[HiddenMickey]

view! We really enjoyed the parade (Chernaborg's wings didn't open, so that float looked like a volcano the whole time) and I'm glad Teresa got to see it.

We had thought we'd try to see if Tinkerbell flew tonight, but once the parade was over, I realized I was totally wiped out. I've never felt that way in the parks before…really worn down. So I suggested we go back to the room. Teresa agreed….the same feeling had come over her. We wandered down Main Street with the masses…more people leaving than staying it seemed and out to the bus area for a very short wait. We did have to stand on the way back, of course. We stopped at Maestro Mickey's at the resort and bought a couple snacks and some pins for my kids. Took the long walk to the room and were asleep before midnight.

Saturday, August 3

I am up at 8:00, before the alarm ring and in the shower quickly. Once Teresa and I are ready, we leave the room. It is about 9:00 and we head for the food court so Teresa can get her breakfast. She orders the croissant sandwich again. Today I just get milk. As we are eating (near the checkout), Teresa points out to me that there is a woman on the floor at one of the registers. She is clearly not well, and her husband (who had been standing at a table near us…trying to get her attention earlier) is holding her. The CMs are on the phone, we assume with paramedics. Teresa said the woman had been looking kind of pasty and trying to get someone's (her husband's) attention before she got in line.
We have to leave before any help arrives, so we just have to hope she's ok.

When we get to the bus stop, a bus for MGM is just pulling out. Darn it. Luckily another pulls up 5 minutes later. Short ride and we are at the park. Saw the big Stitch at the entrance and took his picture before going through security. The woman working security in our line is a talker….she has a conversation with everyone she deals with. Makes for a much longer check-through than usual.

Once in the park, we split up. I send Teresa to get Fastpasses for Rock n Rollercoaster while I head for the Big Hat. I need to see about getting a new Magical Moments Pin. The battery that was replaced yesterday works, but the pin is not going off like it's supposed to…even when I press it, it barely works. I explain the problem to the CM, and she says I can replace it. So, I get a new pin and make my way back down toward RnR. Teresa is waiting with the fastpasses. She says the wait time since she's been standing there has gone from 20-40 minutes. Our fastpasses are for 10:20-11:20. We turn around and walk up to Tower of Terror which has a wait of 35 minutes posted. The wait is really 10 minutes and we are quickly in the library. There are a lot of really tall people in there and Teresa's view of the TV is blocked somewhat. My MM pin goes off as we walk through the boiler room. We are seated in the front row of our elevator and we are off! The ride was great. We laughed and screamed. My MM pin went off several times during the ride too. When we exit, we decide, we've got to do it again later and plan to pick up new fastpasses after we ride RnR. We walk slowly toward RnR as it's not quite our window of time yet. When we get to the fastpass queue and there are several people waiting for their time to come up. We have about 5 more minutes until 10:15 arrives.

Sidebar: While waiting, we notice that a mom and teenage son who had been on the bus with us are in line next to us. We acknowledge the coincidence with them. I put this in a sidebar because for the next three days we happen to ride the same bus to the same theme park at the same time in the morning with this same family (there is a Dad too, who doesn't seem to do the rides)! What are the chances? And we always ended up in line with them on at least one ride after we enter the park. By Monday morning, they are asking us where we are headed once in the park. I ask if they want to know so they can avoid us, or join us J.

The CM at the fastpass entrance lets us go in a bit early, but there is a line in the queue area for fastpasses, so we have to wait a couple minutes before entering the preshow anyway. Once in, we see the preshow and head out to the alley. Teresa sees the cars taking off and I think for a moment, she'll want to back out. But, she is a trooper and we are placed in the third row from the back of the limo. The ride is over in no time…and we decide once is enough for that ride. We make our way over to the ToT fastpass booths and secure a time (I forgot to write it down). We go get water at one of the booths and find the restrooms in the alley off the street. We decide to do the 11:15 showing of Indiana Jones. We get some seats about 5 rows from the front on the center-right of the audience. After we sat down, I mention to Teresa that I've seen this attraction a lot and that I think I might try to volunteer for the extras. She says go for it. So once the Casting Director appears and starts her choosing, I stand up and wave and yell. I am not picked in the first group, but make the group that has to laugh! J I hand Teresa my fannypack to Teresa and tell her to take some photos with my camera and head down the stairs to the stage. This is way exciting! I am asked to do the belly laugh and just about kill my throat in the effort. It actually hurt….not sure what I did. Then our group is sent to the top of the auditorium to get costumed. We sign a waiver (I always thought that was a joke), get into our costumes and are given a cup of water (much needed for the sore throat) and we watch the first segment of the stage show from the top rows.

