The Yoopers at Disneyworld - PIX JUST ADDED! About This Page:

[loobyoxlip]

Left northern Michigan at 1:45 pm, flights were eventless, arrived into MCO at 7:15. Checked in the long line at Mear's (w/only 1 person working the counter!), and go outside to wait for the bus. Guy at the podium says about 20 min. In about 2 min., our buzzer goes off, and we get to board right away. He makes 3 more stops and then we are on our way to ASMo. He stops at 2 hotels before ours. No big deal. We check in around 9:00, our front desk CM was very nice. She went over everything going on in the parks in detail with us. By the ASMo tree:
When we finally got to our room it was about 9:40. This is when I noticed the door to the connecting room (which was NOT ours) was wide open. I went to shut it and of course the lock is broken. I called the front desk and a maint. guy was there in about 10 min. but he could not fix the lock, he had to go get a new one. He did tell us we were free to go, as my son was itching to go swimming in the cool Fantasia pool. Ok, thanks for the offer, but I am not about to leave all my stuff sitting in a room when the people next door can open the door and have access to it all!! So he finally comes back about 20 min. later. My son had manually turned on the t.v., or I would have known already that the remote doesn't work either! He tries to fix the lock then announces it is not the right type of lock. He goes on some long spiel about 9/11 and does no work while he is talking. Finally he announces it WILL fit and puts the lock on. My son if very frustrated by now, as it is almost 11:00, we have just wasted our first hour 20 min. by sitting in the room b/c something wasn't fixed earlier in the day like it should have been. I ask the maint. guy why housekeeping wouldn't have reported it and he tells me "after the Haitian speaking housekeeper tells her Spanish speaking boss who tells us", that things get lost in the process. Hmm, that's nice to know! Effective communication is a huge part of customer service. Anyway, good thing it is a fairly nice evening, we go to the pool until about 11:30 then go back to the room and rush to change as the food court will be closing soon and we haven't eaten supper yet!!! I had the meatball sub, which I found pretty tasty. Kylor got some prepackaged grapes and cheese and of course the dirt and worms. Oh, did I forget to mention it is just myself and my 6 year old on this trip? I have a 3 year old, but he stayed with my friend while we went, and as he claims, he had a "gooder" time than we did!! LOL. We sleep well, even though there are 3 tears in my bedsheet and the floor had crumbs on it. Definitely would never stay at ASMo again. The next morning, we took pix with all the Toy Story/101 Dalmations figures and checked out. Leaving our room:
The CM at the front desk told me they did not transfer luggage and we could not take the Disney transport buses with luggage, so we forked over $10 to take a cab from ASMo to AKL. Boy, was it worth it though. Thank goodness, because my impression of DisneyWorld so far is NOT great!!!

Wow, we check in at the AKL and we could have a room that is ready if we liked. I told the CM I just wanted a good view, as we had a savannah room, so if we had to wait, so be it. She put us in a room with bunk beds overlooking the sunset savannah. The room was not ready yet, so we walk about the lobby.
It is pouring outside, so we just look at things in Zawadi Marketplace and walk around some more. At 1, I call to see if the room is reay, it isn't. We had PS at Rainforest Cafe at 3, I decided to just go early and wait. We checked in at 1:20 and our table was ready at 1:50. Not bad. This is my sons favorite restaurant, so we had a good time. Bought some ponchos and headed back to AKL. Room is ready and Tobe, the most wonderful bellman, takes us up to our room with our luggage. Of course, I lose my room key on the way up. So he lets us in and the phone is ringing. It's the front desk, someone had just turned in my room key! Arrgghh. Tobe was very friendly, very knowledgable. Told us how the thermostat worked (wish I had known at at ASMo that 69 degrees and below was a/c and 70 degrees and above was heat). Still raining quite hard, but we do see some ankole cattle and the dreaded vultures from our balcony. The savannah we are overlooking is small, but our view is fantastic, and there was never a lack of animals to view!! We played a few hands of Uno then headed downstairs for the storytelling. Absolutely packed, probably b/c of the weather and it was indoors instead of around the fire pit. Still a great storyteller. Then we went and got our refillable mug at Mara's (a great food court, and Peggy the cashier was fantastic!)and headed back to the sunset savannah room for game time. My son wasn't too into this, so we went back to our room, I watched 'Third Watch' while he played his Gameboy, then off to bed, as we have PS at Breakfastasaurus at 8:10 the next morning.

