getting a little uneasy with the lightening) headed out after only a little while. We ended our evening with a glass of wine and a little bit of cheese and then it was off to bed.
Note: Instead of paying $10/night for a fridge, we just put our cool items in the second sink and then use one of the laundry bags (found in the closet) and fill it half way with ice and lay it on top. We do that once in the morning before we head out and once in the evening before bed. It works great and doesn’t take up much room. We kept a little think of milk, water and cheese in there and it all stayed nice and cold and dry.
August 30th – September 7th
Wyndham Palace & Spa (August 30 – September 2)
Animal Kingdom Lodge (September 2 – 7)
:girlears: Myself: 32, Disney-a-holic
:boyears: DH: 30, Loves Disney – keeps me balanced
Day 1
Saturday, August 30
We took the red-eye flight out of Seattle on Friday night and arrived in Orlando at about 10:30am. Yeah! :clap: We were in sunny Orlando – the weather was warm, warm, warm (about 90+ and humid). We loved it, though. Had no problem getting our car from Alamo. We originally ordered a compact with our Costco discount for 2-days totaling $74. Now that wouldn’t normally sound like a great deal, but since it was Labor Day weekend, this was one of the best deals that we could find. I then called and added our Entertainment coupon for a free upgrade and ended up getting an Intermediate for $72! (Every two bucks count!)
Now that we have our car, we are off to Walt Disney World!! We stopped off at Goodings to grab some water and some fun drinks. Ended up with the Kahlua Mudslide 4-pak (cute little 10oz bottles of yummy drinks = $8). Again, this way we can have a fun treat, but not spend $7 a drink at the restaurants. We arrived at the Wyndham Palace at about 1pm and it was PACKED. There was some sort of convention going on and there was a line out the door to check in – I mean literally out the door. So, we figured that we would run over to Typhoon Lagoon for some fun and R&R and then come back to check in.
We grabbed our swim suits out of the trunk and headed off to the lagoon with our IDs (we will splurge once in a while for a fun cocktail) and some cash (I put it all in a cip lock baggie). We had left over PHP passes from our honeymoon that still had one more waterpark day left. We got in and changed and here came my first big mistake. DH wanted to leave everything in the locker and come back for IDs and $$ when we wanted to use them. I wanted to carry them with us so that we didn’t have to come back. So, we put them in DH’s Velcro pocket on his swim trunks.
We started off on the lazy river (love that). We just sat back and enjoyed the cool water and the warm sun. Now THIS is a vacation! 8) After a couple of rotations, we went over to the wave pool and then off to the Shark Reef. DH had never done the Shark Reef and it was great. The water is SO cold when you first get in and it can be a bit hard to breath at first (at least for me because I am not a great swimmer, so it takes me a moment just to catch my breath and breath regularly with the snorkel). We floated for quite a while enjoying the manta rays and the little sharks and fish. Afterwards, DH checked his pockets and sure enough – we still had our ziplock. Great! Let’s a couple of slides and then take a break. We rode a few of the solo slides (fun!) and went to the other side of the park to do the family raft ride. It was after that when we decided that we wanted to go grab that “It’s our first day of vacation” celebration drink, when Lo and Behold – No Ziplock! :oops:
What a bummer! We retraced our steps and asked all the CMs if anything had turned up. There was one CM who even had them turn the slides off for a few minutes so that another CM could dive in and look for our baggie (we were grateful that they went to all that trouble, but felt so bad that it stopped up the line a bit). No ziplocks there. :(
Then the thought struck me “How do we get back on the airline without our photo ID?”. :shock: Thank goodness it is our first day of vacation. We didn’t panic and just enjoyed a couple more turns around the lazy river and then headed out to our hotel to check.
Now, with no line, we were able to check in. I waited quite a while before an agent came out to help me. Let’s just say that her demeanor had a little to be desired. But once and a while you can come across CMs who are having a bad day, so I didn’t think a whole lot about it. She checked me and told me that we had received a great room on the 24th floor! Yeah!. We grabbed our bags and headed up to our room. Well, it was clean and we did have a view . . . of the conference rooms and generators! Every time we opened the glass door all we heard was this deep, loud humming. Not to say that we didn’t have a view; you would see the Epcot fireworks in the evening and part of the MGM.
