Our Magical Vacation (including the new WDW hurricane ride) - Completed About This Page:

[luvnwdwgal]

Thanks for the update Tracy!!

[Colexis Mom]

Another great update Tracy and George! Keep 'em coming

[Tracy M.]

9/23 – Day 5

Today was an off day from the typical park touring schedule, we had a backstage tour lined up at the AK followed by a spa trip for me and golf at the Ospry for the DH.

We try and do a backstage tour each trip, this trip we did the Segway tour (DH’s favorite thing of the entire trip) and the Wild by Design tour. In the past we’ve done Backstage Safari, Dolphins in Depth, Keys to the Kingdom, and Backstage Magic. The DH also decided he wanted to do the Magic Behind the Steam Trains tour till he found out we would have to be at the meeting place by 7:15.

<font color="blue">(This is vacation, right?)</font>

I had to set the alarm a bit earlier than usual this morning; it went off at 6:30 am. If I want DH to get out of bed on a schedule then I need to put a mug of coffee next to him about ½ hour before I want him out of bed (this applies to at home or on vacation)

Since we needed to be at the AK turnstiles by 8:15 for the Wild by Design tour we drove over instead of taking the bus. We always have a rental car for our WDW trips, we find it very useful as we go off campus to either Universal or Sea World each time and also tend to eat at a lot of the resort restaurants.

We met up with our group that included our guide Rachel who was an intern (and also had a deplorable excess of personality) and Kari the official WDW mgmt type of person. On this tour they give everyone headphones so that you can easily hear your guide. I personally think that all the tours should use this system, it make it much easier to avoid missing her comments even if you got back a bit from the main group.

I don’t’ really want to give any spoilers on the tour but the tour basically is designed to discuss how the lands are designed to give you a sense of realism and also discuss how they care for the animals. This tour is all “on stage”. If you want a further in depth look on how they take care of the animals then I’d recommend taking backstage safari. We took that on our last trip 3 years ago. In the middle of the tour you get taken over to the tusker house for continental breakfast and a break from the walking before the second part of the tour. We also spent some time with Linda who is one of the gorilla keepers who explained the 2 different gorilla habitats that are setup (1 family, 1 bachelor group) and also discussed enrichment activities they did and some of their training methods.

<font color="blue">(If you do this tour, keep in mind that breakfast comes at like 10:00 during the mid-tour break. That was a bit late for me, so I advise you have a snack in the morning before the tour.)</font>

The tour runs about 3 hours so we had a bit of time to kill before lunch and our afternoon activities.

The wait was only listed as 10 minutes on the Safari so we rode it and then done shopping till Lunch. We got DH a cute mug with a cheetah on it that says “I don’t do mornings.”.

<font color="blue">( )</font>

For lunch we stopped in the Tusker House again since I had heard so many wonderful things about it. DH had the ½ rotisserie chicken and I had the veggie sandwich. Both meals were filling and tasty.

After lunch we made our way back to the parking lot and go to our afternoon activities. DH dropped me off at the Contemporary so I could do some resort hopping on the monorail before my spa appt and he headed off to the Osprey for his round of golf.

I’ve always loved the spa at the GF, it’s just very expensive so I just usually treat myself to one afternoon there per trip. I’ve tried to get DH to go with me for the couples massage but I haven’t had any luck in that department. Here’s the online brochure if anyone is interested in the spa! http://www.relaxedyet.com/services.shtml . I did the 80 min Aromatherapy Massage with an oil designed for sore muscles which worked wonders for my overworked legs from all the walking and then a manicure.

