September 2004 Trip Report
This was to be my thirteenth trip from the UK to Orlando and it had a couple of false starts courtesy of this year’s excessive hurricane season.
I was due to go out on the 4th, but Britannia cancelled the flight late in the day on the 2nd. After a zap on Expedia I found new flights on US Airways for the 7th, which in turn I had to change to the 10th due to Frances taking longer than expected to run it’s course. Unfortunately US Airways gave me some baloney that the return flights I had booked were no longer on “the same code” and put me on a much earlier flight for the return journey which meant I would not get any time in the parks on my last day and my dad would be picking me up at the airport at 6:30 in the am.
This left me with the problem that my Annual Pass would expire with a few days of the holiday left. Fortunately I had a contact number at Disney, and she was happy to grant an extension.
Things still failed to go smoothly the day prior to my flight. After work I was riding home on my motorbike when sixteen years worth of testosterone tried to overtake between a traffic island and me and nearly brought the pair of us down. I got home put my case in the car and headed to my folks, where I would stay the night prior to the flight. Nearing their house I was seconds away from being in a big accident – some pillock in an expensive flash car did not realise that he could not take a ninety degree corner at 70mph and came tearing around the corner, out of control on my side of the road. Fortunately I had time to stop. But for a couple of seconds waiting to turn into this side road from the main road I would have been hit big time. I then decided that because I had NOT been in two accidents my luck was in a rare state of working.
Friday, September 10th arrived and after checking that the transatlantic flight was only half an hour behind schedule and thus not really a problem, as that would still give an hour and a half to make my connection in Charlotte, I was given a lift to Gatwick. At Gatwick I picked up my new tickets and managed to sweet talk them into giving me my original return flight back – whoopee a final half day in the parks and my Dad won’t have to get up a stupid o’clock in the morning when I return.
The flight eventually left over an hour and a half late as we waited for passengers from other US Airways flights that had been cancelled. This left a little uncertainty as to whether I could clear immigration and customs and make the connecting flight in the space of twenty minutes!
Upon arrival I indeed had twenty minutes to make the connection. US Airways ground staff assured all the people in similar boats (60% of the passengers had connections to various places) that no planes had departed. I made it through immigration, a little slower than in the past as the officer asked more questions that I have ever heard in all my previous trips combined. Fortunately I quickly claimed my luggage, cleared customs pronto and was greeted by US Airways staff, again saying the plane has not left, dump your bag here and run to the gate.
The official guide to the airport says leave ten to twenty minutes to get to your gate. I made it through the security check in short order then sprinted to my gate in two minutes, skidding to a halt with a minute to spare and -all sign of the plane. A US Airways desk assistant smiles at my sweaty out of breath carcass and announces that they did not hold the plane. However I was booked on the next one. I had broken the Charlotte Airport Land Speed Record for nothing!
Anyhue, I was given the new tickets and the desk assistant showed me the current internet coverage of Hurricane Ivan – still undecided as to whether it would hit or not. I spent a couple of hours reading more chapters of Magician and listening to some entertaining announcements. A couple of examples were “Mr Smith please return to the gate, you left your laptop” and “Mrs Jones return to security, you left your boarding pass”. The funny part being that all these announcements were made in a tone of voice that appeared to add the following statement to each announcement “You steaming great idiot”.
After all that and a couple of Krispy Kremes I made the last leg to Orlando Airport, where everything had been specially laid out to be as far apart as possible.
The plane terminated at the gate farthest from the main terminal. There were a lot of missing ceiling tiles courtesy of the hurricanes and a temporary air conditioning system, consisting mainly of a polythene tube with holes in it. http://images3.fotopic.net/?iid=yfr7t8&outx=600&noresize=1&nostamp=1
I got to the terminal to discover baggage reclaim was on the carousel furthest away – possibly right underneath the gate I had just come from. I then followed the signs to the car rental counters to discover that Alamo had their counter, yes, you guessed it dear readers, right the other end of the building, I suspect somewhere in Kissimmee – there were no windows so you could not tell how far that tunnel went.