Ok, so now time to relax. We found a card on our bed that ever-so-nicely states why they charge an $8/night “resort” fee on top of your rooms charge. I realized that there would be this fee since I know that the Swan/Dolphin also charge this. But, the Wyndham gave us a list of all the things that we are getting for the $8/night. We found this list to be quite a joke for the following reasons:
**Mmmmh, oooh! a terry robe! Ok . . . no robe in the room. Call guest services - their reply, we only give out the robes per availability - there are no robes available.
**Ok, no robes, but that complimentary glass of champagne each evening sounds lovely . . . . "Oh, we discontinued that a few months ago"
They also mentioned their exquisite brand of toiletries. They gave us shampoo and a bar of soap. That was it. I had to call housekeeping to get some lotion and what not.
**Complimentary service to the parks - at that time, beginning at 9:30 - what? a half hour AFTER park opening? So, the list isn't all that great.
Oh yeah, and did I mention that if you put anything in the bar refrigerator that is personal (your own beverage/cheese), you will be charged $10/day)?
Note: our overall experience at the hotel was poor (all the staff was either grumpy or acting unprofessional (talking about “getting wasted on Tequila” and their paychecks, biting on nails for extended periods of time – ugh! These are all the reasons that we have vowed now to only stay at a Disney resort from now on. Even when you get a grumpy cast member from time-to-time, the overall experience is one of professionalism and Disney Magic (more on that later).
OK, enough about the hotel. Like I said, we paid only $60/night on Priceline and felt that it was worth $60, but no more than that (and for sure we wouldn’t pay $125 – the special they were running). We would definitely choose to stay at the ALL Stars next time we are on a strict budget.
We decided to head over to the Poly to see if any of my old buddies were working and to grab a drink before heading on to MK. Upon arriving at the guard booth, we were told that under no circumstances could we park at the Poly without having a form of official picture ID (license, Passport). Bummer. So we scraped our Poly idea and headed to MK parking and took a tram to the TTC. We got there at about 8pm and there were a ton of people heading into the park! We were amazed that so many people were showing up so late. In our more than full tram (always a fun ride) we grabbed a monorail and headed to the MK – yeah! Finally at the PARK!!
Once in, SpectroMagic was about to begin. We were starving so we decided to grab dinner at Tony’s. The food there was great, the service was very friendly, and we were able to see the parade as it went by. What a perfect first night at Disney.
DH ordered steak and a iced tea and I ordered a salad and the smoothie with the Lady and Tramp souvenir mug. They served break with marinara which aided in filling us up. Our total bill (incl tip) was about $42.
Afterwards, we headed to Adventure Land to ride PoC. No wait there. :D We love this ride because that is when it finally sinks in that we are at Disney! We noticed that the waits in Fantasy Land were still pretty long (40 min and no more FP). We just strolled around and took it easy. Taking in the fireworks and all the people. We also stopped by the watch shop on Main Street to grab me a “wedding” ring. Del picked out a ring that was silver with stones all around it and a little Mickey head ever 5th stone or so (looks like and anniversary band). It came to $22 and was perfect (not the real thing, but it would do since I was missing my own).
Finally feeling tired from our travels, we headed to the hotel and off to bed.
Day 2
Sunday August 31
Slept in until 10:15!! (That is REALLY late for us, but we are on the East Coast). We grabbed the hotel bus to Epcot and made the rounds to pick up everyone else.
FYI: The Downtown Disney hotels share the same busses to the parks. They begin at the Wyndham and then head counter clockwise from the Hilton to the Grosvenor. It does take about 45 minutes or so the grab everyone and get to the park.
The line for SSE was looking pretty long, so we headed straight over to Electric Umbrella. We shared the double cheeseburger plate ($5.99) and an ice tea ($1.99). They have a fixin’s bar, but no grilled mushrooms and onions. :(
We watched the Jaminators for a bit and then headed over to Ellens Energy Adventure and then off to World Showcase (our favorite). We did Mexico first and it was crowded. There was a live band inside playing by RDT. They were good, but we decided to take our little boat ride and scooted over to RDT. Afterwards, we walked out and were being entertained by the CMs who work at the “market place”. They were doing some Mexican dancing and it was so fun to watch. That was until the fight broke out.
OK, so there were no fists, but it was pretty shocking to see – I mean we are at Disney! Apparently, something happened between this woman who was with her husband and this gentleman who was with his friend. Not knowing what started it, all we saw was her running up to him and pushing him and then they argued until security came. The ladies husband had to literally hold her back as she kept wanting to fight the man. Very odd.
