Day 3 – Friday, 3 Dec 2004 Today's Event: Segway Tour
Stitch & Mickey woke us up around 6:30 ... I had the Epcot Around the World tour scheduled for this morning & wanted to have plenty of time to get there. As I passed thru the lobby, I noticed the player piano was playing Christmas carols – typical Disney attention to detail! I was out to the bus stop around 7:15; it was a chilly morning – about 55 degrees, but clear & sunny. I wore jeans, a t-shirt & sweatshirt.
Had a nice chat with the bus driver on the way over, as I was his only passenger, even after stopping at all 4 POR stops. He was originally from New Jersey and moved to Central Florida in 1989 – we shared some snow tales and he talked about the hurricanes & how they affected the community. Scary stuff, but amazing how quickly WDW got everything back in order. The only aftermath we saw was lots of trees down in the wooded areas; I imagine they'll be left as is with maybe some replanting over time.
Got to Epcot just over a half-hour early. I waited with the Storybook Breakfast folks & their sleepy princesses all bundled up in sweatshirts and blankets. J I took a couple of pictures; a CM was nice enough to let me thru the gate for a bit to take some pix of the topiaries at the entrance. They came out a bit dark, tho. We entered the park at 8:00 (the first PS for the breakfast, I assume) and I went over to Guest Services to check in for my tour. We did have to sign some paperwork, saying we wouldn't sue if we fell & sprained our wrists, or something.
As soon as everyone gathered (we had 1 no-show, so 9 people total), our tour guides, Holly (already on her Segway) and Octavio took us over to the Segway Instruction Center, which is off the back hallway of Innoventions East. We watched a short presentation (basically the legal mumbo-jumbo) and then Holly showed us the equipment – they had 10 of them up against the wall, as well as Holly & Octavio's machines. I'd seen a Segway up close last trip, when they were doing the demos in Innoventions, but she reviewed the user interface in more detail, as well as how to step on and off, move forwards & backwards and turning.
We put on our helmets & were ready for some hands-on experience. Small traffic cones had been set up on the floor marking one "lane" per vehicle. We each chose a machine and one by one, Holly & Octavio helped us get up on the Segway. Like everyone else, I did the "Segway dance" as I got balanced on the vehicle. It was an odd feeling at first; the key seems to be to relax & bend your knees slightly. We practiced getting on & off a few times; then were ready to start moving (and stopping!) . Holly explained it as being all in the toes & the heels ... press down with your toes to move forward & dig your heels in to stop. Keep weight on your heels to move backwards. We practiced going forwards & backwards for a bit; then moved into turns. There's a control on the left handlebar that twists in the direction you want to turn. You lean a little as you turn, but not nearly as much as on a bicycle. The zero turning radius is very, very cool! We rode up & down our lanes, working on smooth & steady movement & control.
We moved on to slaloming around the cones & around the room… first clockwise & then counter-clockwise. We were all Segway newbies, but you could start to tell who was catching on & who was still a bit tentative. We then circled the perimeter of cones to practice moving a bit faster. No collisions or falling off, but a few cones did bite the dust.
Our last training tasks were working on ramps & obstacles. There was a long, fairly low ramp that we drove up & down (down was a bit scary at first) and they set up a small speed bump in the middle of the room. We were in 2 groups at this point, half on the ramp & half with the speed bump. I joked with another guest that we should name our vehicles – you know, Trigger, My Friend Flicka, Black Beauty….
As newbies, we didn't get to ride over the bump; instead we got off the Segway & used the power assist mode to ease it over the obstacle. We couldn't believe the first hour flew by so quickly! We took a short break & were ready to head out into the park. Since this tour is so popular, they run 2 sessions, so we left 1 set of vehicles in the classroom & mounted a second set that was waiting in the hallway.
With a gentle reminder that everyone else has the right of way & to be aware of our surroundings, we passed thru FW on our way over to the World Showcase. Octavio led us over in single file, with Holly bringing up the rear. We smiled a bunch & got a lot of attention from other guests on our way. The braver of us even waved a bit! We stopped in China and started the actual tour portion.
