Disney - The Text Version

Back at work now, so I finally have time to breathe again. I was too tired to do much typing before, so here is a retrospective trip summary!

We flew into Orlando on Friday, rented a car, and as we were a day early for our house rental, went on to Disney's Pop Century Resort [make sure your speakers aren't on full blast before clicking the Disney links!]. This was themed with 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's stylings. It was pretty neat, in a kitschy kind of way. It is on Disney Property, but we did not get to the parks that day, as we arrived in the evening.

Next day, Saturday, Bennie and Vida joined us at the Pop just after breakfast. They had driven down, and spent the night a couple of hours from Orlando. They then went off to get Pete, Kari, Katie and Benjamin (Harrison didn't come) from the airport, while we went on to the shops at Downtown Disney. Disney are very well set up for taking your money. The others met up with us there.

After spending some money, we went on to our house. It was very nice - 5 bedrooms, 5 bath, pool with hot tub. It was just a few miles from Disney World - very conveniently located! All the house in the gated community looked exactly alike though, and I completely drove by it several times over the course of the week, and at least once tried to pull into the wrong driveway. That evening we had dinner at 'Ohana. Food was pretty poor for such an expensive restaurant, but overall the experience was fun.

Next day was Sunday, and the first of our Park days. Pennie had us planned out our trip, with the help of Tour Guide Mike, so we headed for Animal Kingdom first. We got there a little bit after "rope drop" (the official opening) but it was pretty quiet. I ran off to get Fast Passes for Expedition Everest (look this one up on YouTube - I'll edit in a link myself later, when I'm not at work). Note to anyone planning a trip to Disney: follow Tour Guide Mike's suggestions. Get there early and use Fast Passes. There were 2 hour lines at some of the rides: a Fast Pass let you bypass the line and go straight to the front of the queue. To get one, you put your ticket in a machine and it would give you a Fast Pass telling you what time to come back. So one member of the group would run off with everyone's tickets and get a bunch of Fast Passes so we could all ride together later in the day, without the great big long line. Callum rode Everest with some of the grown ups - he covered his face with his hands the whole way, but he did it. The animatronic Yeti was not working, so we didn't get our heads ripped off, but the track was still broken, and we did get to go backwards. Pete and I used up some extra Fast Passes later in the evening to ride it again. Twice.

Also good at Animal Kingdom was the Safari. You got on a Safari bus, and were led off on a two week trip through the African bush. There were lions and hippos (Lexie's favourite), giraffes, antelopes etc. All very well done - you could not see where the cages were, and really felt you might have been in the savanna. Then we had to go and chase some poachers down, and our trip ended early. Back in the park, we went to "Its tough to be a Bug", which was a great 3-D show with smells and water and air being blown onto you from the seat in front. Most of us loved it, except Isabelle and Lexie, who mainly just cried through it all. Neither would ride/do very much at all, in fact. We expected that from Lexie, but not so much from Belle. Katie, and even B, rode many more rides. Callum did a few, though he needed quite a bit of coaxing for some of them. None of the kids went on Dinosaur, which took you back to the end of the Cretaceous and the meteor impact that killed off the dinosaurs. We had to find an iguanodon and avoid the mean carnotauruses leaping out at us - in animatronics. It would have been a bit too scary for the little ones. There was some other great stuff in Animal Kingdom too, but I forget all that we did right now. We left the park in the afternoon, and went back to the house for a rest. Dinner was in the Rain Forest Cafe, just outside the park. Food was OK, but more animatronic animals proved too much for Lexie. We then went back into the park and saw Festival of the Lion King, which was a really neat show. We left the park around 1 or 2 most days, to go back for a rest. Our tickets let us back in the same park for the evening, but not to different parks.

Monday was breakfast with Cinderella in her castle in the Magic Kingdom for the girls. We had had to book this six months in advance, to the day. TGM said to avoid Magic Kingdom on this day, but since we had these reservations, we went anyway. The boys all got there after rope drop, and met with the girls at Dumbo. We did the Small World ride, which was one that Lexie and Belle definitely loved. I took a video of it, which I'll try and put up later. Peter Pan, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder (Callum loved this) were some of the things we did this day. We saw the first few minutes of a Nemo stage show, which was very cute, but then one of the audience got sick (or something) and the show was suddenly canceled and we had to file out. A bit of a disappointment after having waited in line 45 minutes (I'm sure whoever was sick wasn't happy either though). Tuesday we went back to MK, and did some other rides, plus Small World and Big Thunder again. Stitch's Great Escape was fun - in the dark, with Stitch spitting at you. Story Time with Belle was Isabelle's favorite of the trip, she says. Tuesday evening we saw the Spectromagic parade, which was really neat - all the characters dressed up in lighted suits.

Wednesday was Epcot day. Soarin was a great ride - even Belle liked it. Lexie didn't ride it - she fell asleep on me while Pennie rode it with our other kids. I got a Rider Swap ticket, which allowed me to ride again later. Epcot has less rides than some of the other parks (we missed the Test Track and Mission: Space, which would have been fun, but we only had limited time). But the other things were very good. The Circle of Life was a show about the environment, The Seas was a great exhibit with manatees, Turtle Talk with Crush was wonderful... Then we moved onto the World, and got to have a drink in Germany, Mexico and England all in the same day.

Thursday was Thanksgiving Day in the US, which is why this whole week is one of the busiest at Disney World. We got a Turkey dinner from a nearby Publix (supermarket) thanks to Pennie's foresight, so spent most of the day swimming in the pool at the house and eating. In the evening, we went to MGM to see Fantasmic!, which was very neat. Much of it was projected onto a sheet of water, which was fascinating all by itself! We also saw the Osborne Lights, which danced to music from the Nutcracker. Very over the top!

Next day we returned to MGM, and had another great time! Callum's favorite thing by far (of the whole trip, probably) was the art class in the Animation section. He drew a great angry Donald on his first trip through, and Jack Skeleton the second time round. Also in MGM was the Lights, Motors Action stunt show (search for this on You Tube too, and I'll try to get some video of it up). Us boys went to see that, while the girls took in an Ariel show. Also at MGM are the Rock'n'Roller coaster, which rockets you from 0 to 60 mph in 2.5 seconds before tipping you upside down; and the Tower of Terror, which is a free falling elevator ride. Both were pretty good, although huge lines (even with Fast Pass) and very short rides. We missed things like the Indiana Jones ride, and Star Tours. Dinner on Friday was at Chef Mickey's, in the Continental resort. This was fun, as we got to see some of the characters close up and personal. Food was buffet style, and not too bad (especially the desserts!).

Saturday saw us have breakfast in the Animal Kingdom Lodge, then a quick tour to the Wilderness Lodge and back to Downtown Disney for a short spell, but we were so tired, we didn't have much energy even for any more shopping. So, we headed onto the airport and flew back to Memphis. Sarah picked us up, and had Maggie back at the house to meet us. Lexie had spend most of the day saying she wanted to see her little Maggie. Sunday was spent doing as little as possible, and Lexie had a fever at night, although hopefully is better today.

I know I've missed some stuff - Kari being sick, Vida being sick, some rides and other stuff. How bad Pecos Bills was for lunch (just too busy); how good the lunch was in Canada at Epcot... maybe I'll edit some of that in later.

For the tl;dr (too long; didn't read) crowd - we had a blast, and are now completely exhausted.