[ 06-23-2003, 07:54 PM: Message edited by: loobyoxlip ]

[loobyoxlip]

Forgot to mention the night before we had also gotten a quick bite to eat at Mara's. DS had the cheese pizza and I had the caesar salad pizza. Sounds like a strange combination, but it was pleasantly yummy. A strange combo of warm and cold.

Tues. morning the phone rings, I hand it to son who is still groggy, but he manages to decipher it's Mickey Mouse and fully wakes up. We head out to the bus stop, which I found very accessible. I love the fact that AKL doesn't share a bus with any other resort. Such a difference from when we switched to Beach Club and we shared a bus with 4 other resorts. Quick ride over to AK. We get our picture taken in front of the absolutely jaw-dropping tree, but when we go to pick it up later, it's blurry. I'm a sucker, I still buy it, as the wallet size picture look all right. We head on over to the turnstile for people going to the breakfast. We are 10 minutes late, but no problem at all. Our guide walks us over the the Breakfastosaurus, and along the way points out sights of interest. She is a great guide, very Disney-like!! We get to the restauarant, and they stand you in front of the timetable, map, something or other, I wasn't paying much attention until she started walking us towards the buffet and I heard the words "Krispy Kreme doughnuts". What?!? OMG, I have only had these once on Ohio, as they are no where NEAR where we live. Very excited. We are seated at a table near the exit door. Our guide also ends up being our hostess. She is very accomodating, making sure we have everything we need, and very speedily, too. First to the table is Pluto. I had heard they were decked out in holiday gear, so we were a little disappinted Pluto only had a piece of holly stuck in his collar. Goofy had 2 Christmas bulbs hanging from his hat. Not that it mattered, my son was excited to see the characters.
And this is the first time we've done an autograph book (our 2 previous trips to DL we only took pictures).
Breakfast was OK, I was too full on KK doughnuts to try much else. We leave the restaurant about 9:20, head on over to Triceratop Spin. My son had really wanted to go on this. The beginning is pretty tame, the ending is hilarious, but being 6 he thought it was pretty scary. Over to Primeval Whirl, again walked right on. Didn't wait in line for anything all day at AK. It was a perfect day! We went on Dinosaur next, I wasn't really impressed. I actually don't remember much about it, I guess I thought it was pretty boring. Off to the Boneyard
, slides were closed because of the water, but the digsite did open while we were in there. He had a great 1/2 hour digging around for those fossil bones. At 10:20, we head over to Tarzan Rocks! Waited about 15 minutes in the theater, show started, it was great. They got through one set then made an announcement the show would not continue due to the moisture on the stage. Hmm, OK. We head out on our way to Asia and are sidetracked by the character meet and greet of Pooh, Piglet and Eeyore. They were on break the cast member at the entrance said but would be back shortly. While we were walking down the path, who should appear from their break, our good buddies Pooh, Piglet and Eeyore. We walked down to the meet and greet with them.
Thrilled my son.
My son took my picture with Piglet too (I LOVE Piglet).



Off to Asia again. Oh, wait, there's Tigger up ahead with 2 people in line. Detour again for pic's, autographs with Tigger.
I think we're off to Asia now. Yes, but we encounter coming out of a path in Asia on the way to Kali River Rapids. Again, we are the only people around!! Such a great day. Finally make it to Kali River Rapids, walk right on. We are in a boat with 4 hilarious adults. I brought my poncho, this is my son's ride, NOT mine. I don't care if people laugh at me. It is so not crowded there, the CM's ask us when we get to the exit if we would like to stay on and ride again. Would we? Of course!!! By now, one of our friends in the boat is completely soaked, mascara dripping down her cheeks. Of course her poncho'd friends are giving her heck about it. We finish with this ride and go through one of trails, the one with the bats. Ack! I hate bats. My son was super excited to see the tigers, even though they were just lounging around.

Off to Africa.....

[ 06-23-2003, 01:13 PM: Message edited by: loobyoxlip ]

[tiggerlvr]

How much did you love AKL? We were there from 12-3-02 - 12-07-02 we loved this place so much everyone of the CM's we met were more than friendly such a great place.... [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[tikibird]

Sorry you had a bit of a rough start, but sounds like things really picked up from there!

