March Madness - Final Thoughts - REPORT COMPLETE - Updated May 24. About This Page:

[scdisneyfan]

Wow i just caught up! So far i would like to say that i was in a similar situation this past thanksgiving with the plane and snow,etc. I was nearly in tears but they ended up switching me to a plane that actually had me home on a nonstop flight. I think they felt sorry for me because i was by myself and and in tears*LOL* But it sounds like it worked out well for you two first class and all
Glad to hear your meals are going well so far! Too bad about the food at 1900 park fare though. Cant wait to hear more about your trip!

[janicelovesmickey]

great start so far and I am looking foward to reading more

[bfth]

Wow! What a great couple of days. I would LOVE to be "bumped" to first class!

[DyanKJ130]

Great updates! After a rough start at the airport, it seems like everything is moving along smoothly now!! Can't wait to hear more

[iamgrumpy]

Glad things seem to be moving smoother now.... more please

[bsblady01]

more please

[nconover]

Heeey! Where did ya go? I'm ready for another update. LOL.

[mickeycrazy]

Just caught up, I am glad you got there safely and on time! More please

[Joy J]

This morning marked the beginning of the day Kirk had been most looking forward to - our first day of the trip in the Magic Kingdom. We left bright and early and watched the opening ceremony before they let us in the gates. We got a wee bit of a shock when we sat down on Goofy’s bench outside Tony’s Town Square restaurant for a minute while looking over the day‘s park schedule. No sooner had we seated ourselves, than Goofy began talking to us. Nothing quite starts a magical day off the right way like a Goofy statue chatting with you. There were no crowds to speak of gathering in the town square yet so we had nice visits with Horace Horsecollar, Clarabelle Cow, and Pinocchio before heading over to Fantasyland. On our way down Main Street, we stopped to watch the Barbershop Quartet perform - that is always a rare treat. Once in Fantasyland, we rode Winnie the Pooh, Snow
White, It’s a Small World and Mickey’s PhilharMagic before zipping over to Toontown just in time for its opening. Here we spent some quality time with Mickey Mouse, Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Donald Duck, Goofy and Pluto. I think you can see a theme developing for this trip - this was our majorly character-oriented vacation.
Kirk had waited long enough so now it was time for his favourite ride at WDW - the Haunted Mansion. He loved all the changes and thought the new improved version was even better than his beloved original. After narrowly escaping a dastardly fate at the hands of all those 999 ghosts, we braved the perils of the swashbuckling pirate world on Pirates of the Caribbean. This old standard never loses its appeal for either of us.
After all that adventure, our tummies were now rumbling badly so we grabbed a bite to eat at Pecos Bill’s. We both had bacon double cheeseburgers, fries and chocolate chip cookies. One truly has to love the fixings bar at this establishment. You could just about make a meal of the fixings alone.
It was now time for our afternoon break so we could be well rested for tonight’s Pirate and Princess Party - another first for Kirk. However, we did make a few stops on our way out - first to socialize with Rafiki and Timon, next to watch the Dream Along with Mickey show (another thing Kirk had never experienced before). He was in agreement that this is definitely the best show they’ve had at the castle since we’ve started coming to WDW regularly over five years ago. Then we spotted Jiminy Cricket meeting and greeting guests in Town Square so we just had to get an autograph and photo with him. Finally, we checked at the barber shop and there was no line so Kirk got his hair cut. This time around, he opted not to get the whole coloured gel thing done as they were calling for rain for the evening and he didn’t want to deal with a gooey meltdown on his head as a result. Instead, he got liberally sprinkled with pixie dust.
We rested and relaxed at our hotel until it was time for our dinner reservation at Tony’s. Once again we had a fantastic meal here! Kirk ordered the beef and spinach cannelloni and I had the New York Strip Loin Steak while we both had the amaretto cheesecake for dessert. We were blown away by the presentation of the dessert. It was served on plates that had the Lady and the Tramp eating spaghetti scene etched on them in chocolate.
Now it was time to start enjoying the party in earnest. We began with the Laugh Floor Comedy Club since Kirk had yet to experience this attraction. It was hysterically funny, particularly when Kirk got singled out on screen as “the guy who’s going to buy everyone churros.” They then made fun of his glittery head (compliments of all that pixie dust from the barber shop) and his strange attire (methinks they were referring to his fully loaded pin vest).
By the time we got out of the Laugh Club, we barely had time to hit a couple of the treat places from the treasure map before we had to grab our favourite spot for the parade (the ledge outside Pecos Bill’s). Normally we would wait for the second parade but due to sparse attendance, they had only scheduled one parade for this evening. I had feared that would mean there would be hordes of people crowding the streets to watch it but not so. I gather this particular party didn’t sell terribly well as we didn’t encounter any large crowds all evening.
The parade was delightful and Kirk thoroughly enjoyed his first viewing of it. As for me, I still find this parade a little too short for my liking. We still had lots of time before the special fireworks were scheduled to begin so we spent it doing what Kirk loves best: character hunting. First we spotted Jasmine and, once Kirk stopped hyperventilating over her attire, we got our autographs and photo ops. Then it was off to Toontown to socialize with Princess Minnie and Princess Daisy who were looking particularly fetching in their lovely princess garb.
As we were making our way around the park, we used our treasure map to locate the various spots to pick up pirate treasure. Actually, that whole scenario was a little disappointing this time around. Firstly, they did not supply guests with any of those cute little black velvet souvenir loot bags in which to store their treasure so carrying around the goodies quickly became problematic. Secondly, horror of horrors, there was no chocolate being distributed. There were the mandatory beads of course and in place of the aforementioned chocolate, there were such things as candy necklaces and lollipops, etc.
Our feet were feeling a little weary by this point so we looked for someplace that we could sit down and still have a decent view of the fireworks. We found it over at the Noodle Terrace. We grabbed a table right by the railing and had a fantastic view of the spectacle. These particular fireworks remain my favourite of all that Disney has to offer in the fireworks realm.
Although the party was now starting to wind down, we still had time to get some photos taken with Mickey, Pluto, Donald and Goofy, all dressed in their best pirate gear. On our way back to Main Street, we encountered an unexpected character greeting opportunity - the Genie and Abu from Aladdin. Abu was absolutely spectacular - he got so into his part that he was stealing items from people and hiding them all over the set. He was a sheer bundle of energy, bouncing up and down and in general being the true monkey that he is.
We had one last stop to make before calling it a night and that was in the shops to buy our special Princess and Pirate Party pins. Then, totally exhausted but exceptionally happy, we headed back to the Boardwalk Villas for the night.