Either Holly or Octavio would talk a bit about the pavilion, then lead us through a "challenge". We wound our way thru narrow paths, up & over bridges and slalomed thru the columns, gaining experience & confidence as we went. Once we got to Italy – we had about 15 minutes of "play time". Holly & Octavio marked out an area for us to ride around & also took pictures, if you brought your camera. Since it was a sunny day, I'd put my ball cap under my helmet; it looked a bit silly, but it worked! I asked when we'd arrive back around by Canada (about 10:20) & called Scott so he could meet up with us & take some more pictures.
We finished our tour at the French pavilion & by this time I think most of us felt pretty comfortable on the Segways. I got the impression that the top speed was definitely influenced by passenger weight, as the "pooh-sized" among us kept getting passed by the skinny folks. We headed back into the "onstage" section of the park – back in single file & nice and slow. There were quite a few more people – including Scott, who got some good pictures of me grinning up a storm! We rode back to the building and into the room to park our faithful steeds. Holly and Octavio wrapped things up and handed out the pins. It took me a few minutes to get my "land legs" back – amazing how tiring it is to stand up in basically one spot for an hour!
Met up with Scott around 10:30 or so to decide what to do next. We hadn't really planned anything for the afternoon.. well, actually, I had. I tried to surprise Scott with an early Christmas present: the ride-along program at The Petty Experience. He said that he'd rather spend the money on an actual race ticket, so with the weather being so nice (sunny and in the mid 60's), we decided to go over to Animal Kingdom instead.
This park usually gets short shrift when we visit in May, since it's the warmest & most humid place on property. We wanted to see the Jingle Jungle parade & this seemed like a good day to do so. We got to the park around 11:15 and with rumblies in our tumblies, Pizzafari was our first stop. It wasn't terribly crowded and we got our order & a place to sit in less than 10 min. I tried the deli sandwich (OK) and Scott had the pizza. We shared breadsticks (yummy!) and the refillable sports bottle. Since we were planning on spending the rest of the afternoon there, $1 refills seemed a bargain.
We took in a safari, waiting no more than 15-20 min – I think the longest lines we encountered were waiting for our food back at the resort! On previous trips, we'd been on safari before in the early morning & there were definitely fewer animals out this time of day. Since the weather was still comfortably cool, we wandered along the Pangani Forest trail, something else we normally skip during the warm weather in May. We hadn't taken the train out to Conservation Station in the past few trips, so that was our next adventure. Unfortunately, there's not a lot that we find engaging out there. We did get to see an African porcupine at the tail end (so to speak) of his performance/visit and inside, a CM had a hedgehog tenrec. Being nocturnal, he wasn't too happy to be woken up & put on display, I think! We said a quick hello to the goats at the Affection Section & boarded the train back to the rest of the park.
Next stop: Dinoland! We headed in the direction of Dinosaur (Scott decided he was going to try it this time), we heard a screaming child & saw a crowd of people, CM's & a security person or two grouped around one of the grates… we're guessing a little one got some part of him/herself stuck, but didn't get to confirm that. There was only a 5 min wait, so we didn't pay much attention to the queue theming. To be honest, I like the Indy ride at Disneyland better – it's not quite as dark & I think the storyline is more interesting. Besides, the first time I rode this (it was still CTX), the carnotaur ate my hat! OK – maybe he just blew it off, but either way, the hat was a goner.
We looked around Chester & Hester's for a bit, then thought we'd see who was at Camp Minnie-Mickey before picking out a spot for the parade. We visited Mickey, Minnie (both in holiday garb) and Santa Goofy. We also had our first experience with the PhotoPass – the first time a Disney photographer takes you picture, you get a plastic card with a website URL, a code & magnetic strip. For subsequent pictures, the photog swipes the card thru a reader. You then use the URL & the code to view the pix online at your leisure (within 30 days), order prints & send the link to friends & family. It may have been expensive to set up, but I imagine people will buy a LOT more pictures if they don't have to wait in line at the end of a long day and make a spur-of-the-moment decision.