Enjoying your report, and looking forward to hearing more! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[tikibird]

Enjoyed hearing about AK (but sorry you missed Lilo and Stitch! [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img] ) and MVMCP. Hope you didn't wake up too late the next day with no wake up call!

More please... [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[AKLRULZ]

Very nice! [img]graemlins/wavin.gif[/img]

[loobyoxlip]

tiggerlvr, oh, I just could not put into words how much we loved the AKL. When we go back (no plans yet), we would never stay anywhere else. We got a great rate b/c I am an airline employee, so it's well worth the $$. So we are off to Africa. We run into another character from Jungle Book (ack, I can't remember his name, and he doesn't sign, so can't check to autograph book to remember) Again, no line. But he is standing in front of one of the popcorn carts. YUMMY! What a smell. Head over to Kilimanjaro Safaris, posted wait time 5 minutes, ended up being about 15. Not bad at all. A great ride, lots of animals out, the elephants were my sons favorites by far.
After the ride, Kylor gets a Mickey Mouse ice cream bar. I was going to take a picture of him eating it (I am a picture fiend, took 9 rolls while we were there), and a CM from a nearby cart came over and offered to take one of both of us.
As lots of CM's do, asked me where we were from. Oddly enough, he has heard of it and we have a nice long conversation about the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He comes up here every summer. That was nice. We go into one of the nearby stores. My son has recently started collecting snowglobes, so we pick up an DAK snowglobe and a pretty African tree oranament for my friend who is watching my other son. Have those sent to our hotel, and we are off to Camp Minnie-Mickey for Festival of the Lion King. If there were 1 attraction in all of DisneyWorld I wish I could describe to do it justice, it is this show! However, there is just no way to put this show into words. It is definitely a must see. I did recognize Sheila, one of the CM's at the show, from being in the Disney Magazine. I didn't want the show to ever end. It was awe-inspiring, to say the least. After the show went and met Minnie and Daisy at their greeting places at Camp Minnie-Mickey


We are on our way to see It's Tough to be a Bug (we have seen it twice at Disneyland), but on the way who is out signing autographs but Lilo & Stitch. Wait in line and about halfway there, they have to leave *sob* We make our way to ITTBAB, sit in the back, and something must have been wrong with our row. Didn't even get the surprise when all the bugs left the building at the end of the show. Bummer! Go to a snack stand and get 2 amazingly yummy Nestle choc. chip cookies and a lemonade. It starts to drizzle, so we sit on a bench and just people watch for a while. Slows down a little, so we head over to the photo place by the gate where I purchase our fuzzy picture by the tree. Son has decided he doesn't want to stay to watch the parade, which is only 1/2 hour away now. I figure it might be rained out, anyway, so we head back to the hotel. By the time we get there, the rain has stopped. Oh, well. We get on our swimsuits and head for the pool. OK, I had read tons of comments on how warm the pool here is, some had even commented it was TOO warm. Ack it was freezing. It felt like Lake Superior in the spring. Maybe it was because of all the rainwater from the previous day?!? I'm not sure, but son wouldn't go in, and I don't blame him. We found one of the hot tubs and sat in that for a while. Head back to our room. Kylor spends a while on the balcony of course. I take a quick snooze while he watches cartoons. Of course, he will NOT nap. When I wake up, it's 6:30. Guess what starts at 7? Mickeys Very Merry Christmas Party!!!

We get there about 7:30. People are lined up all over to watch the parade. We decide to skip this parade and were on our way to Big Thunder Mountain when we found one of the places they are taking free pictures. So we wait in line for about 25 min., when it is finally our turn to go up, there are only about 5 people after us. Tip: If you are not going to watch the first parade, get your picture taking DURING it. Wish I had known that beforehand, we could've walked right in then. Oh, well. Kylor's not too into parades at all, so we head over to Fantasyland and walk right on Winnie the Pooh (cute ride!) Then we go right on Buzz Lightyear, I knew the 100,000 point target, but apparantly my gun missed it. I thought the guns were really hard to aim, and I ended up with a measly 36,000. Kylor had 16,000 and he didn't even know what he was doing. LOL. We walk over to Diamond Horseshoe Saloon to catch the 8:15 show. The parade was not done yet, so we couldn't cross the road. Apparantly we aren't the only ones who hopped right in there after the parade, it is packed, but having only 2 of us in the party, we do manage to snag 2 seats on the upper level. Son thought this show was a game, so he is disappointed. LOL. I really enjoyed the show. Very few children in here, as makes sense. The kids wouldn't get any of the jokes anyway. Corny, but cute. I loved the Christmas songs. They sang Gma got run over by a Reindeer, but in the part where they says 'drinking beer and playing cards' they changed to something like 'playing bridge and gin rummy', anyway, I noticed how they probably aren't allowed to say beer. At the same time, they are picking on some guy in the audience by tipping their hand to their mouth, indicating he is too drunk to understand anything that's going on!