When they are setting up the second scene we are sent down to the stage. It is fun to get this view of the workings. Never knew there was a bad guy hiding in the "rugs". We do our best to look like busy Cairo natives and enjoy yelling at the stunt people doing their thing. When the final car roll-over is done, we are sent back upstairs to give up our costumes and get another cup of water. I thanked the "casting director" for picking me out of the crowd, since it was so fun to see the show from the stage perspective. Then I went back down to my seat next to Teresa. She said she took several pictures. Haven't gotten the film developed yet, so I have no idea if they came out well at all.

After the show was over we slowly made our way out of the theater with the masses and headed back toward Tower of Terror. I decided to stop on the way and try and make a PS for lunch at the 50s Prime Time Café. The CM working was very friendly and was able to find a slot for us at 1:05. It is now noon, so we figure we can get in our return ride on ToT and another attraction before lunchtime. No wait at all and we are into the library. The second ride on ToT was almost as much fun as the first. The CM loading us into the elevator was talking to us and just as the doors are closing he says-"Whatever you do, don't…" and the door closes on him. It was pretty funny to us at the time. We still have plenty of time before our PS and we decide to try to get into Who Wants To Be a Millionaire-Play it! We figure we will be a couple minutes late for our PS since the show is ½ hour and we are doing the 12:30 showing. We are directed into the theater by a couple CMs trying to get a full audience by pulling people off the street.

The theater looks a lot like I remember the TV show looking. There is a stage director to get the crowd going and explain the set up. Then she introduces Dennis, our Regis for the day. He is great. Really has a perfect feel for the job. The first fastest finger contestant was Lisa (can't recall where she was from). She was so nervous when she first got on stage….she could barely talk. Then as she was there longer, she was much more relaxed. She was so excited to get to the 1000 point level, because she really wanted the hat. Turns out that most of her party (extended family group of about 8 people) already had hats of their own! She got all the way to the 32000 point question and got the wrong answer. She used all the help during the game…and even tried phone-a-stranger (didn't get the answer in time). Teresa didn't realize she could play along after the fastest finger question, so missed answering the 100 point question and so was out of the running. I had missed a question somewhere in the group and was also out of the running. A lot of Lisa's family was doing really well according to the overhead board, but a guy (who's name I can't remember) from a couple rows down was #1 when she missed. He was really great and didn't seem nearly as nervous as Lisa. He was doing really well and so was I! At the 1000 point level I was #4 on the boards. So far I had known all the questions and I had answered really quickly. I kept right up there with "guy" and at the 32000 point question (What Ivy League school is home to the Fogge Art Museum? Brown, Princeton, Harvard, Yale.) He used his 50/50. He guessed correctly…..Harvard. I, too, had guessed correctly and I was now #2 on the boards!!! Of course at this point I knew there was no way I would be able to go on the floor as there was only 5 minutes left in the game…BUT, I didn't care! I was doing great! Then the 64000 point question (What country's McDonald's serves McSpaghetti? Canada, Italy, Phillipines, Japan) He used ask the audience and the split was pretty even. He ended up guessing Canada. He was wrong. But guess what!? I was right with Phillipines and when they checked the board at the end of the game, I WAS #1! J I walked out of there with shaky legs….I had so much fun! I was so glad to get a chance to play this game finally and to do so well at it!