On the plus side there were no customers at any of the other rental company desks as I made my way down the line and through a couple of time zones. But when I got to Alamo there was a line – of about eight. It took half an hour’s wait in the queue to get served. When the agent started the spiel to try and get me to upgrade to an SUV I calmly stated that one very tired, cranky Englishman and his single item of luggage will fit in the economy car he had ordered and to please expedite his obtaining it. (I’ve been on the go for about 22-23 hours by now).
I had a choice of two Chevy Cavaliers or a Pontiac Sunfire. I picked the Sunfire and headed to 192. I was expecting to see big tailbacks at gas stations and shortages in the stores with another hurricane scare on the way, but this was not the case. Gas stations were open and I had no problem picking up a few supplies from Walmart.
I checked in, unpacked then went to sleep.
Before I commence with the details of the park visits there are a couple of things I will vent about:
One sad thing I had noticed through the whole trip – whilst many smokers were considerate enough to use the designated areas, still there were lots who did not care where they smoked and I never once saw a cast member intervene. I would assume that it’s not worth their getting the verbal abuse that inevitably would follow such a situation. It’s very sad because I know other smokers with think “If they are smoking where they want, then I’ll smoke where I want”.
I also saw quite a few French Connection UK shirts, though I have been led to believe that it will be policy to get people wearing these to turn them inside out. For those not familiar with this company, they only place the initials of the brand on the shirt, which at first glance looks like the wearer has a certain four-letter word across his or her chest. Hardly appropriate to a family park. As were the British children under ten years old with the word “” on the back of their shorts.
Anyway – on to the fun part of the trip.
Saturday 11th:
No surprises as to which park I visited on my first day – Animal Kingdom. This was a pattern to many days – start at Animal Kingdom and check out the Safari before the day got too hot for the animals. The days I did not start at Animal Kingdom I first went to Magic Kingdom.
The driver’s microphone was on the fritz in the Safari, so half of what he said was missed. At then unloading dock he got a new headset and invited everyone to stay onboard and try again.
I would also check out the Pangani trail and Maharaja Jungle trek in the morning. Generally I found you had a good chance of seeing the gorilla family quite active at this time, though my other favourites – the tigers tended to be more active in the last hour of the day.
I noticed that the park was very quiet in terms of guest numbers and that many of the exhibits around the Tree of Life and Discovery Island were empty. This was due to the fear of another hurricane. They did not want to put the animals back out only to put them through the stress of being captured and put in safe enclosures a couple of days later.
I was able to say a quick personal “hello” to a performer I know in Festival of the Lion King as well as some of her fellow dancers after one of the morning shows before they headed to lunch.
My lunch was at Flame Tree Barbeque. I love eating the ribs here, taking them down to the lily pad pond that many people seem to bypass. http://images1.fotopic.net/?iid=yfr7vw&outx=600&noresize=1&nostamp=1
Very peaceful. As well as ribs I can also recommend the fruit salad – a huge pile of fresh fruit guaranteed to keep you hydrated and full.
My other favoured counter restaurant at Animal Kingdom is Tusker House; where I was know to partake of a spot of salmon and corn chowder. Most days I bought the meal voucher and so had an Ice cream and bottle of Diet Coke to look forward to later in the day.
One unusual thing I had never seen before – all six tigers were out. I have been told that the big red tiger is the head girl and that she really does not like one of the other five. If the two of them are out, one or the other has to be in the second area. Today was the first time I witnessed that.
I had a good laugh at a British guest, in Guest Relations being quite abusive to a Cast Member, demanding a free ticket to Epcot as she had just found out that Animal Kingdom did not have a firework display. I pondered butting in, however the CM had everything in control.
Special Cast Members – Barbie in the Mombassa Market Place, where I was killing time before the parade, I enjoyed a good chat with her. Robert outside the Pangani Forrest Trail, where he was doing the shift to get people coming off the safari to go along the trail saying “See the gorillas”. We had a laugh when I questioned if the other cast members on the trail appreciated being called that.