We leave a tad early to walk down by the castle to see the fireworks. OK, I've never seen the normal firewords at MK, so I had nothing to compare these to. Phenomenal is all I can say! Wow, we were beyond impressed. We stood right on the bridge between the castle and Liberty Square. It was a prime viewing area. After they are unfortunately done, we head over to the show Mickey's twas the night before Christmas. Now, Kylor did not like this show at all. I loved it, but even with the characters, it is definitely an adult show. Lots of singing and dancing, and not a familiar story line to follow along with (like Tarzan or Beauty and the Beast) He was bored, and just rested on me the whole time. We head over to Magic Carpet Rides of Aladdin, they let us ride as many times as we wanted, as there was no line. This is a great ride to experience after dark. I thought the ambiance was just so surreal. I could've rode it all night. Son is getting tired now. We head over to get our free cookies and hot chocolate and just sit on a bench by MCOA and watch it go around and around. I want to ride again! Kylor says he's still hungry and I realize we haven't had a complete meal since 8:30 that morning. I have a quick and casual meal voucher, so we head over to Peco's Bills. We order about 10:40 which is when the 2nd parade begins. The voucher is a superb deal at this restaurant. I got the chicken wrap and could only eat half, because I was saving my room for the absolutely sinful chocolate cream pie. YUM!!! We are done about 11:10 and go out the back entrance. Well, can't go anywhere, because the parade is going the other way this time, ending around Splash Mountain. There is a little grassy patchy at the end of the parade route. It is fenced off by some low posts, but there were 3-4 other people in there, so we hop in there, too. Great view, NO ONE in front of you and a lot of the walking chracters shook your hand or danced in front of you, etc. After all, you are the last people they get to entertain on the parade route. Parade ends, and I guess everyone leaves the park. We go over and hop right on Splash Mountain. I got a little wet, not bad. It was my first time on this ride, though. Man, the anticipation for that drop is unreal. I almost lost it. LOL, so so fun though. Now my son is wide awake, we head over to Big Thunder Mountain before calling it a night. Our bus to AKL is waiting and we go back to the hotel with every child on the bus sawing wood. What a night! MVMCP is a must! We had a great time.

Hmm, PS at 1900 Park Fare at 9 in the morning when it is 1 when we finally get back to our hotel room? I'm thinking not. Do not call for a wake up call and we are both out before our heads hit the pillow.

[ 06-23-2003, 01:58 PM: Message edited by: loobyoxlip ]

[TINKN]

Great TR! More please!

[loobyoxlip]

I got up Wed. morning about 9, Kylor of course is still snoozin'. I take a shower than head out to the balcony. Nothing going on, just some vultures hanging out again. Kylor finally gets up around 9:45, we get ready quick and are on our way to Magic Kingdom by 10:30.
We take the train over to Splash Mountain, but they are not offering FastPasses and the posted wait time if 60 min!!! Ack, we walk over to BTMR and get a Fastpass. Then hop right back on the train and go to Mickey's Toontown Fair as he wants to see Mickey and Minnie's house. Mickey's house is very cool. I thought it was a little weird that everything was roped off, though. In Disneyland, he got to sit on all the furniture and play the piano in Mickey's house, so he was a little disappointed to just look. Minnie's house, of course, you can touch things and sit on her furniture. Of course, her house is much more crowded. He tried to get into the kitchen to play with the microwave, etc., but there was a group of teenage girls in there that were not moving. We leave through the sunroom and Pluto is over in the gazebo. Kylor claims he's already met Pluto, so we go into a nearby store where they have the character greetings. We get in the Cinderella line, but you can't see how long the line is b/c of the way the waiting lines are formed, so we decide to skip that and head back to the train to take us back to Big Thunder Mountain as it's close to 12:30 which is the beginning of our FastPass time. Kylor has the Wonderland Tea Party at 1:30, so we are on a schedule. We ride BTMR and then take the train back to Main Street. I am trying to walk as little as possible as I have a bad back and it was getting a little sore. We hop on the monorail to take us to the Grand Floridian. They stop for almost 5 minutes at the Contemporary, and it's getting awfully close to 1:30. Now I'm getting worried, b/c I know after the doors are closed at the Tea Party they don't let anyone in or out! We finally pull into the GF and rush down to 1900 Park Fare where the Tea Party is held. We make it just in time. He gets his name tag and is jostled right into the restaurant. Leaving him at the tea party:
I take a quick picture, blow him a kiss and the think 'What the heck am I going to do for an hour by myself?' LOL. I walk around the beautiful grounds but quickly decide this is one hotel I would not want to stay at. A little too upscale and stuffy for my tastes. I go over to their food court and buy a huge oatmeal raisin cookie and a raspberry slurpie and sit outside to eat it. The little birds here are very domesticated. One hops up on my table and sits about 2 feet from me, while others are down by my feet.
So cute. I walk around some more than admire the gingerbread house and the tree and other decoration
before just sitting down and relaxing for my last 15 min.