Well, we cleared out of there pretty quickly to make our lunch date at Prime Time. We walked in just at 1:05 but had to wait a bit while a walk-in was helped. Once we were greeted, we sat down in the "living room" to wait and were called in about 5 minutes. We are seated toward the back (table next to the one my family sat in when we ate there previously) in Patty's section. She was great. We each ordered the Chicken Pot Pie and a Coke and then I made a bathroom run. While I was gone, Patty got on Teresa for having her elbows on the table (Teresa said she turned bright red)! The table next to us had a family that Patty was having fun with too, so we got in on their action. J Over on the other side of the room, where we couldn't see, there were a couple people getting in trouble and the whole room had to razz them. Hadn't seen that done previously. The food was great. Patty gave Teresa a hard time about not eating her carrots (egged on by me) and when I was finished, she found a ½ a piece left on my plate and gave me a hard time. We had no room for dessert, so paid, thanked Patty for a fun meal and were on our way to more fun….or so we thought.

We walked out the door to find BLACK skies creeping in. Decided doing an indoor attraction would be good and opted to try for Voyage of the Little Mermaid. It was right around 2pm now. They were just letting people in the theater holding area, so we joined in and had a 10 minute or so wait until the doors opened up. It was a good show, but we had to sit up too close….I like the back. Teresa really enjoyed it. The puppetry is so wonderful. When we walk out, it is raining. So we look through the shop and then decide to try The Great Movie Ride (which we had been saving for tonight) to see if the rain would stop while we were in it. There is a bit of a line and we watch just over one full showing of the movie reel. We get the gangster scene and a little 3 year old next to us was VERY scared at the bullets noise. He had to hide his face in his Dad's shoulder for much of the rest of the ride. When we exit, it is still raining, so we make a beeline for the restroom and then decide it's time to go shopping at Downtown Disney.

We leave the Studios at around 3:15 and catch a DD bus. It makes one stop at the Pleasure Island stop. Now this was weird for three reasons…..1. When I rode a bus to DD last time, that area was no longer being used 2. Pleasure Island was not open yet. 3. It meant everyone had to take the long walk to either Marketplace or Westside. Since we didn't have our ponchos (remember the nice sunny skies this morning) we were a bit wet when we entered the Lego Store.

The Lego Store was a major destination because my son requested a specific Bionical figure and a specific Bionical hat from the store. We found the figure without problem, but they only had one type of hat available, and it was not what he wanted. Turns out (from asking an employee) that they are only making hats with the logo now and have discontinued the hats with the characters. UGH. Total disappointment. He'd lost his during soccer last year and wanted a replacement. Ended up buying two figures. Then we walked in the rain to the World of Disney. Teresa and I both were overwhelmed here. There is just so much to see, but of course, we had only partial luck finding the things we wanted. I got my daughter a Belle doll (like a Barbie), a 100yrs hat for my son, a 100yrs tank top for my daughter, a CD player case for my daughter….and something I forget there, using my DC discount. Teresa finds herself a hat similar to the one I've been wearing around the parks. It is a wide-brimmed khaki hat with a string to hold it around your neck. Then we make our way over to Team Disney where we find things for our husbands. I found a wonderfully soft polo style shirt on sale and got a DC discount on top of that.

Next stop is the new toy store, Once Upon a Toy. What a wonderful place. So much neat Disney stuff. I debate whether to get some Mr. Potato Head pieces, but decide against it. I help a family that is putting together a Mr. Potato Head understand that they can stuff as much into their box as they can….they don't have to limit themselves to what fits on Mr. Potato Head at one time. They are happy and start searching for more stuff to add. Teresa finds a Flounder stuffed animal for her niece and has a conversation with the CM checking her out about the CMs 150 stuffed animals. We look around the new Pin store next. There is a lot there, but no pins I need. I do ask a Pin Trader with his book out if he has the Fantasyland Trash Can Pin, and he shows it to me. It is really cute…wish I could get me hands on one or two. The door even works only one direction like a real trash can. Teresa is flabbergasted at the amount of pins those pin traders have. The guy I talked to was having a discussion with another trader about mistake and rare pins….very interesting. Last stop is the Christmas Store. Smells good in there, but why do ornaments have to be so expensive? Oops, we see a build your own keychain booth nearby and go there before hitting the bus. Teresa has been searching the stores for a keychain with Flounder on it. Unbelievably, there is a keychain already made up with a Flounder bead on it. It is just right and Teresa buys it! There didn't seem to be any single Flounder bead pieces left either, so she really lucked out. If you like keychains, this is the place to go.