Most evenings I would park hop to either Epcot or The Studios. Tonight I went to Epcot where Mission Space and Test Track were both walk on - no queues. It stayed that way for the first week then gradually built up to small queues in the second week. I enjoyed a stroll around World Showcase and my first School bread in almost a year. The Norwegian bakery was closed on my last visit, so it tasted even better. It was not to be my last on this trip.
After Illuminations I headed back to my hotel and straight to sleep. The long journey the day before was starting to take its toll. A more sane person would have taken time out to relax. My sanity was questionable in this instance and I would have to ease up a couple of evenings later on to get some strength back.
Sunday 12th:
I met up with Missy28 at Animal Kingdom and saw the pre-rope drop routine with Mickey, Minnie and Pluto on the bus. The previous one I saw did not have Mickey in the bus, but Goofy. Mickey then appeared on a hydraulic platform in front of the tree of life. http://images3.fotopic.net/?iid=yfrcr5&outx=600&noresize=1&nostamp=1
Missy and I had a good laugh – she is a fun lass, and even decided to feel brave and go on Dinosaur. She says she managed to keep her eyes open for the first half of it. It was quite sweet seeing her photo on the way out – head down, with one hand covering her eyes.
Missy kept the bravery thing going by watching Flights of Wonder. She is a tad nervous of birds flying overhead. Despite the odd flinch I think she enjoyed the show. I was careful to pick seats that were not in the flight path of the owl or the crown crane. I chuckled to myself when they asked for an adult volunteer with a dollar bill – Missy started to encourage me to volunteer, but because I am not a total and utter git I declined. For those who have not seen the show – the volunteer holds the dollar bill out and a bird will fly over to them to collect it. Whilst it would have provided much amusement watching Missy become the fastest moving thing in Disney World I thought better of it. Guano Jane was on the show today, and good though she is the chap currently playing Guano Joe is a lot funnier, maybe as he seems more willing to take the mickey out of himself.
We went on the Primeval Whirl and I’ve never known it spin so fast. I’m a big bloke and the couple that rode with us were not exactly shy when it came to eating the pies. I think this extra weight gave it the extra spin speed.
I discovered that Missy is a magnet for trouble – at Festival of the Lion King I was picked by Zuwaddi (sp?) to show the warthog section how to make the warthog sound. Being a smart , when she said “Put your fingers up to be your tusks and make the sound of a warthog” I came out with “’Ello. I’m a warthog!” http://images3.fotopic.net/?iid=yfrcte&outx=600&noresize=1&nostamp=1
I have never been asked anything by Disney researchers, other than where am I from? But with Missy around I had a couple of full-blown surveys, a request for an email survey (which has still to arrive) and an exit survey. Also in Epcot, sitting next to her on the kerb in the UK I was dragged into the street theatre show. (Side note on the exit survey – they were surprised when I was honest enough to slate the poor choice of food at Magic Kingdom.)
Missy departed after lunch, with plans for us to get back together in the evening at Epcot. I then hit Tarzan Rocks – nobody in the front row so I made full use of this to play with my new second hand digital camera.
Special Cast Members – Dave in camp Minnie Mickey – I gave special mention to him earlier in the year and was delighted to see him still plugging away giving his all. He is a real credit to all that is good about Disney CMs, as is Michael on the Maharaja Jungle Trek. He was chatting to all the guests watching the tigers in the last hour of the day, offering information and answering questions. He retired to Florida and has spent several years working for Disney, first at Magic Kingdom and the last two years at Animal Kingdom.
After Animal Kingdom closed I headed to Epcot and rode Mission Space before sneaking up behind Missy at the tips board and gently saying “Hello”. It still made her jump. OK – so I can be a little bit eeeevil.
A relaxing evening was had, after walking straight onto Test Track. Rode the Mexico boats whilst Missy supped a Margarita, strolled over to Canada to catch the last Off Kilter set then roam the countries, have munchies at the Norway bakery and watch Illuminations. We stood back from the boundary wall and were both conducting the music. Anybody would think we’d seen the show before.