I go to pick Kylor up from the party. I won't ruin it for those of you who are going to do this, but show up a few minutes earlier than when you are supposed to pick them up. SO cute! He had a great time. Alice and the Mad Hatter were there, and each kid got a personal picture with them that they signed and put in a little folder. Very nice time. We head out to the GF bus stop and climb on the bus to MGM.
We get there a little after 3 and head right over to Rock n' Roller Coaster. Posted wait time of 20 min., so we get a Fastpass then wait in line for the ride. I loved this ride, but I wish it were a little longer. I think the roller coaster at California Adventure is better. Our Fastpass time is up when we get off the ride, so we go right back on. The intro part w/Aerosmith gets a little older every time you have to stand through it. But I digress, my son loves this ride.

We walk over to Sounds Dangerous with Drew Carey. Boy, I feel biased, but again I liked the Great Moments w/Mr. Lincoln show at Disneyland better! When they tell you this show is in complete darkness for 7 minutes, they aren't lying. My son did not like this at all. Basically just hid in my shirt the whole time! We walk over by New York Street and pick up our glasses for Spectacle of Lights. It's 5:45, so we head over to '50's Prime Time cafe for our 6:00 priority seating. People are in line trying to just get seating without PS arrangements. No can do, they are booked all night. They seat us almost immediately and hand us the ViewMaster. YUMMY! Can I just get dessert as my main course? Our waiter, "Dad", takes our order. I had the fried chicken, son had the mac & cheese. Oh, man, that was some finger lickin' good chicken. Mmm-mmm. Our waiter is kinda boring compared to the other ones in there. The only time he teased me was when he saw I had demolished everything on my plate. I saw his eyes widen and I said 'Is there something you'd like to say?' and he said 'Yes, I think your last name is Hoover'. LOL. Didn't stop me from ordering Dad's Super Sundae, however. So yummy, and the caramel corn on it was a weird, albeit yummy alternative. A big family was dining next to us, and the 2 little boys told on their dad for not eating his green beans. The waitress did the "choo-choo" train trick and he still wouldn't eat them, so he had to go stand in the corner. She let him go sit down, but when she brought out his hot fudge sundae, she had neatly arranged the green beans around the outside. Very clever!

We finish as much of the sundae as we can and head over to Osborne's Spectacle of Lights. It's 7:00 now. We start walking through, but uh-oh, we are certainly going against the flow of people. Apparantly there is a certain direction to walk through. We turn around and go back the right way. If you are in any type of hurry, do NOT attempt this. There were so many people, you couldn't pass anyone even if you wanted to. We were pretty much stuck where we were, but it was nice to slowly walk through and take it all in. Such a beautiful "spectacle". Stop at a shop near the gate before leaving to buy the MGM snowglobe. Kylor wants to hold it. I give him a big lecture about how it's breakable and to hold on tight. Against my better judgment, I let him hold it. Im sure you can guess what happened. As I'm looking at some keychains, CRASH!. I am so embarassed. I go to tell a cashier and hear someone crunching in the broken glass. I grab his hand after telling the cashier and book it out of there.