Joy

[DyanKJ130]

Great update, Joy!! Sounds like you had a wonderful time in the MK! You sure did get to meet a lot of characters! I'm you were disappointed in the lack of chocolate at the party.....I wonder if they had problems with it melting, so they axed it. Can't wait to hear more

[PrincessSharon]

Just catching up, Joy. Sorry about the rough start, but it sounds like things took a turn for the better right away! You sure met a lot of characters in a short period. Looking forward to more, please.

[Joy J]

Today was our day to immerse ourselves in the movie business at Disney’s Hollywood Studios so we were up and out bright and early. Our first stop was the Great Movie Ride, followed by one of Kirk’s favourite attractions: Star Tours. After spending some time browsing through all of the Star Wars paraphernalia in the gift shop, we watched Sounds Dangerous before zipping over to the ABC Commissary for an early lunch. This was our first time having lunch here and I’m afraid I wouldn’t recommend this place to anyone. We both had the Cuban sandwich with plantain chips. Kirk had a strawberry parfait for dessert and I had the chocolate mousse. Although the desserts were fine, the main course was pretty much inedible. We then attended a showing of the Voyage of the Little Mermaid before visiting our old friends the Muppets again in their 3-D movie. On our way back to the entrance we spotted Mickey and Donald so we stopped for a meet and greet and a nice photo op.


It was now time for our midday hotel break. Afterwards it was back to Hollywood Studios for some shopping followed by our dinner at Hollywood and Vine. There was a crowd of people waiting to be seated when we arrived so I figured it was probably going to be a fairly long wait for our table. The cast members handled the crowds in a very organized fashion and in twenty minutes we were seated a nice window table in the far corner of the restaurant. I haven’t eaten here in a few years and I was very pleasantly surprised by both the variety and quality of the offerings. Everything was delicious and both of us enjoyed our meal tremendously. At the end of the meal we pocketed our prized voucher for reserved admittance to Fantasmic and off we went to kill some time before the big show. We did some more shopping, wandered lazily through One Man’s Dream and then spent quite a bit of time admiring the assorted busts and footprints outside the Chinese Theatre that houses the Great Movie Ride.
We decided to head over to the special reserved entrance for Fantasmic (beside Oscar’s) about 40 minutes before show time. We were really glad we did as we were able to get seats on the far left of the reserved section so we were pretty much smack dab in the middle of the theatre. I was surprised by how quickly the theatre filled up and by show time, there didn’t appear to be an empty seat in the house. We both thoroughly enjoyed Fantasmic, as always, and returned to our hotel afterwards to make it an early night so we could be raring to go bright and early the next morning.
Joy

[bfth]

Wow! You really pack alot into your days!

