Harris WDW Trip - Day 7: Keys to the Kingdom Tour About This Page:

[jennyh]

Day 2 Part 5: (4/13/03) - MGM Parade, RnRC, and Fantasmic!

As we left the gift shop, we got caught up in the line for the 5pm parade. We sat right up next to the rope, and Kim was chosen out of the crowd by Ms. Carlotta Diamond, one of the “starlet” CM’s, to read an introduction of the parade over the microphone. Kim was too shy, so Mike volunteered to do it. It was quite funny, because he said his lines once, and no one seemed to notice, so Carlotta said over the microphone, “I think the only ones clapping are Mike’s family. Let’s try again.” He got a little embarrassed!



We enjoyed the parade, having never seen it before. But the pavement was scorching hot! I am convinced that the only reason I ever get blisters at WDW is that the pavement is so hot. I can walk miles in a day in cool weather with no problems at all!



By now it was time for our Fastpasses to RnRC, so we followed the parade over to the front of the park and rode it. We all LOVED it! The kids had never ridden this ride before, and they are now confirmed addicts!

It was now 6:00pm, and we were all hungry, so we picked up a quick dinner at the counter service right outside the RnRC. We all had pizzas. Then we did some window shopping, and went to sit in our places for Fantasmic. The CM at the entrance had said that she recommended we be in place no later than 7:00pm to get a good seat for the show at 8:30pm. We ended up arriving in our places at 6:50 or so. I think we could have had fine seats had we waited until 7:30, but it was very nice being in the very center section, in the lower 1/3 of the section. We passed the time by making trips to the bathroom, the snack bar, and then just sitting there doing some people watching. Mike read his new Star Wars book until it was too dark to read easily. During the last 15 minutes before the show, the crowds did an amazing number of rounds of the wave, never letting it end until the beginning announcements came on.



Finally, the show began. This is the only evening show at WDW that we had never seen before. It just hadn’t fit into our touring plans on previous visits. We enjoyed the show, though I guess I was expecting something more – I don’t know what, exactly. But from the rave reviews, I guess I was expecting a more exciting plot, or more dazzling fireworks, or something. Anyway, it was pretty cool how they showed the films on the water screens. And we couldn’t help but cheer when Sorcerer Mickey saved the day in the end. (Oops, hope that didn’t ruin anything for those who didn’t know the ending.)

After the show, we turned in our locker key and got our $2 back, and then hopped on a bus back to the Contemporary. Luckily we were the first stop on the way home. We got back at about 9:30pm.

We got back up to the room to find that our beds had not yet been turned down. When the housekeeper knocked, we told her we didn’t need it tonight. David and the kids climbed into bed, but I wasn’t sleepy yet, just foot-tired. I took some Advil, searched again to no avail for the Tylenol PM, and decided to wait before getting into bed. I went down to the concourse level and shopped around the gift shops for a while until I felt sleepy. Then I crawled into bed around 11pm and slept fairly soundly.

Up Next: Morning at Epcot

[ 04-20-2003, 10:29 PM: Message edited by: jennyh ]

[kimdisneynut]

Great report.

Kim

[Carrousel Lover]

Oh COP [img]graemlins/love.gif[/img] !!! Love reading your report!

[luvnwdwgal]

Loving your trip report and pictures!!
How lucky for you all that you got to see CoP!!
Looking forward to future installments!! [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[tikibird]

Great installments and pictures (particularly enjoyed the ones of the castle and COP). What kind of a camera did you use?

Next, please... [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Jolin]

I'm impressed- the pictures are of an professional quality! what kind of camera? [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img] and film - film makes all the difference! [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[POOH]

Great report so far, especially the pictures! Can't wait for more. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[AKLRULZ]

OUTSTANDING report thus far and love the photos you've attached!

[DisneyDreams87]

Your trip report is amazing but I especially loved the pictures! I haven't been to Disney in 15 years so it was great to see it again! I can't wait until May 25th! [img]graemlins/usa.gif[/img]

[jennyh]

Thanks everyone for the nice comments about the report and the pictures. The camera is one that DH gave me for Christmas last year. It's an Olympus C-5050, and it has some really nice features. Almost all the pictures were taken on the automatic program mode - only a few required intervention on my part. The camera just does a great job on its own!

I'll try to get some more of the report up tonight, along with some more pictures.