There is a bus at the AKL bus stop, but it is filled with standing people, too, so we wait for the next bus. It come about 15-20 min. later and we head back to AKL. I have a message from the marketplace that our package from Animal Kingdom is in and ready to pick up and also a message from the front desk advising me of our Express check-out envelope that will be on our door tomorrow morning. It's only about 8:30 when we get back, so we grab our mug and go to get me some coffee. Kylor, of course, races ahead of me on the stairs. When I get down to the overlook of the savannah, he is standing there with a guide looking out of a night vision scope. There is nothing on the savannah to see right now, but those are SO cool to look out of. We were there about 15 min. talking to the guide and looking out of the scope. Way in the distance, we see some animal, but even the guide can't make out what it is. He gives Kylor a picture of some ankole cattle taken with the night vision scope. VERY COOL! It is one of his most treasured souvenirs. We head to Mara's for the coffee and go back to the room. Kylor looks at his DisneyWorld book while I watch The Amazing Race. Then we are both off the bed, tomorrow is Epcot day. We have all day planned there, so no hurry in the morning. We are switching hotels to the Beach Club tomorrow I wish now I hadn't done that, but who knew at the time how much we would love AKL? I had gotten everything packed during the Amazing Race, so all to do in the morning is call the bellhop to come get our luggage and we'll be on our way to Epcot....

[ 06-23-2003, 06:50 PM: Message edited by: loobyoxlip ]

[loobyoxlip]

So we get up about 9 the next day, bellhop comes to get our bags and they will transfer them to the Beach Club for us! We hang out a little while and see the giraffes. Apparantly as soon as the bellhop gets your bags, you're supposed to be out of there, though, because housekeeping just came barging into the room about 5 min. later?!? So we leave, saying good-bye to our favorite resort, knowing we should have just stayed there.
But we didn't know before we got there how much we were going to love it. Aww, oh well.

We get to Epcot about 11:30 and head right over to Test Track to get a Fastpass. Of course the machine I pick is jammed, so I have to track down a CM to open the machine and retrieve the Fastpass. Our time is only 1/2 hour away, so we just walk around and get acquainted with Epcot. Man, I LOVE it here! So much to see and do. We go into Innoventions and send my mom and dad a video email, which they never received. Kylor played a tag game on computers against 3 other kids, that was cute. Everyone gets some "award" at the end, so no one feels left out, which I thought was a good idea. We check out the paper making stop and then head over to Test Track. They give one of those electronic cards to Kylor to calculate the time from entrance to ride time. He must look like a responsible little boy, because he ends up getting these at 3 other rides! A very cool ride, I must say. Not very comfortable seating, though, for someone with a sore back. I didn't enjoy it as much as I should have because of this, but the way everything was set up was so neat!

We head over to Coca-Cola place and taste the beverages. Now I had already heard about Beverly, so I knew it was gonna be bad, but goodness, not THAT bad! Blech. I really liked the Brasilian one, which she informed me they don't even have in Brasil anymore...As we exit, the fountain show is just beginning to the Christmas music. OMG, this is SO SO cool!
Kylor was literally statue still through the whole thing. We ended up watching it again later in the day. I wish we could've seen it at night! We head over to Electric Umbrella for a quick lunch and then over to Spaceship Earth. Absolutely no line this time of day, we walk right on and are the only people within sight of any of the cars! I like this ride. It is one I had literally no expectations for, because I hadn't read/heard much about it other than that it was a must-see. We both enjoyed this. We head over to The Living Seas, Kylor's big must-see at Epcot. Spend a while in there, I am not into sea life at all, but he is running all over spotting this and that. As we're sauntering away from Living Seas, it starts pouring. We head for the nearest attraction, which now happens to be Journey into Your Imagination. We would NOT have gone on this if it has not been raining. Wow, what a good thing. The not planned parts of the trip seem to be the best! The ride was nice, but it was ImageWorks! (the shop you go into after the ride) that hooked us. We send some e-postcards from here (that only 1 person out of 5 received!) and played with literally everything in here! So cool. Kylor got a photo made of him skydiving over DisneyWorld.
He was mad, though, because he wanted the Monsters, Inc. one...LOL. Then we headed over to a photo booth and got one of the $5 photos made of the 2 of us. It actually turned out really, really cute!
I couldn't believe it when we left here and we had been in there for an hour and a half! Wow!!! Time really did fly in there.
We head over to the other Innoventions and send yet some more e-postcards that NOT ONE PERSON RECEIVED! I'm not sure what's up with that. I know we did everything right every time. I was disappointed because I thought that was such a neat thing. Kylor plays some video games and a really cool interactive game where he stood on a pad and looked at a big computer screen and he had to jump up to bust the balls at the top of the screen. It was hilarious, him jumping all over and of course there's nothing over him, it's all on the screen. How cute!