We just strolled around the various countries from Mexico to Italy, just taking in all the beauty and effort that is put into making each area seem authentic. We also grabbed some very tasty danishes at Norway for breakfast tomorrow. We needed to get back to our hotel by 5 to meet up with my best friend from high school and her husband. We grabbed a bus to DD from the Beach Club and met up with our friends. We all headed over to the Orlando Ale House for my favorite meal at Disney . . . Zingers!
History: I used to work at the Poly and often times we would go over to the OAH to grab the zingers: chicken breast pieces fried and covered with hot wing sauce that gets as hot as “Mount Saint Helens”. They are gooood! Also, if you like draft beers, they serve a lot of microbeers on tap.
We had a great (and affordable) dinner and then headed over to DD. It drizzled a bit while we were eating, but not much. (Overall, we were surprised that we really didn’t get much rain throughout our stay.) We shopped around a bit (the guys love playing with the Tinker Toys at World of Toys) and then grabbed a Carmel Apple Sunday at Ghirardeli’s. It was tasty, but I think that we will stick the ol’ fashioned hot fudge Sunday next time (yum!).
After reaching the point of comfortably full, we headed back to our hotel room and watched the Epcot fireworks and relaxed a bit. We also needed to fill out a Police Report for our missing IDs. The Orange County Sheriff’s department was terrific. They offered to send an officer down when we got back (no matter how late) and fill one out for us. It is so weird to get a call from the Front Desk “Um, can you come down to the lobby? There is a sheriff here to see you.” We got a kick out of it because it felt like we were criminals the way people were staring at us. The sheriff was great and we done fairly quickly.
We then had some pool time. The main pool was overly full due to the conference staying there, so we took in some swim time at the quiet pool. It was refreshing and nice. There is no real theme at this resort, but the grounds are well-kept and nice looking. After our midnight (by this time) swim, we headed to bed. :sleep:
Day Three
Monday, September 1
Slept in (yes, again – but we are waiting to do our early rise-and-shines for when we are in a resort hotel). Had danish and coffee in our room and headed out to return our car and grab a bus to MK.
By the time we got to MK, it was almost 11:30 and we were expecting Labor Day crowds. There were no people! :shock: I mean, sure there were a few people out and about Main Street and Fantasy Land, but we basically got to walk on or wait 5 minutes for all of the rides.
Some of the highlights were riding Buzz 3 times in a row (husband was a Cosmic Commander, me: just a Space Ace), Dole Whip Float (delicious!) Splash Mountain and Space Mountain. We went to check Goofy’s Jamboree and, though it was humorous and seemed great for kids, we will probably skip it until we have children. We didn’t notice it being so crowded and disorganized (as I have read) – the characters did a lot of entertaining on the stage and once in a while would come down to “teach” a dance. We headed out, though before the very end.
We just missed being able to get DH a haircut at the Barber, so we strolled around Main Street for a bit and then stayed to watch the Flag Retreat. After one more train ride, we took the monorail to Epcot, meandered around (again, we are taking things pretty easy this trip) and headed to DD to get back to our hotel. We were too bushed to swim, so we packed up and fell asleep excited about checking into AKL the next day!
Day Four
Tuesday, September 2
OK, so we slept in again (until about 9am) and relaxed and read for a bit. We took a cab with our luggage to the Animal Kingdom Lodge to check in. Wow! It is such a beautiful hotel! As you drive up, you already feel like you’re in a different world (much less country). The lobby was breathtaking and check in was a snap with a very friendly CM who even upgraded us from Standard View (aka Parking Lot) to a Savannah! :fairymagic:
We were in room 4528 which is on the Zebra trail facing opposite of the main centralized savannah (right on the border between the smoking and non-smoking rooms. At first I thought (in the spoiled side of me) that the view wasn’t that great, but the bellman told us that it was one of the most popular areas due to all the animals that frequent that area. Sure enough, it didn’t take long before giraffes, bongos, ankole cattle and all sorts of beautiful birds were stopping by for a visit!
We unpacked and headed out to AK.
Note: Throughout our stay at AKL, we rode the bus numerous times a day and only once had to wait more than 5 minutes.
The weather was hot and humid (though enjoyable) and we headed straight for Kali River Rapids. I grabbed a pair of water socks for $14 from the kiosk outside the ride entrance (note: we also found watersocks at the Rainforest Café at AK for only $6.99). We got on the raft and wouldn’t ya know, we got totally soaked! You know you are the ones who will get drenched when you are heading down the main drop first. It was fun and we were already wet, so we rode not once more, but twice more! We had so much fun and we got the big one on our last round.