We picked out a parade spot in front of the FP machines for It's Tough to be a Bug, as they weren't being used. We were sitting the sun & it had warmed up nicely, so I took my sweatshirt off to enjoy the short-sleeve weather. We sat next to a mom & her young son, who looked about 4 or 5 years old. He started up a conversation by telling me he liked my Mickey Mouse watch. I asked him what he'd done so far today – they'd gone on safari and went to see the Festival – he really liked the guy with the horns. The conversation grew from there – he booed a guy wearing a Yankees shirt (he's a Red Sox fan). He then had his Sarari Mickey doll use his binoculars to look for airplanes.
"Sometimes airplanes crash. A long time ago a plane crashed with a baseball player on it and he died. He was taking food to his mom.". Yes, he was telling us about Roberto Clemente! "I have a sad story about my mom – want to hear it?" An "uh-oh" look crossed her face, but he went on to tell us that when she was little, she had a Tarzan lunchbox and the other kids made fun or her because she was a girl and girls shouldn't have Tarzan lunchboxes. Gotta love those conversations with little kids!
We'd seen the normal version of the parade on our last visit, so it was fun to see the holiday overlays. Lots of tinsel, garland and jinglebells, of course! The alligator float was now a reindeer, and the floats with trunks strapped to their sides now had gifts or Santa sacks. One of the floats had Nice and Naughty lists. Of course the villians were on the Naughty list, as was Stitch (presumably for escaping!). Donald was on both lists, with a question mark… hmm… I don't know where I'd put him either, with that temper of his!
Since we'd gotten the Photopass, we skipped the long picture line and headed out to the busses, timing our arrival almost perfectly. We really had good luck with the busses on this trip; the longest wait was later in the week when we visited the Animal Kingdom Lodge & got stranded there for about 20-25 minutes. With the exception of one DTD return trip, French Quarter guests were the first to get picked up & the first to get dropped off, so we were pretty much guaranteed a seat.
We got back to the hotel about 4:45 and stopped by the food court to get dinner. I tried the jambalaya (when in Rome…. er … New Orleans) and Scott got a burger, I think. As I mentioned before, the food court lines were probably the longest we experienced during our whole stay! We ate dinner & rested until around 7:15, planning to head over to Downtown Disney.
The boat ride was a lot chillier than the night before! We were both wearing jeans by this time & I'd put my sweatshirt back on. Captain Donald was the most talkative of our skippers: he told us about the signaling system they use to determine how they're going to pass – one blink for port-to-port (the usual) or two blinks for starboard-to-starboard.
We bought our tickets for PI and walked into the Adventurer's Club around 8:00. We became honorary members (again) and caught the first library show: Samantha, Otis and Emil did their songs and I got a hot chocolate Yakoose Mousse. Bailey's, crème de cacao & hot cocoa – heavenly! We then adjourned to the treasure room and Scott got dusted by Sugar Snap – ooh la la! We then snuck over to 8Trax so Scott could get his Leisure Suit, and got back to AC in time for the radio show, which we hadn't seen before. Jump Up for Jinkies! Scott got to laughing so hard at one point, I thought he was going to fall out of his chair.
We wanted to catch a show at the Comedy Warehouse, so about 9:15, we headed that direction. The improv group was quite a bit different from our visit in May; we only recognized two of the players. They opened with a phone call to the audience: talked to a Lakeland family that owned their own business, a furniture store called WoodWorld. Yep – they had lots of fun with that! Next was the List of Emotions skit – with two Trump Towers employees – one newly hired and one just fired. The longest skit was "Guess the Cliché" – this one was a toughie: "a dead head on a merry go round". He finally figured it out, with just enough time to do the Pet Peeves Blues – too many items in a grocery express lane.
We were pretty pooped out by this time & rode the boat back, having forgotten how chilly it was! We got back to the room around 10:45 and hit the sack soon after. Mileage for the day: 17,512 steps = 7.28 miles.