One thing I learnt from Missy, although I do not know how far out from Atlanta this applies – you can say anything you like about a person, so matter how nasty, as long as you first say “bless their heart”
Monday 13th:
I had to go to Magic Kingdom – two days passed and still no Main Street USA? That’s just not right! Space Mountain was not operating at opening, so I did a quick circuit of the park, which was almost deserted. They had yet to switch on the water for the drop on Splash Mountain.
I met Rob at 9:30, Space Mountain was now open and I had to ride it – a trip to Disney is not complete without Space Mountain. We then hit Haunted Mansion, where Rob noticed a missing instrumental soundtrack in the graveyard scene. On to Splash and I was happy to see all the animatronics working. A big improvement on my last visit. Watched as a bloke in the front of the log saw his baseball cap tumble away at the bottom of the little Slippin’ Falls to land on the track behind us and get squished by the next log.
I finally made it onto one ride I have never been on in all my visits – Dumbo. I rode it to get a look at the 20K area. Also, I did not feel guilty taking a kids space on it as there was no queue and the ride even went up with a vacant Dumbo. Yes folks, it really was that quiet! We went to Cosmic Rays as I had been looking forward to trying the BBQ that was reported to be on sale there. No sign of it, so I decided to have the steak sandwich I had last time, but it too had disappeared. In the end I had the chicken sandwich. No matter how many toppings I used it was still ultra-bland. Is there a device back in the kitchen to suck the flavour out of food?
After a visit to Philarmagic Rob bade me farewell and headed off to work. I headed back to Space Mountain then went Photo Dave spotting on Main Street and was successful in this undertaking.
At 3:00 I took the monorail to Epcot. From the train there was a clear view of the damage caused by the hurricanes – lots of trees down in the woods around the monorail track. The rain hammered down, but stopped just before I rejoined Missy.
It was during this encounter that I was dragged into the King Arthur production put on by the World Showcase Players in the UK pavilion. A tabard was shoved over my head and a lance thrust in my hand to make me Sir Lancelot. The thespian in me came out and I made a suitable fool of myself, right down to my “victory dance” being a time-step.
We headed by monorail to Magic Kingdom for Wishes. I introduced Missy to Dave and we were chatting with him when a Canadian wearing a kilt and carrying a leopard skin set of bagpipes drew our attention. This was not a cast member, but a guest. Having thought he’d seen it all, Dave asks, “What’s with the bagpipes”, to which the guest’s reply was “What do you mean, what’s with the bagpipes?” I must be an everyday thing for that particular gentleman to roam around with leopard skin bagpipes, but to the rest of us it was a novelty. He then explained that he liked to get photos of him in places with the pipes. I guess some people take their teddy bears places to photograph it there, so it’s not really that much different to do it with a traditional Scottish Instrument they nicked from the Irish.
In the time before Wishes, Missy and I saw Philarmagic, all the Fantasyland dark rides and Splash Mountain. Yes folks, it was still that quiet, you could walk straight on to Pooh and Peter Pan an hour before Wishes!
After Wishes we went our separate way, Missy to pack for her journey home and me to Mara at Animal Kingdom Lodge for African Stew and Zebra Domes. This is something I did more than once, sometimes for supper and sometimes when leaving Animal Kingdom, especially if I was headed to the Studios as the counter food there is dire.
Tuesday 14th:
The Animals at Animal Kingdom were very active, particularly on the safari and the Gorilla family. On safari I saw both the baby elephants for the first time. I met Sillyspook13 when she was working in the Lion King theatre. She gets into the spirit of the audience participation thing – here she is in the left of the frame singing along with Simba and the gang http://images3.fotopic.net/?iid=yfrcue&outx=600&noresize=1&nostamp=1
During the first week at Lion King they were doing a publicity thing for the Lion King II DVD where before the performance started, the stage manager would bring a child or group of siblings to the centre of the stage, get them in introduce themselves and where they were from before getting them to say “Let the festival begin” and presenting them with a copy of the DVD.