We make our way to the Marketplace bus stop for a ASMu bus (still sprinkling at this point) and wait about 15 minutes for a bus (there were already several people waiting when we got there). After we are all on the bus, the driver asks if anyone is going to Westside and no one answers so he announces he is headed straight to the resort. Yea. BUT, as we pass the entrance to West Side, a guy from the back of the bus makes his way up front to discuss something with the driver. Turns out, he and his friend wanted to get off at West Side but didn't hear the announcement L. Instead of turning around, the bus driver takes them to Typhoon Lagoon and they get out to catch another bus back to DD. Just a little delay, but annoying none-the-less. Once back at the resort, we head to the room and leave our bags of purchases, get a little more put together and head to the food court. At about 6:30, we get some Chicken Strips (finally) and use the refillable mugs I brought for the first time. (Because our room was so far from the food court and because they are selling a new design mug, I wasn't sure about using them until now. We are headed to MGM after dinner for Fantasmic, so I won't mind having to hold on to the mug for tonight. We did see a few people using the older mugs as well).

Once we are done, we head outside for the bus. It is about 15 minutes wait and we are the only ones waiting at our stop. We enter the park and since we still have some time before we need to get a seat at the theater, I suggest we make our way to the Muppet Show and make it in for the 7:30 showing. Fun show, but not nearly as good as Bugs Life says Teresa (I agree). We walk through New York Street and head toward the Fantasmic theater, getting our seats around 8:10 for the 9:00 show. We are seated about 7-8 rows from the bottom near some families with young kids who keep us entertained. Teresa and I take turns using the facilities and I bring some (awful) popcorn back to Teresa, at her request. The show is wonderful and runs really well, except for when Belle's barge runs into the "wall" and she and the Beast almost lose their footing. The kids who had been so rambunctious before the show, were just mesmerized. We all sat around for a while afterwards to let the crowds disapate. One of the families had two sons and left a bit before us, as we were walking out, we saw them up ahead and the older of the two sons (maybe 7 yrs) was hitting his Mom. She had to back up to get out of his line of attack and the Dad gave him a huge scolding. That was too bad. I think they were pretty tired at that point.

I stopped near the Big Hat to get a nighttime picture as we made our way out of the park. There were a lot of people doing the same thing. We wandered into a couple shops and made a point to go in Sid's since I haven't checked it out before. Lots of interesting posters and stuff. We get to the bus stop around 10pm and still have to wait for 2 buses to fill up before we get on the third. We are back at the resort around 10:30 and Teresa calls her husband from the Lobby while I look for snacks in the gift shop (Entemann's Pastry and milk). We watch the end of the last Cheers episode and lights out afterwards.

Sunday, August 4

Today is our Epcot day. Teresa has seen some of this park before, but basically missed doing most of the rides or even entering most of the pavilions. We have a lot of ground to cover in short time. I am up at 8am and we are out of the room by 8:40 (a record for us I think). We don't stop for breakfast in the food court today as we had some pastry from last night and I've got a surprise breakfast planned for Teresa at Epcot. We wait only 5 minutes for a bus and enter Epcot around 9:10. We make our way to Test Track to get Fastpasses (10:05-11:05) and then go to the Wonders of Life pavilion to do whatever we see first. Body Wars is the first thing, so we get in line for it and are soon seated in the pod. However, there is a mechanical problem, soon after the doors have closed and the CM has to entertain us for a short time until the ride is reset. I'd forgotten about the famous folks that are part of the film. I enjoy the ride, though it really seems pretty short. We spent more time with the CM than on the ride.