After I was done with the spa I hopped on the monorail and went over to Epcot. After riding test track again (and being very careful getting off without DH to support me rofl) I spent some time exploring the world showcase before heading back over to the Beach Club. I’m sure due to my balance problems some people saw me getting off of Test Track thought “omg she’s drunk at 5pm! ”

I’m sure DH will add a full report on his afternoon at the Osprey here-

<font color="blue">(Well the Osprey Ridge is a beautiful course, as you might imagine. It has a lot of vertical features for a Florida course, which due to the natural landscape tend to be rather flat. Additionally, liberal use of water hazards keeps you on your toes. The golf carts are worth mentioning, as they have coolers full of ice for your drinks, towels to keep you and your clubs fresh, and a GPS positioning system so that you always know your distance from the pin. This GPS thing was just being installed so it wasn’t functional when I played, but it sounds great.

I played from the ‘silver’ tees, which are the second most difficult of the four tees. The slope was 129 from those tees; no county course, that’s for sure. The course was pretty empty and played fast. I started solo but caught up to a pair in front of me, and they graciously invited me to play with them. One guy was a cook at Disney out for a day of golf on his day off. As a Disney employee, he got a discount on the green’s fees, which is helpful considering that the normal greens fees are about $100. The other was a fellow from Long Island, and his wife was riding along for ‘moral’ support hehe. Many courses won’t allow a ‘non player’ or ‘spectator’ to accompany a golfer on the course. But as one of the guys at the pro-shop said, “Hey, this is Disney!” For a small “rider’s fee”, you can have your significant-other heckle you.

Little things about a course really make it feel special. For example, there are many distance markers on every fairway so it’s easy to make the right club selection. The grooming of the place is remarkable and reminds you of the beautiful foliage in the parks. The greens are pretty fast though not as fast as some country club courses I’ve played, and were very consistent that day. The grass is a wiry stiff variety native to Florida, which allows the ball to sit up nicely on fairway or ruff, and the soil underneath is a sandy loose sort of affair. This is an excellent combination for getting under a ball.

Oh and on a personal note, I was playing the best golf of my life until I took a 10 on one par 5 on the back nine. I wound up with a 97, still not bad for a hacker such as myself on a pretty hard course! All in all, a fun day of golf. )

http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/wdw...ge&amp;count=2 </font>

For dinner we changed our plans 3 times. We originally planned on going to the Whispering Canyon Café then we decided to do the Cape May Buffet but we made that reservation for 8:30 pm and DH was done a lot earlier than he thought he would be with his golf day and we were looking for food around 7pm so we went to Pucks at DTD instead.

Since this trip was the “trip of the martini” of course we started off with a few martinis, a cosmo for DH and a “cholotini” for me. We then proceeded to munch down a four cheese flatbread and some sushi (California roll and spicy tuna roll). We ended our meal with a slice of keylime pie which wasn’t quite as good as DH’s grandmother makes but it was still decent.

<font color="blue">(Pucks has the best California roll in the world. I look forward to a few of those every trip!)</font>

We had a pleasant conversation at the sushi bar during with a gentleman from SC who was attending a medical convention at the Corando and leaving Fla on Friday ahead of Jeanne. On our other side were 4 gentlemen that were together and were putting down a serious amount of sushi. I don’t want to know what their bill was.

After dinner we wandered over to the comedy warehouse unaware of the schedule but a line of people were still going in and we managed to sneak in right as they were grilling the poor guy that made the mistake of sitting next to the phone. Unless you like being embarrassed if you go to the comedy warehouse do not, I repeat do not sit next to a phone.

The comedians were having a bit of a rough night with their improv but it wasn’t really their fault, the suggestions they were getting from the audience were pretty weak and all in all it still was an enjoyable show.

<font color="blue">(The comedy warehouse is typically very funny. But since it is improvisation, you never know what you will get. As T said, they didn’t have their best night.)</font>

After the show we went back to the hotel and watched the weather channel and the updates on Jeanne till we fell asleep which didn’t take long since Thursday was a nap free day.

[luvnwdwgal]

Sounds like you both had a very nice day!! Looking forward to your next installment!

[FanOfMickey]

I am enjoying your report!! I was at pleasure Island that nite also. I went to the Comedy Warehouse twice, though sounds like not the same showing. The 2 I attended they were pretty funny, though they did have to ask for a few stories a few times. One show the guests kept saying pretty x rated stuff lol. Made me wonder who it was giving them though, as it was Cast Member nite lol. Adventurers club was funny that nite, they Disney Tattoo guy was theret too.