It's around 4, so we head over to World Showcase, as we have PS at the Candlelight Processional at 5. SO glad we chose the 5:00 performance, as later in the evening there is a huge downpour that lasts the rest of the night. On the way to the show, we stop off at Canada and get a Beaver Tail. We do live 3 hours from Canada, but I had never had one before. Quite tasty. Wander our way on down to USA, I want to stop at every country, but no time. We get there about 4:40 and most of the PS section is already full. We sit in the front row. We could see fine, but I feel we didn't quite get the whole "view". I would have liked to have sat farther back. It was a pretty show, but again Kylor was bored, as I knew he would be. I was very excited to see Yolanda Adams, though, she was very into her part and sang with a lot of the songs, smiling every so often. Really nice to see. You could tell she was enjoying her role as speaker.

After the show, we go straight across and there is Santa and Mrs. Claus. While we are in line, it starts sprinkling. We head over to Germany and I buy him his passport. I completely forget we get a 15% discount at Epcot today because we had the Processional package! Bummer. We ride Maelstrom (very cool!) and visit the Norway store
and El Rio del Tiempo in Mexico (a little outdated, but still a really, nice calm ride that Kylor wanted to go on again). It's about 1/2 hour before our PS at San Angel, but we check in anyway and are seated immediately. I had the Plato Mexicano (so so so so yummy!) and a strawberry margarita (have I mentioned the word yummy yet?). Everything was great, but I wish they would give you a choice of desserts. Flan is just NOT my cup of tea. Blech. Our waitress kept apologizing for being slow (I thought she was doing fine) and ended up giving me my end of dinner coffee for free and even brought Kylor a dish of ice cream (not sure if that was included w/his dinner or not) Shopping for sombreros in Mexico:


We leave the Inn and it is absolutely pouring! We had left our ponchos in our baggage, so we trudge on back to the boat to take us to the Beach Club, which of course is packed because it is raining. We check in at the Beach Club and the hellhop tells us to go the wrong way (he directed us to the Villas). Luckily he sees me and we figure out he missed a # in our room number and we go back to the lobby elevator to go to the correct room. It is WAY at the other end (near the entrance to Epcot). Definitely decide there is no use getting the refillable mug here, you'd have to hike way over to Beaches and Cream to get it filled! Geez. We are definitely disappinted in our room. It's nice, yes, but we liked the dark, quiet ambiance of Animal Kingdom Lodge much better. I unpack and we both just relax in bed before going to sleep. Tomorrow is a relax day, so no need to set the alarm again! ....

[ 06-23-2003, 07:03 PM: Message edited by: loobyoxlip ]

[TINKN]

Another great couple of installments. You're doing a great job.

[tikibird]

Enjoying your posts! Just saw the GF for the first time last week and had exactly the same impression you had - beautiful, but wouldn't want to stay there (unless I got a really, really good rate, of course! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] ). But, they do have really big oatmeal cookies, so that is a good thing! Keep your adventures with Kylor coming! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[loobyoxlip]

OK..here we go. Friday morning, we get up, it's not raining, but everything is wet. I take a shower and when I get out, POURING! We were gonna try mini-golfing this morning, but alas, it's not meant to be...again! I decide we might as well do some laundry. I guess rainy weather gives everyone the same idea. There thankfully are 2 washers open. Went back to the room and got Ky's Gameboy so he has something to do while we wait for the clothes. About an hour, and $2 gone in a broke dryer, later we are ready to go. Jeans and sweaters are of course not dry yet, but we hang them up in the room. Decide to go to Beaches & Cream for brunch. Take a few moments in the lobby to admire to candy carousel.
What a piece of work this is! wow. Kylor claims he can eat it all. LOL. Outside the lobby:
We get to B&C about 11:45 and are seated right away. Very small place, I think they should expand into the arcade and move the arcade somewhere else. We got there at a good time, b/c the rest of the time we were there, people we waiting. Definitely needs more space for diners. Mmm-mm, I got the double cheeseburger w/fruit. The fruit was delectable and the burger, um, beyond words. I've never had a burger so good. We used a Connections voucher. Still, I know there is no use ordering the big brownie sundae, so I go for the 1-scoop one. Apparantly the sundae maker is new and makes us the mudslide anyway. Ugh, I eat way too much and leave feeling a little sick to my stomach. We go back to the room and it has stopped raining, so there are a few people in the pool. Decide there's no time like the present, so we change into our suits and make the long trek from our room back to the pool area. Wow, this is some pool!
Kylor was too scared to do the slide, though, darnit! The sandy bottom is a nice touch. We did make the mistake of going from the hot tub back into the pool. Keep in mind it's only about 60° out, so it's an extra shock to our system. We spend about an hour and half at the pool. Too long for me, but Kylor was having a great time. I got 2 absolutely wonderful underwater shots of him here.