[pparm]

Just wanted to cast my vote along with everyone else that this is a great trip report and the pictures are fantastic!
I'm on my way in 52 days, but who's counting!?!? [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[jennyh]

Day 3 Part 1: (4/14/03) – Morning at Epcot

We woke up Monday morning to another beautiful Florida day. We got ourselves ready, and set out for the monorail system at 8:10am. Once again we were able to ride in the front cab of the monorail from the TTC to Epcot. I suggested to the kids that since we had done it on Saturday, perhaps we should give our seats to another family to make their morning magical. Mike and Kim both said “No, maybe next time.” LOL!

We arrived at Epcot around 8:35, and went through the security check and the turnstiles fairly efficiently. There was a rope just past the Leave a Legacy area at which the crowd was being held back. We passed our time by taking tons of silly photos and instantly viewing them on the camera's viewfinder. There was a guy in an orange shirt standing behind us in line who kept bending over to the side thinking that he wasn't in our photos, but in fact, he was, he just looked silly in all of them!


At 8:50, they let the rope drop and people flooded into Future World, mostly headed back to Test Track. The kids and I waited at the benches near the restrooms that are back near the carwash area, while David went ahead of us to pick up Fastpasses for Test Track. The return time was 10:15-11:15. It took him about 10 minutes to get them, mainly because the machines were not working correctly right away.


First order of business for us was Innoventions East. On previous visits, our kids had not really been interested in going through these areas, I think mainly because we’d happened to poorly time our visits to when there were heavy crowds. On this morning, we practically had the place to ourselves! So we began to explore.

We first went to the UL Laboratory section, and we had a good time playing around testing hard hat and TV screen strength, and slamming doors. We looked around in the Mission: Space area, and the kids took the astronaut training exam. We gave them our email addresses and have since received emails from them inviting us to their website. Cool!


Mike, Kim and David stepped on the scale to see how much they would weigh on the Moon – but no way was I getting on a scale in public, no matter how much they accounted for lighter gravity!


We played around a bit on a new video game that has four people playing against each other as Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Donald, as they play Tag. We watched as four high school girls played against each other. Mike thought they were really pitiful – he said it was clear they had not played video games very much! Of course, Mike’s the PlayStation and Xbox addict of the family! Then we sent a video email to David’s brother. Cool!

We stumbled into the Forest Trivia game just as it began, and there were very few people in the audience. Mike got picked to be one who draws clues to answer forest trivia questions. He was team captain of the “Oak” team. He was supposed to lead us in a team cheer: “Oaks! Oaks! Mighty Oaks!” but for some reason, he didn’t seem to want to do that! LOL!


The game was to put up a question about the forest, and the team captain had to draw a picture that would give a clue for the answer to the question. Whichever team guessed the answer in the shortest amount of time was the winner. The other woman had to draw “forest” and “building”, while Mike had to draw “satellite” and “lightning bug”. We thought he did great considering how hard his clues were, and that he was competing against an adult! Mike received a nice certificate, which we had them hold so that we could come back for it later in the day on our way out of the park.

On our way out of Innoventions, we saw a CM demonstrating the new two-wheeled contraption that you ride instead of walking or riding a bike – what is the name of those things? I can’t remember! It looked really cool, and later in the day we saw a CM using one out in Future World to get around the park. At over $5,000, I think they’re a little out of the price range of the 10-14 year old boys who seemed most interested in them!


Now it was on to Spaceship Earth. The line was moving very quickly, and we were on in less than 5 minutes. As soon as we were seated in our ride vehicles, the ride stopped. The CM walked up to me and said “What did you do to my ride? You ruined it!” It was really funny, as he and I went back and forth joking around. At one point, I pointed to Kim sitting beside me and said “She did it, not me.” He didn’t believe me, he said she was too sweet looking. Then I pointed behind me to David and said “He did it!” Shortly the ride got going again, and the fun was over.

We enjoyed this ride, as always. I think Kim was expecting something different. She kept saying, “When are we going to get to the space part?” I think she thought it was a planetarium.

Up Next: Test Track, a quick snack, and grumpy family!

[jennyh]

Day 3 Part 2: (4/14/03) - Test Track, a quick snack, and a grumpy family!

Now it was time for our Fastpass for Test Track, so we went back over there and walked right on. In the past, I have not seen what all the fuss is about on this ride. It seems pretty tame to me, and so I just went along on this so that the others could enjoy it. But for some reason, this time the ride was more thrilling to me, especially the outside part. So that was a nice surprise.

Upon exiting the ride , we noticed a new attraction off to the left where about 20 people were sitting on stools and looking into what looked like virtual reality goggles. We thought it might be interesting to see what that was, but we were all hungry – thus grumpy – and there was quite a line. We decided to head instead for a breakfast snack.

