Disney, Frances and SDMB withdrawl

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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I got back from Disney yesterday. We were actually due to leave yesterday afternoon so we didn’t have any problems at the airport.

Here’s a little rundown on my trip:

First of all, this was my first time. I was travelling with my fiancee (F), his mother (M), his dad (D), his sister (S) and his nephew (N). These are some of my favorite people in the world but I don’t think I want to spend that much time with them again.
F has a friend from high school who works in Disney (J). He took his vacation so he could spend it with us.

We all woke up very early last Wednesday so we could be at the airport for 5:30 am. We had no problems there. This was my first time flying so I was nervous but I really enjoyed it. We flew by Delta Song. I like them. They have TV’s in the back of every seat so we could watch Cartoon Network all the way down. We used Mears shuttle service from the airport to the hotel. I would recommend them. Our shuttle driver had us laughing the whole way.
We stayed at the Contemporary Resort (in Disney). I would also recommend this. The hotel is very nice, the employees are very friendly and they’re very organized during hurricanes.
Our room was in the east wing, on the ground floor - overlooking the lake. The room was very nice.
We got to the hotel around 12:00 and we walked to the park after checking in. It was very hot and muggy and I did not at all enjoy that walk. Our first stop was the Magic Kingdom. I bought a hat as my first souviner because it was so bright outside. My first ever ride was The Pirates of the Carribean. I love that ride. That first day, we were able to do most of the rides. My favorites are: Pirates, Space Mountain, and Splash Mountain. There was a cloud burst about halfway through the day. We had dinner at Crystal Palace. Very good food.

The second day, we went to Animal Kingdom. I wasn’t very impressed. The safari was cool. The Dinosaur ride was very cool. The Bug’s Life was also good. Other than that, I didn’t like it much. It was too hot, the water ride was closed. There’s a little carnival type thing in Dino Land. That was very lame.

That night, M, S, N, J and I went to Downtown Disney. There was a Lego store there but it didn’t measure up to the one at the Solomon Pond Mall in Massachusetts. There was a problem with their system so I couldn’t use F’s gift certificate. J used his employee discount for us so we saved butt loads of money on our souviners.

The third day, we went to MGM in the morning. The Tower of Terror and Rocking Roller Coaster (I’m not sure if that’s the correct name) were very cool. Other than that, I wasn’t impressed. I didn’t get anything out of Star Tours. The back lot tour was cool but I don’t think I’ll do it again. The muppet show was cool but I never watched the muppets growing up so I didn’t get most of it. We had lunch at the Sci Fi drive in place. That was pretty cool but the menu was small. I ended up getting appitizers because the meals weren’t anything I wanted to eat. F, M and D all got the Reuben. They said it was excellent.

That afternoon, we went to Epcot. This is, without a doubt, my favorite park. I finally bought my mickey ears and I wore them through the whole park. We didn’t get to spend much time there. There’s this place that lets you taste soda from around the world. I loved the ginger ale from Mozambique. If you go there, don’t drink the soda from Italy. I didn’t try it but everyone who did, looked like they were going to cry. We also did the imagination ride. I loved that. We did Fast Track too. I liked that one. F and I had dinner in Norway. The restaurant was closed so we ate in the little bakery. Yum. I can’t wait to go there again. Everyone else ate in China. The ride in Norway is actually one of my favorite rides. We didn’t get to see any of the other countries though because the park was closing. We did see the light show. That was awesome. I’d love to see that again.
The downside to Epcot was D. He was in a panic because Frances was supposed to hit the next day (Saturday) and he wanted to get everything in. He was practically running through the whole park. I wanted to go off without him but he insisted on us all staying together. It kind of put a damper on the whole thing. The next time I go to Disney, I’m spending at least 2 days in Epcot.

Well, I have to run some errands now. My next installment will be:
What to do in Disney when there’s a hurricane…
I will try to post some pictures but I don’t know how, I don’t have a scanner and I don’t have a digital camera. When D sends me his pictures, I’ll try to figure out how to show them to you guys.

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Did you have the chance to ride Test Track and Mission: Space at Epcot? They’re two of my favorite rides.

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The soda in Italy is Beverly. It tastes like Campari. Campari sells well in the US and is a bar staple, so I assume some people like it (including myself, but on very rare “Campari would be good” occations) - but it isn’t sweet - so it isn’t “expected.”

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I did Test Track. Our shuttle driver told us that Mission: Space is the only ride that has barf bags. Because of that, no one would go on with me.