[PrincessSharon]

Another great day, Joy. I, too, had a bad meal at ABC Commissary. Actually, my whole family gave it a thumbs down. And we had burgers - how can you mess that up. It'll be a while before I go back. Looking forward to more.

[Joy J]

This morning we decided to treat ourselves to some delicious cinnamon buns from the Boardwalk Bakery before strolling over to Future World to do our usual grab a Fastpass for Soarin, then ride it in the Standby line thing. Then it was off to find that ever elusive Nemo on Kirk’s fave ride. After exiting Nemo, we had a little debate about what to do next. I have a real soft spot for Turtle Talk with Crush whereas Kirk, although he likes it, is not quite the same fan of it as I am. After a quick little reminder that I was willingly letting myself be subjected to umpteen rides on Nemo, Kirk agreed that maybe seeing Turtle Talk with Crush was a fairly good idea after all.
Well, it turned out to be way more than merely a good idea. On our way into the theatre for the Crush show, the Dream Squad popped out with special Mickey Dream Ears for everyone entering the theatre. What a lovely surprise addition to our day! Crush was as hysterically funny as ever (I get an enormous kick out of watching the children in the audience interact with him). By the time we were done with Crush, our Fastpasses for Soarin were ready to be used so we were soon up, up and away in the skies over California.
By this time, we’d worked up a bit of an appetite so we stopped for lunch at Sunshine Seasons. We both had the grilled pork chop platter and for dessert I had the chocolate cake while Kirk opted for the Key Lime pie. Everything was delicious.
We still had some time on our hands before our scheduled mid-day break so we rode Journey into the Imagination with Figment before zipping over to Figment’s place to do a meet and greet with him. It’s so nice that he has his own special little area now for this purpose. We then took another trip on Spaceship earth before leisurely strolling back through World Showcase to the International Gateway. Kirk hadn’t seen the new version of the O Canada movie yet so we stopped along the way for a viewing of that and also paused to visit with Pooh, Eeyore and Tigger in the U.K. pavilion.
After a nice long afternoon break, we returned to the World Showcase and browsed through the countries riding both Maelstrom and the new version of the boat ride in Mexico before checking in for our dinner reservation at the San Angel Inn. We particularly enjoyed gawking at some of the character topiaries that were already in place in preparation for the upcoming Flower and Garden Festival. Once we got to the restaurant podium, we requested a table by the water and were told that might require a slightly longer wait. We happily agreed to that as it meant we could spend some more quality time shopping in that great pavilion. I could spend forever in there anyways just sopping up the atmosphere. However, it turned out that we didn’t wait more than about ten minutes before our little beeper thingy lit up and started buzzing. We were led to a lovely table by the water - this is such a beautiful setting for a meal.
We started dinner with a pitcher of sangria and Kirk ordered the steak and shrimp while I had the filet. Both of our main courses were excellent as was the service. Unfortunately the desserts weren’t quite up to par for our tastes. I had the bread pudding and Kirk had the flan and we didn’t care for either dessert - much too bland to suit us.
After dinner, we were both still feeling rather energized so we made a last minute decision to head over to the Magic Kingdom to catch the second showing of Spectromagic. It turned out that we got there in time to ride Haunted Mansion (Kirk’s all-time fave) and watch Wishes before making our way over to Frontierland to see if we could nab my favourite spot for watching any of the Magic Kingdom parades - that ledge outside Pecos Bill’s. To my great surprise there was almost no one out and about in Frontierland when we got over there. So I sat on the ledge and saved our seats while Kirk went and enjoyed a ride on Pirates of the Caribbean. When he returned, he had a little surprise for me - an adorable little Pirates of the Caribbean bear.
As it got closer and closer to parade time, I was shocked to find very few people in the vicinity waiting to see the parade. As a matter of fact, there couldn’t have been more than a dozen guests in that end of the park. Because of this, right before the parade reached us, a cast member came along and asked if those of us that were there would mind making a whole lot of noise so that the characters in the parade would be able to hear us. Okay, that’s all they had to ask. As each float approached, we clapped, we stamped our feet, we yelled, we waved wildly and in general just made as much noise as possible. So did the few other guests that were in attendance. And what a reaction that sparked from the parade participants. They hammed it up incredibly for us. They bowed, they blew kisses and in the case of the characters who were walking the parade route, they came up and directly interacted with us in one fashion or another. Some of the characters did special little dances for us, some pretended to fall over backwards in response to our enthusiastic applause and there were a myriad other special reactions I had never witnessed before. I guess they were only able to do this because of the very small number of guests present. It made for an incredibly magic moment and I ended up with tears streaming down my face before very long.
After the parade ended, we just sat there for a few moments revelling in the fantasy and magic we’d just experienced before heading back to the hotel for the night.

Joy