Now, totally drenched, we walked around the Maharajah trail. DH noticed that there is a sign regarding the “theme” of the trail. I don’t want to give away too much detail, but be sure to read it. It tells the tale of an old hunting lodge and other neat things that capture your interest throughout the walk and adds some flavor to the whole experience.
We headed off to ITTBAB (still VERY wet) and then went over to DinoLand. Let me just say that there are just NO people here! ITTBAB was only about a quarter full and we only waited about 5 minutes or so for Dinosaur.
Note: Just about every time we go to ITTBAB there is always one set of parents who think that their kids can handle the show. To their dismay, their kids freak out. Actually at this particular show, we had parent who had a very sad and frightened child and they stayed the whole show! With the child screaming during the really scary scenes (Hopper, stink, bees, etc.).
Anyway, onto Dinosaur and it was nice and cool – not to mention that the ride is a ton of fun! The air was pretty humid today, so the air conditioning felt great.
We also rode Primevil Whirl. Now, we’ve done this ride before and remembered that it got a little spinny, but we didn’t remembered being jerked and tossed around so much as this time! I mean, all four of us (us and the couple we shared with) left the ride groaning from all the jerkiness. I would caution anyone with back or neck trauma about this one.
Finally, we decided to head back to the hotel to rest a bit and to change out of our still pretty damp clothes.
After a little R&R we headed off to MGM Studios. We got there at about 6ish and Fantasmic was at 8:30, so we just decided to grab some dinner and walk around a bit until Fantasmic. We went to Sci Fi Drive in for the first time and had a lot of fun! Now, I’ve gathered from the boards that the burgers and shakes are good here, but that the “regular” dinners were nothing to write home about. So, what do I order? Onion rings and a chocolate shake please! And let me tell you – they both were delicious! The onion rings were $6.99, but you got a ton of them and they were quite tasty. The shake was so good that DH ordered a strawberry shake. Not quite as yummy as the chocolate (more like fake strawberry taste), but good none-the-less. DH though, did not take my advice and ordered the pork medallions. The way he described them as “well, they aren’t so much bad as they just taste like the way food was made back in the 50’s – dry and flavorless.” So there ya have, yet another review to keep to what ya know – burgers. We did very much enjoy the atmosphere and had a lot of fun in the backseat . . . watching the movie clips of course! ;) We also had a great server and our experience was a really positive one as a whole. Out total bill for this dinner was about $43.
Afterwards, we planned on walking around a bit but were told by a CM that Fantasmic was filling up pretty quick, so we headed over there. At this point, the skies were getting a little bit iffy and we were wondering if there would be some rain in the near future. It was about an 50 minutes or so until showtime and we got a seat in the middle of the left section. Though there are spectacular seats to be had, I think that all of the seats are great seats here. I really well thought our design.
We had a great conversation with a family from Texas and were talking about the rain in Seattle when all of a sudden, there are a few sprinkles coming down. Then a few more and a few more. We hear the announcement that the show may be cancelled due to rain, but we will no more in a while. All of the consession people who were selling sparkly light-up toys were now selling ponchos at $6 a pop. My theory, Disney will not let you know that the show is cancelled until just before the show is to begin – think of how they bank on poncho sales alone! LOL Anyway, we did get quite a bit of rain and a couple more announcements, but 5 minutes before the show was to start, the rain let up! Yeah!
Fantasmic was terrific, as usual, and the crowds herding out at the end were the usual bottle-necked crowds, but not terrible. At least it had cooled off some from the rain. Luckily, there was a bus waiting for AKL when we got to the stop – double yeah!
Once we got back to the resort we took in some Jacuzzi time. Ah! Now that is relaxing! There was still some lightening in the air and a threat of it getting closer, so we (my DH relented as I was getting a little uneasy with the lightening) headed out after only a little while. We ended our evening with a glass of wine and a little bit of cheese and then it was off to bed.
Note: Instead of paying $10/night for a fridge, we just put our cool items in the second sink and then use one of the laundry bags (found in the closet) and fill it half way with ice and lay it on top. We do that once in the morning before we head out and once in the evening before bed. It works great and doesn’t take up much room. We kept a little think of milk, water and cheese in there and it all stayed nice and cold and dry.