I’ve never had Campari. I don’t drink any bar staples so I don’t know if I would have liked it. Most of the people I saw drink it were kids so I’m not surprised they didn’t like it.
So, Frances took it’s sweet ass time getting to us. The Hotel kept the main building open as long as they could so we could at least get away from our room on Saturday. They made up boxed meals for $5 each. They had a sandwich, fruit and candy bar. I don’t think I’ll be able to eat a sandwich for a couple weeks. We stayed in our room for the most part just because the main building seemed like a mile away. Walking there got old fast. Our TV had about 20 channels. Half of those were news. Two of them were in spanish. The rest were all Disney channels. I watched Finding Nemo 4 times, Monsters Inc. 2 times, Tower of Terror once, Ella Enchanted once, Who Framed Roger Rabbit 2 times and ER once. I played cribbage and pitch. I slept a lot. I played in the wind. I smoked a lot. On Sunday, the main building opened up after 5:00 PM. We ate dinner at Chef Mickey’s and bought some more souviners. The hotel gave us 2 days of free park hopper passes to make up for the 2 days we missed. They’re good for 10 years so I guess we’ll be going back to Disney.

On Monday, some of the parks opened up again. We spent the day in Magic Kingdom. F and I went out without the rest of the family. We hit about 10 rides, got stuck in another wave of the hurricane and had lunch at The Plaza. We bought some more souviners and then went back to the hotel for 1:00. The shuttle picked us up at 1:30. We got to the airport for 2:30 and then spent 30 minutes in a line we found out we didn’t have to stand in. We had dinner at Burger King and then just hung around until our plane left at 6:30. I wanted to kill the brats behind me on the plane because they kept kicking our seats. I finally told them to stop and they made some lame excuse about adjusting their TV’s. I wanted to tell them that adjusting a TV should not push my seat forward and should not need to be done every 5 minutes for 2 hours. But, I restrained myself and so did they. The last half hour was more comfortable without them kicking my chair. There was a little bit of turbulance but it wasn’t too bad.

I’m happy to be home and unhappy about having to go back to work tomorrow. I had a really good time. It was a great experience. I can’t wait to go back.

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congodwarf I am due to be in Disney on the 18th. I am praying to the weather gods that there won’t be any J or K storms. Was there any damage to the parks that you saw?

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Well, I wasn’t there myself, but I’ve been keeping tabs on the hurricane. There was no permanent damage to Disney (they build the buildings to withstand winds exceeding well over 150mph+). However, a few signs have been torn down and some trees fallen, but Disney has apparently been working around the clock to clear the property of debris as much as possible. Anyways, damage should be pretty unnoticeable, from what I’ve heard.

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disney is at war with debris. i don’t think i have ever seen a cleaner place.

i heard on cnn that the disney hotels and resorts had all sort of games and character meets, etc to keep guests amused while frances was in town. did you meet any of the characters?

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There were some branches down and a lot of leaves in the streets. The contemporary had one fallen tree that I saw. They were still sweeping the walkways in the Magic Kingdom yesterday but I didn’t see any major damage.

On Sunday, I met Rafakki (sp?). There were about 5 characters at the hotel but Rafakki was the only one I was interested in.

I don’t know what was going on in the resort until they opened up the main building again on Sunday night. Chef Mickey’s had the usual characters on Saturday but during the actual storm, I was stuck in my wing, which was separated from the main building.

Yesterday, when I was in MK, I saw Baloo, Pluto and either Chip or Dale - I’m not sure which. The chipmunk was jumping in puddles and kicking water on it’s trainer. It was so cute. There was also a big brass band on Main Street.

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loach, there are some interesting formations around cape verde. this is gonna be quite a hurricane year.

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Who comes to Downtown Disney and doesn’t visit me? :eek:

It’s Rafiki, BTW.

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Believe me I know all about it :frowning: . I’m not worried about Ivan, Its seems like it might hit Florida with a glancing blow but it will be long gone before I get there. I’m worried about J and K.

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Where were you?

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Me, too :slight_smile: I fly in on the 18th and am staying with my brother in Celebration through the 26th. My friends are staying on-site at the Pop Culture hotel, though.

See you there, I guess! Wear something distinctive so I can say “Hey, I wonder if that’s Loach from the SDMB…” everytime I see an oddly dressed person.

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Sunglass Icon, across from Cafe Bongos (the Cuban restaurant/bar/nightclub deal).

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I’ll be at Shades of Green. I’ll be the one with very short hair and the two most beautiful little girls in the world.

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In that case, let’s make specific plans to meet :wink:

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Now it looks like Ivan is going to cut straight through Florida, south to north. Category 5 :eek:

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We only had an hour to spend there. So, I went to the Lego store. Lego’s are always a priority.
I hope Ivan completely misses Florida. Even in Orlando, you could see the damage from the first two. I can’t imagine how the state can survive another one. Even Disney was starting to look a little battered.
I don’t think I’ll be complaining about snow storms this year. At least snow storms don’t tend to kill people, uproot trees and crush houses.