Teresa knows we are having breakfast in Norway, but had no idea that it is a character meal. I wanted her to experience one while she was here and this new meal was a perfect opportunity. We made our way from Body Wars over to the World Showcase entrance where we were met by a CM from Mexico. We told her we had a 9:50 breakfast PS and she lowered the rope for us. There were several more Norwegian CMs along the walkway pointing the way to Norway. Once we got there, we checked in at the podium (outside) and were given a flashing pager. Since it was already really hot , we chose to spend most of our wait wandering in the shop and looking at the pricey goods. The ride is covered over with burlap and the roof of the shop is in midrepair (looks awful). Our pager goes off about 10 minutes later and we are led to a table. The table is set and there is a two-tiered server with a plate of fruit (melons, strawberries) and a plate of muffins/buns. We are greeted by Tonya and Morten (he's training) and asked what we'd like to drink. They serve coffee and orange juice. You can order fancy coffees and mimosas or bloody marys for an extra cost. We just want oj. Eventually, the princesses make their appearances. We are visited by Snow White, Mary Poppins, Belle, Sleeping Beauty, and Jasmine. All of them were delightfully friendly and we had pictures with most of them taken. Afterwards we were served sausages, bacon, scrambled eggs, potato casserole, and French toast sticks. Mostly average food, but enough to hit the spot for us. We were there nearly an hour, World Showcase is still closed as we exit into Future World, but people are lined up waiting for it to open.

We are just in time to get to Test Track to use our Fastpasses before they expire. The ride was fun and felt really FAST today. My hair was a total mess afterwards. We exited and looked at some of the cars on display and debated whether to do the virtual reality sales pitch. Decided not to (line was long) and went outside to get another set of fastpasses for later.

We make our way over to Ellen's Energy Adventure. There is a huge line, but I figure that only means they are almost ready to start another show. Sure enough, the line starts moving inside shortly after we join it. I kind of like this attraction… but it does seem a little long. We leave there to go over to Innoventions and tour the House of the Future. I like the things they have in that house….the best being the washer and dryer that can handle 22 bath towels at one time…WOW! We leave there and head for Ice Station Cool because Teresa is thirsty. Being the nice friend I am, I don't make her try Beverly.
We are now headed for the other side of Future World, with Honey, I Shrunk the Audience being the main draw today. On the way there we run into a mom and son from last night's Fantasmic showing. We call him turkey boy because this 5 year old was chowing down on a big leg before the show. Today he found a small toad on the sidewalk (like the one's my son and I saw in April) and he wanted to show us. We don't think they recognized us, at least I didn't until Teresa pointed out who they were. We walk into the already running preshow and are quickly let into the theater. We get seats in the center. Teresa is really surprised by the mice and I have to warn her when the snake appears (hates them). Overall, she liked this a lot too. We play in the Kodak playground a bit and then watch the fountains outside. As we are leaving the pavilion, I suddenly remember about Journey Into Your Imagination being open, so we detour into the ride.

The ride really was changed a lot from it's previous incarnation. I'm not too sure I like it. Sure Figment is cute and the song is a nice catchy one, but the ride itself didn't do much for me. I thought it should have spent more time actually helping us get an understanding about our imagination….but what we got was Figment wreaking havoc before any learning could begin in each area. I'll do this again when visiting with my kids, but I'm not in love with it. We exit and head over the The Land. Our original intention was to get a quick snack in the Sunshine Season Faire, but all the lines are too long, and the food choices are just more than we want right now. So we get Fastpasses for Living with the Land (wait is 50 mins) and head over to Test Track as our second set of Fastpass times is already up. I made sure to put my hair up this time, but it still comes out a mess in the end. We were seated with a kid who is pretty talkative. He seems disappointed when we tell him we've done the ride before….I think he was hoping we'd be scared or something.