I should mention that all through this trip, we’d been having trouble with the kids, especially Mike, being unusually grumpy and cranky and just generally not fun to be around. Here's what Mike's face looked like a lot during this trip:



David and Mike especially had been going at each other all weekend, and by this time, they were not in good moods at all. I thought that the reason was that we were not eating enough in the morning, so they were always hungry, and also that they were not used to being up so late at night so many days in a row, combined with heat and lots of walking. Also, Mike was complaining of headaches and neck aches, and it’s no fun to be touring when you’re experiencing pain of any kind. So, yes, Mike was cranky, but I was trying to be understanding. David was getting more and more annoyed. He kept saying “This is the last time we’re coming here – they just don’t appreciate it anymore.” So, I found myself in the middle of the two of them, trying to keep each of them from ruining the other’s day.

So, with the general mood of the family being quite sour at this point, we walked in to the Electric Umbrella to find that they had stopped serving breakfast items and were serving lunch – which we didn’t want, as we had Priority Seating arrangements for lunch at 12:30. So we passed on by, and went to the Fountainview Bakery instead. YUM! David was apparently perturbed with me because I purchased three food items for the four of us to split, and he thought I only need to get two. I guess he thought that the kids wouldn’t be hungry if they ate too much now. But I had Mike being hungry and hurting, and at this point I was willing to buy his good mood with a slice of ice cream cake and a chocolate slushie. It worked for the most part.

From the bakery we went to The Living Seas. Walking over there we saw some cute topiaries, and Kim took our picture (check out Mike's face):



Once at the Living Seas building, we went down the hydrolator to the observation area. We looked around for a while, and played around with the mock up of the underwater dive suit where you have to maneuver the hand controls to turn levers, knobs, etc.



Then we decided to head out. We didn’t really see everything that we could have, but no one seemed very interested in continuing with it. I think if they had a ride or something more than just water tanks, it would have been better. But Baltimore has a really nice Aquarium, and this just wasn’t as impressive, frankly.

Mike still had a neck ache, and I was out of pain reliever for him. Since the First Aid station was right on the way to the Mexico Pavilion where we had our lunch seating, we decided to go there to get some more medicine. The nurse was very nice, and offered him adult medicine, but as he had never tried to swallow a pill before, I thought it would be better for him to have the highest possible dosage of the children’s medicine.

From there we went straight to Mexico to the San Angel Inn for lunch. (another great shot of Grumpy Mike.)



We checked in a few minutes early, and they seated us right away. They were not at all crowded – only about 1/3 full I would say. The waitress was exceptionally friendly and nice, and the food arrived very quickly. I had the Plata Mexicano (I think that’s what it’s called), which had a variety of good stuff that I can’t remember. Mike and Kim both had the children’s chicken quesadilla, which they both loved. David had the taco plate. Also, I had a very yummy margarita on the rocks. It was perfect!

The restaurant was very nice and quiet, and dark. Kim didn’t like it, in fact, because it was hard for her to see in the dark. But I thought it was very soothing out of the bright sunlight. Mike decided he liked this restaurant the best of all the ones he had tried in the World Showcase – which is funny because he’s only tried this and one other! The other was the Oktoberfest restaurant that we visited on our previous trip. But I took this as a sign that he’s finally maturing enough to try new things without stressing out.

Mike said his neck ache was feeling better, and everyone was full to the brim from lunch. Yay! Everyone is happy!

We decided at this point to split up. David would go off on his own and do some touring, while I took the kids back to the hotel for a nap and then a swim. We agreed to meet David in the Magic Kingdom later in the day to do our late night touring – MK was open until 12:00am that night. At about 1:15pm, we headed to the front of the park, snapping some pics along the way. At least by now Mike decided to actually use his sunglasses, hopefully preventing further headaches. Here he's more playful, having just taken meds and on a full stomach.


We got to the hotel about 30 minutes later. They went to sleep within about 10 seconds of laying their heads down.

I woke the kids up at 3:00, and we went down to the pool to swim. The kids enjoyed the water slide at Contemporary’s pool, and spent most of their time with that. I lounged in the water, and got cooled off and rested my feet, which inevitably get sore and tired at WDW.

Up Next: Late night at MK

[Brant]

Fun report, I'm enjoying it a lot! Keep it up!

[Colexis Mom]

I just caught up to your trip report, and what a great job!! The pictures are fantastic. I love the view from your room, I am so jealous [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] . And how lucky of you to be able to see CoP. I miss that show [img]graemlins/pout.gif[/img] . As Tikibird said, please let us know what camera you have, as I am in the market for a new digital camera.

Keep posting more.... I can't wait to read it!!