[Tara O'Hara]

Great updates, Tracy! Keep !

[Tracy M.]

9/24 – Day 6



Today was our day at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure so there will be the unavoidable compare and contrast to WDW in this day’s report. We had originally had planned to spend 2 days at Universal but Jeanne had us rearranging our plans on the fly for the remainder of our vacation.



Since we weren’t going to be able to take a mid-day break for a swim or a nap we slept in a bit and then headed over to the WL for breakfast at the WCC.



The WCC skillet breakfast is one of our favorites even though this time I had to stick to mostly the eggs and waffles and left the bacon, sausage and biscuits w/gravy to the DH since I did try this vacation to avoid stuff that I knew would be extra salty.



<font color="blue">(And by ‘avoid’, she means ‘eat it anyway, but feel bad afterward’ heh.)</font>



The atmosphere at the WCC is definitely a unique experience at WDW, it’s the only place you pay to get abused by the staff. We tried not to draw attention to ourselves even though DH kept wanting to steal a bottle of ketchup from another table. I didn’t let him though, he would have taken a lot of abuse from the waitress if she saw just a single bottle of ketchup on our table as opposed to every bottle of it in the place.



At about 10:00 we headed over to Universal and promptly ran into a decent wait in line just to get into the parking garage.



I had forgotten the confirmation number for the online tickets we had purchased ahead of time so we had to go to the guest relations window. They took a really long time to resolve each problem, too long imo. I wasn’t really sure what the hold up was with each person. In our case it took longer than normal because the employee working at the window didn’t realize that the default date for his searches was the current month and the first few searches for our ticket info came up empty.



<font color="blue">(This is the kind of thing I usually catch hell about. Glad it was her this time!)</font>



So at about 11:00 we made our way into studios.



The Terminator ride and Jaws were down this day so we started off with the MIB ride. I’ve always enjoyed MIB though the spinning motion prolly wasn’t the best way for me to start off the day



After MIB we went through earthquake and they had some problems with the movie part of it, they couldn’t get the second half of it to play so the guide running the show just verbally discussed the special effects we were supposed to be seeing.



<font color="blue">(There did seem to be a lot of technical problems that day.)</font>



The next ride we rode was The Mummy ride and we were unaware that the day before someone had died on the ride. With all the starting and stopping the ride didn’t appear to be very rough, more on the lines of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad than Space Mountain or RnRC as it had been described. My only complaint on the ride is that it seemed way too short in duration.



<font color="blue">(This ride is very, very cool. Maybe a bit short, but really the Disney coaster rides are fairly short as well. Go do it.



The person that was killed was apparently disabled and had trouble walking. He tried to board the ride and fell onto the tracks below. A spleen injury needed surgery, but he didn’t make it through. Very sad, but it doesn’t seem to be a flaw in the ride if you ask me.)</font>



The listed wait for the Mummy was 20 minutes but it was prolly close to a 45-minute wait. That’s one thing we noticed pretty quickly about Universal, their queuing estimates were way way off. Either way under or over estimated. For most of the rides they were underestimated except for the Jurassic park ride which said ½ hour but turned out to be 5 minutes. In general WDW seemed to handle queuing better than Universal, at WDW the queues seem to always keep moving where as at Universal there was a lot more standing around.



After the Mummy we went and saw the Twister show, I think the part where they showed the flying Cow was DH’s favorite part.



<font color="blue">(Moooo! Who doesn’t love flying cows in tornados, unless you’ve actually lived through one, I’m sure.)</font>



We finished up our stay in Studios with the Shrek 3-D show. If you like the movies then you’ll love this show.



It was about 2pm at this point so we wandered over to Islands of Adventure and hit Toon Flume, Jurassic Park, Spiderman and Poseidon’s Adventure before our dinner at Emril’s.