We decide it must be time for Spaceship Earth by now as there are never lines in the middle of the day. So we make a beeline toward that area and stop at the nearby restrooms. Unfortunately, there is a line right now, and I suggest we find something else to do….there won't be a line later at some point. Since it is getting close to 3:00 and we have a 3:30 PS time for Teppanyaki, we decide to make our way back to World Showcase. We take our time walking there. I am surprised to find a large portion of the Canada structure covered in burlap. Definitely ugly. We don't see any entertainment in Canada, UK, France or the Moraccan pavilions as we walk through. I do tell Teresa a bit about the different acts that each land has for future reference. Once we are in the Japan area, I notice that Miyuki is going to be doing candy in about 10 minutes, but since our PS time is nearly here, we'll miss her. Teresa says she's seen candy making like hers on TV though, so that's OK.

We enter the department store in Japan to look for some Yu-Gi-Oh cards my son wants. There are quite a few choices and we decide the best bet will be to call home and see what he wants after our meal. So, we make our way upstairs and check in at 3:15. We are seated almost right away. There are already two parties at our table. One group of 3 young people is already eating their salads, the other group of 3 women closer to our ages has their drinks, but no salads. It is weird to be at different parts of our meal at the same table….never had that happen before. Our waitress soon takes our order and we get our cokes and salads without too much delay. The cook we get today is not much into showmanship, in fact I only remember him tossing shrimp tails into a bowl and that was it. Nothing else..where's the fire, where's the tossing knives, making things land in your hat? The meal was fine. He overcooked my scallops (pretty usual for these places), but the rest was fine. I smothered my food in soy sauce and that always works wonders. None of our tablemates was particularly chatty with anyone besides their own group. I tried to get people talking at one point, but it fizzled out shortly after we got past where everyone was from.

After we had paid our bills, we headed downstairs to find a pay phone. There doesn't seem to be one in Japan, so we make our way over to the Liberty Inn in the American Adventure. I called home to speak with my son, but he was at a friend's house. So, had a quick chat with my husband and daughter about the last couple days and decided on what to buy my son. Teresa's feet are bothering her, so I left her in the Liberty Inn and I went back to Japan's department store for the items. Unfortunately it took me a lot longer than I had hoped as there were lines at both registers. Once I got that done, I made my way back to pick up Teresa so we could see the 4:30 American Adventure show. When we entered the rotunda, there was a group singing. They were wearing various styles of clothing from different eras. I'd never seen them before (don't know their name), only the more modern group. They did a wonderfully, beautiful rendition of America the Beautiful. Just lovely! Then we all made our way up the stairs/escalator to the theater. We found ourselves in some middle seats and enjoyed the show. Teresa liked the flags in the stair area (I do too) and we did notice the World Trade Center flag, but didn't go up for a close look. Teresa still gets choked up about that day.

When we left the theater we can see that rain is imminent. We make our way over to the ride in Mexico and on our way notice that the Campanile in Italy is covered with burlap (what's with all the burlap?) and look at the trains (which aren't running) in Germany. Of course Maelstrom is closed (burlap), so we walk into Mexico, check out the glass blower…he was just starting something new so we couldn't tell what it was going to be, and then got into the queue for the ride. Teresa had eaten here with her husband when they visited and remembered this pavilion with fondness. She was surprised to learn how close the ride was to the restaurant from this perspective. The Magical Moments pin did it's thing twice during the ride. I really like this one….I like the music, the coolness, the relaxation of it, and the fact it is one of my daughter's favorites.

We decide that an ice cream treat from the Plaza Ice Cream Parlor in the Magic Kingdom sounds good, so we make our way toward the Monorail station. We look at Spaceship Earth and see it still has a line, so bypass it for the monorail. As we are walking onto the platform to catch the waiting monorail, one of the Cast Members starts saying "Passporter, Passporter". Turns out this guy is named Jeff and he is a member of the Radp newsgroup and has met Jennifer and Dave before. He told me to tell them Hi and then as a kind of afterthought, I ask him if the front cab is available. He yells down to the CM at the head of the monorail and it turns out there is two people riding, so there is room for us!! Yippee J Teresa is just amazed that I knew you could do this. And I am excited because there is nothing like being in the front during a ride between Epcot and the TTC. We talk to the monorail driver a bit, but he is not talkative really and the other couple never says a word other than between themselves.

We get off that monorail and walk across the station for the