Back to the room to change. Kylor waiting for me:
About 3, we head over to the Boardwalk Inn to see their carnival made of candy. YUM. We catch the DD bus from Boardwalk and head over there for a few hours.
We go to the PinTraders as we had some labels from Kellogg's for a free pin. Of course these don't expire until Sept, but they are already out of them. Not surprising. I spy Ghirardelli's and though of course not hungry at all, I have to get a caramel latte and Kylor got a root beer float. Yummy! This place is to die for! We head over to World of Disney and spend a looooong time picking out souvenirs. Actually only spent $200 which I thought was really good, because now we are pretty much done with our shopping. Have it all sent to the hotel and head over to the Lego store. Kylor spent about 45 min. at the kiosks outside making Lego cars and racing them down the ramp. I just looked over the maps and relaxed. He was having a great time. Finally I persuade him to go and we browse through a few shops on our way back to the bus stops. I want to go check out some of the other hotels and their trees, so we hop on the Contemporary bus. We get some great Mickey ear pretzels and fudge at a shop in Contemporary and check out Chef Mickey's from above. Hop on the monorail to Polynesian. Oh, wow, what a great lobby. This might be one place I would like to stay at one day. Just spectacular! Since we'd already been to the GF, we stay on the monorail until TTC and then get on the bus to Wilderness Lodge. We get there about 7:45 and our PS isnt until 8:40. We walk around the grounds, the pool we found had little "geysers" popping up in it. Nobody around, it was so quiet and peaceful. A close-up of the lobby tree:
We check in at Whispering Canyon at 8:10 and she tells us it will be 25-30 min. PAST our PS time of 8:40 before we will be seated, like in an hour from the time now. Ugh. They have that really nice Lincoln Log table there in the waiting area. There are 2 couples there who obviously had been waiting a long time. You could just see their tempers building each minute that ticked by. They finally get paged, thank goodness. I was getting scared. LOL. At 8:40 exactly my pager goes off. So she was wrong about the wait after all. Yay. We are taken WAY across the main dining room to behind a partition way in the corner overlooking the lobby. Boy, I don't even feel like we're in the restaurant anymore. Our waitress comes and I order a Mudslide (?) it has ice cream, kahlua, hot fudge, vodka. Um, it was sinful. So good. I ordered the barbecue skillet and it was good, but nothing spectacular. The service was fast, but our waitress was so NOT like the ones we could hear in the main part of the restaurant. She didn't play around with anyone, just served the food and didn't even say anything when my son asked for ketchup. I had read a lot about how fun this place was, so I was very disappointed they didn't even do the stick pony ride when we were there, and we were there over an hour and a half. Probably we would not return there, although I do think being seated in the main dining room with a fun waiter/waitress would've made it a whole different experience. Kylor with his dirt and worms dessert:


We go and wait for the bus to DD and then catch the BC bus. We get back to the room about 11 and set the wake up call for 6:40 as MGM has early entry tomorrow that we want to make it to...

[ 06-23-2003, 07:17 PM: Message edited by: loobyoxlip ]

[TINKN]

Another great installment. Too bad Whispering Canyon wasn't what you had hoped for. Glad you enjoyed Beaches and Cream though and it's nice you took the time to see some of the resorts. I've never been able to do that.

[Dsnymom]

Great TR so far! Sorry to hear that you didn't get the full Whispering Canyon experience. We did when we were then in June. We were seated right on the first main aisle, and our girls were first in line for the horse race. It was so much fun! Can't wait to read your next installment.