<font color="blue">(Poseidon’s Adventure is a walk through show, and not really very good imo. I’d skip it.)</font>



Toon Flume was fun but it’s similar to Kali Rapid’s with the warning “you will get wet, you may get soaked”. Since it was DHs idea to go on the toon flume when they gave us the first and second seat I made him sit in the front. We both got soaked from head to toe but it was in the 90s and humid so it wasn’t too bad.



While we were still soaked we rode Jurassic Park with almost no wait. In our row there was a woman who the entire time was going “I don’t want to get wet” and “this wasn’t my idea to go on this ride” at the same time she was trying to get into a poncho.



The final ride we went on at Islands was also imo the best one, the Spiderman ride. It definitely was a unique type of 3d show and felt like there was a lot of motion even though I’m sure it was mostly an illusion.



<font color="blue">(It’s kind of a combination 3-D show and thrill ride. The ride part is not unlike Dinosaur! at Disney. Very cool.)</font>



After the Spiderman ride we needed to finish drying out before dinner so we headed back to city walk. We had a few drinks at Jimmy Buffett’s, Margaritaville and DH got to examine a small airplane that was anchored just for decoration. After our drinks and to keep ourselves from falling asleep due to the heat we wandered along cityscape checking out the shops. By this time we were starving and waiting for Emril’s to open up for our 5:30 dinner reservation.



<font color="blue">(This ‘small airplane’ was a Grumman Albatross, and this specific ship was the ‘Hemisphere Dancer’ that Buffet piloted around the western hemisphere. Anyone that knows airplanes can tell you that an airworthy Albatross is worth a good buck, especially one with historical significance. I can’t quite understand why this one is sitting outside as a prop for a bar in universal studios. Perhaps it was approaching max airframe hours or something, but it seems an ignoble end to an old warbird.)



http://home.att.net/~hu-16/photos/401-117.jpg

</font>



We had wanted to eat at Emril’s restaurant for a while now, I mean who wouldn’t if you watch his live show on the food network. This is the menu they have online so we had some tough choices to make http://www.emerils.com/restaurants/orlando/dinner.htm . And now after looking at that I’m hungry again! :hungry



We started off our meal with a unique crab cake. The description of it is “Crabmeat and Sweet Corn Cheesecake with Fresh Herbs, Sweet Corn-Tomato Relish and a Spicy Tomato Glaze” The cheese in it I believe was a smoke Gouda cheese in the crab cake. For our entrée we both had a special which was grilled Grouper over a lobster risotto and for desert we had the New Orleans Style Bread Pudding served with Warm Bourbon Sauce, Pralines and Toasted Pecans.



Emril’s also has an extensive wine selection if you’re a wine connoisseur.



We definitely ate too much at Emril’s but it was tasty. The pricing was similar to the California Grill so it was one of the most expensive meals we had on our trip but worth it. If you’re spending a day at Universal and want to spoil yourselves then by all means don’t pass by this resturant. You can make reservations online via his website of http://www.emerils.com/restaurants/orlando/index.htm .



After dinner we were full and sleepy so we went back to the room to see what was up with Jeanne and watch some TV and read till bedtime.

[Colexis Mom]

More great updates Tracy and George!

Sounds like a fun down day with the tour, spa (and golf) and dinner! We ate at Puck's in May at the sushi bar, and I agree, the California Rolls are yummy

I'm sorry you ran into problems at Universal, but sounds like a great day overall! Emeril's sounds fantastic, definitely something I'd love to do some day!

Hurry back with more

[Jillybean]

Tracy and George! You guys are first-rate trip reporters. I feel like I'm there with you!

DH enjoyed reading over my shoulder about George's Osprey adventures as he had to cancel his game there last Tuesday due to Jeanne. Now he's looking forward to playing the course even more.

My BIL actually had a massage and manicure had GF last week also! I could have killed him, but then again he put up with us and a bunch of children, so he was owed some relaxation.

The meal at Emeril's sounds top notch. We ate at Nola's in New Orleans a couple of years ago and loved it. The man knows restaurants.

I can't wait to read more!

Jill

[luvnwdwgal]

Thanks for the update Tracy! Your dinner at Emeril's sounds delicious!!

[Tracy M.]

9/25 &amp; 9/26 – Day 7/8 HURRICANE JEANNE!

In case I didn’t mention it before this will be a 12 part trip report, our vacation was from Sept 19th to Sept 30th (but travel days don’t’ really count ).

By this point we knew Jeanne was coming right for us and it was just a matter of when she hit shore. Most estimates were around midnight with her getting to us early morning.

The day started out normal enough, I rolled out of bed and got DH his coffee along with bagels for our breakfast. While I was out I also changed our PS reservation that night at Artist Point to Monday night figuring the weather was going to be nasty by nighttime and made a reservation at Cape May for opening time.

The one thing that stood out above everything else with the hurricane was the effort the CMs put forth to keep things moving smoothly and keep the resort running like normal (with the exception of the mandatory lockdown from 8:30 pm on the 25th to about 5pm on the 26th).

I had an interesting conversation with the CM at the BC front desk while I was adjusting our PS reservations. Both myself and another gentleman said basically “It’s just a day interruption on our vacation but the people in Fla have to deal with the realties of the storm and the impact on their home” and she said “god bless you both, can I get that in writing”. I guess people trying to adjust their trips either leaving earlier to extending them had been less than patient with the front desk CMs which just blew my mind.

<font color="blue">(Mean people suck. No Disney for you!)</font>

I just finished up my business with the CM and got out of her way and tried to show some extra patience and gratitude towards everyone working through out the weekend.

The morning weather was beautiful and It was really hard to believe a hurricane was coming out way. It was about 80 degrees with a light breeze for the first part of the morning, the highly anticipated Segway tour.

A few months before our trip I showed DH the picture of the tour on allears.net and his reaction was “omg we have to do that” and so I booked it for the 2 of us not knowing if I would really be able to do it or not with my balance issues.

The first 15 min of the tour is a slide presentation and instruction off the Segway. In this presentation they discuss the Segway and also mention reasons that should make you consider not riding a Segway. I highly doubt they would really want someone with Meniere’s on the Segway but we kept quiet and took a wait and see attitude to see how I did on one. Surprisingly I had no problems riding it and picked it up as easily as the rest of the class.

After another 15 min or so of exercises involving a set of cones to teach us how to go forward, backwards, turn and stop we were ready to out to the world showcase. The key you have to turn the Segway on is what determines the max speed, they can go up to 12 ½ mph but we had the keys that limited us to 5 mph much to DH’s dismay.

We then took the Segway’s around the world showcase and much to our surprise the instructor actually gave us running commentary about each pavilion as we rode though it so we got a mini tour of the world showcase as well during our ride.

Towards the end of the tour they gave us some free time to do what ever we wanted on the Segway (within a given section they defined by cones).

Unfortunately DH forgot his camera so we don’t have any pictures of the tour (or from the vacation to post in these reports).

<font color="blue">(I’ve been intrigued by these Segway scooters since they were announced. I’m a fan of cool mechanical things, and this vehicle is the very definition of cool. The sensation of riding a Segway is unlike any other vehicle I’ve operated. I’d have to say that the 2 or so hours we spend riding the Segways was the highlight of the trip for me. If only I had a place to ride one at home, I’d have to pick one up!)

http://www.segway.com/
</font>
After the tour was over it was time for Mission Space! I had been looking forward to riding it but DH gets motion sick so he was going back and forth on if he wanted to ride it or not. Before we started the Segway tour DH took a Bonnine and made the decision to ride MS.

Like all week there were very minimal crowds, and even less so I’d imagine with Jeanne just a few hours away. After checking out the model of the moon with all the landing sites marked on it outside of the attraction we made our way inside to the pre-show area.

The “preflight” info was pretty much what you would expect it to. The one notable fact is that they got Gary Sinise to do the narrating for the preshow and the actual ride.

<font color="blue">(Love that. I felt like I was in the movie Apollo 13.)</font>

After finishing the preflight briefing we were instructed to enter the simulator. Each person has a role, pilot, navigator, commander and engineer. I was the commander for our first ride and DH was the engineer. There is a small task that each person has to complete during the ride.

The actual ride wasn’t jarring at all. There were barf bags inside the ride incase you need them but I couldn’t even tell we were spinning. DH also had no problem at all with the ride.

<font color="blue">(For those interested, this ride is a human centrifuge, which uses centripetal acceleration to simulate the g forces of a space launch. It seemed to me like the ride peaked at about 2 to 2.5 g’s. There is also a segment of the ride, which claims to produce zero g’s. I’ve experienced zero g and negative g conditions in airplanes many times, and this ride wasn’t the real deal.

While you are in fact spinning in the centrifuge, the sensation is more of linear g’s and not much spinning sensation is apparent. I do get a bit motion sick on some rides , but this one didn’t bother me at all. In fact, it was super cool! I’m glad I didn’t let the hype surrounding this ride to scare me away.)</font>

By the time we headed out from Epcot it was definitely getting hot and humid.

After we finished up at Epcot we decided on Earl of Sandwich for lunch and it looked like everyone else had the same idea. After trying our sandwiches we could see why the place was so crowded. We shared an Earl’s club and a Beef n’Blue. It was a good thing we didn’t try Earl’s earlier in the week or else we would have been back there everyday for lunch and while delicious the sandwiches prolly aren’t the healthiest lunch you can get at the world.

Before heading back to the resort we stopped in the Virgin store for a few more books to keep us occupied on Sunday. I had read the Bourne Identify on the flight down so I picked up the Bourne Supremacy to read on Sunday.

<font color="blue">(I picked up the first book of the Icewind Dale trilogy. Fantasy and D&amp;D geek, here!)</font>

After we got our books we headed back to the resort to settle in for the storm.

The lobby of the BC was a mad house with people trying to leave early. From what we were told though they closed down flights at noontime and all those people that arrived at the airport after that were sent back to the hotel.

We hit the mercantile for supplies for the next day and that was a complete zoo as well. After about ½ hour waiting in line we had all the survival basics; English muffins and cream cheese, a big bag of Doritos and 2 large bottles of water.

On the way back to our room we stopped by the concierge to setup a few things for later in the week.

We found yet another interesting example of human behavior on display at the concierge. An older gentleman was there trying to get his room changed because he didn’t like the view of the one he was just given. This is approx 3 hours before the lockdown started and the rideout crew took over the hotel. It wasn’t the type of view he was unhappy with, standard vs pool vs courtyard etc… it was that there was a downed tree in his view. By the next day no matter what his view was he was going to see a lot more of that.

We then went back to our room to watch the progression of the storm on TV till dinner time. At 5:30 we headed over to Cape May for dinner. The place was packed. They had what they called a limited item buffet in place for the entire hotel at a reduced price with extended hours till 11:30 PM.

This was our first time at the buffet and we both found it quite good, especially for the quantities they had to supply. It wasn’t as complicated presentations as you get with the other sit down restaurants but it was very tasty and there was tons of variety even given that they said it was a limited menu.

I stuck to mostly the seafood items on the buffet, the ribs and kielbasa items were too salty for me. Well, seafood and the desert bar which had a decent cheesecake and key lime pie on it and some really excellent oatmeal raisin cookies.

The CMs were already in overdrive on Sat night. We chatted with one of the bartenders later in the evening while we were getting ourselves some drinks (mudslide for me, a cosmo for the DH) and she said that they were doubled up but had rooms to sleep in. For Charley the resort was full she said and they bunked down in the common areas on lawn chairs that had been brought inside.

After dinner it was still pretty early so we went back to our room for a little while before getting the desire for those drinks I mentioned above so we headed back out to the main area of the resort.

The lobby was packed by this time and they had characters out for the kids.

Even though we were confined to the resort we still felt fortunate we could wander through the resort and had meals service still running. We assumed that anyone not in one of the resorts that was interconnecting would be stuck in their room since they are setup more like motels would be stuck in their room for the duration of the storm. I think DH would have gone psycho had he been confined to one room the entire time.

<font color="blue">(Ya, as it was I was getting bored.)</font>

The GM of the BC / YC was also sending out periodic voice mail to the resort guests to keep us updated on the current state of affairs. By his last message on Sunday around 5pm he sounded exhausted like he hadn’t slept at all since the storm started.

WDW also was running movies on 3 channels for the resort guests and we watched Armageddon till bedtime.

I woke up a few times during the night and took a look out our window to see what was going outside. By early morning (approx 6am when the eye of the storm was passing just by us) the wind was unbelievable and the rain was going sideways. The winds were only supposedly about 80mph so I can even imagine what Ivan looked like when it hit shore in Alabama at 135 mph.

I read for a bit before heading out to the main area to get bagels and coffee for DH.

I was surprised to find a CM stationed at the automatic door by the Mercantile. Apparently a group of people tried to go out the hotel at 4:30 am for a better look at the hurricane. For the rest of the day they had people stationed by the main entrances to discourage site seeing.

Our day on Sunday consisted of naps, reading and football at various times.

<font color="blue">(Thank God the storm was on Sunday and I could watch NFL all day. I was terrified we would lose power and I’d miss the games, but we never did.)</font>

For lunch we headed to Cape May for more of the buffet. They had the buffet pretty much running all day from what I could tell with a lower capacity due to the reduced staff numbers.

By Sunday afternoon most of the CMs that were part of the ride out crew were visibly tired. The CMs really did an outstanding job through out the storm.

For dinner instead of going to the buffet we just stopped by Martha's Vineyard for some appetizers. Unfortunately the food was way too salty for me to eat so I just had some of the emergency rations we stored in the room the day before.

By 8pm the resort lockdown had been lifted and the resort guests were allowed outside “at their own risk”.

We ventured out of the hotel for a few minutes but it was still very windy and uncomfortable out. The wind was blowing the sand around and it definitely stung a bit to get hit by it. In yet another brilliant display of decision-making we saw a man outside with his small infant in the wind &amp; sand. If it was stinging my legs I can only imagine what it was doing to that infant.

We only stayed outside a few minutes before heading inside to read and watch the night game before bedtime.

There was a message from the GM telling the guests that the parks would be open the next day but with adjusted hours (turned out to be 10am instead of 9am for all the parks irrc).

So that was our trip on the WDWs new hurricane ride. We saw the CMs reach new highs of service way beyond what could be excepted and a few examples of human behavior that were mind boggling.

The WDW hurricane ride is one ride I wouldn’t mind never ever going on again.

[LizardCop]

Excellent report, even without photo's.

You two write very well together!!!

Glad you weathered the storm well!!!!

[Colexis Mom]

Another great update Tracy and George The segway tour sounds awesome, I'm glad you decided to try it first to see if you could do it!

Glad the BC was very accomodating when the hurricane came thru! And how great of you being so respectful to the CM telling her you're only losing a day of vacation, but they are probably losing a lot more!

Can't wait for more! Hurry back!

[luvnwdwgal]

Another great update!! I'm so pleased with the way Disney handled the hurricane and took such good care of their guests! Looking forward to more!

[Nick and Ryans Mom]

[ QUOTE ]


<font color="blue">(Mean people suck. No Disney for you!)</font>

we had all the survival basics; English muffins and cream cheese, a big bag of Doritos and 2 large bottles of water.


<font color="blue">(Thank God the storm was on Sunday and I could watch NFL all day. I was terrified we would lose power and I’d miss the games, but we never did.)</font>


The WDW hurricane ride is one ride I wouldn’t mind never ever going on again.

[/ QUOTE ]


I am loving your report!