On this day there were three sisters, the eldest gave her name and home the youngest, who was quite little, then got confused and gave the name of the eldest sister at which point the middle child hit her. The whole theatre went “awwww” as the toddler ran back crying to her parents before completing the ceremony.
Guano Joe was back at Flights on Wonder, and was in all the remaining shows I watched throughout the holiday.
I spent the evening at the Studios – walking straight onto Tower of Terror and Rock n Roller. I decided to give The Commissary one more chance at providing an edible meal. Big mistake I had some dire fish and chips, of which I can find nothing positive to say.
I was feeling beat, so headed back to the hotel before Fantasmic. At 11:30pm a phone call woke me – it was Rob asking if I wanted to get a bite to eat. I declined the kind invitation, chatted for a while, arranged for him to give me a bell at 8:30 am to confirm meeting up at AK the following morning, then wished him Bon Apetite and then totally failed to get back to sleep.
Wednesday 15th:
When Rob failed to call in the morning I took it as read he had probably just got to sleep, so left him to it and headed for an early morning safari, where the animals were very active as were the gorilla kids. After a few calls and a false start I met up with Rob at 2:00.
Prior to that I took in the sights and the animals and taught someone that it’s a bad idea to sit down in the Dinosaur briefing room and sprawl with their legs out full. It’s dark in there and they could hurt someone by making them trip. That is, unless a large Englishman clumps down on your outstretched limbs.
I found out how close the macro function on my camera is. Here is a photo of one of those little lizards you see scurrying around the parks.
http://images2.fotopic.net/?iid=yfrux1&outx=600&noresize=1&nostamp=1
Bumped into Sillyspook13 again. She was on her day off and can be even more theatrical when not a cast member: http://images2.fotopic.net/?iid=yfra5x&outx=600&noresize=1&nostamp=1
Her demonstration of the difficulties encountered riding Space Mountain in a skirt was hilarious; sadly I could not get my camera out in time to record this gem of a moment.
Special Cast Member – Janice at Tusker House, she just gave off happy energy.
When I met Rob, we headed to the Safari. There were barely half a dozen people in the truck. Yes folks, it was still that quiet. After checking that we had all ridden before, the driver took the soundtrack off and gave us her own commentary, which made for a nice change. At the end we stayed on and rode a second time.
Rob then took me on the fastest ride at Disney – his car on the back roads. Saw a few new backstage areas and we came across rehearsals for the new stunt show taking place in an abandoned corner of the Epcot parking lot.
I managed to annoy Rob, and when I retold ths tale to Dave he found the whole thing very amusing: Rob was asking if I was scared of his driving, which I was not – I live in the English city that has the worst reputation for selfish, aggressive drivers so zipping along deserted three lane highways is not that bad.
Anyway, I agreed that the fact he uses indicators / directionals could be seen as a European influence. Rob then asked if I thought he drove like a Spaniard. I could not verify this from personal experiences, so he suggested I compare his technique to an Italian. I pointed out that his hands were on the steering wheel too much rather than being used in conversation to be Italian. However I suggested that he was arrogant enough to be French……I nearly had to walk back to the Animal Kingdom parking lot.
Thursday 16th
I spent the morning at Magic Kingdom, did some shopping in the afternoon at the discount stores and headed to Epcot late afternoon, saw some live performances, ate at Morocco and took some night shots later in the evening before Illuminations. The smoke hung in the air quite a bit after the show, as you can see from its presence at the exit http://images2.fotopic.net/?iid=yfrakx&outx=600&noresize=1&nostamp=1
This was to be my thirteenth trip from the UK to Orlando and it had a couple of false starts courtesy of this year’s excessive hurricane season.
I was due to go out on the 4th, but Britannia cancelled the flight late in the day on the 2nd. After a zap on Expedia I found new flights on US Airways for the 7th, which in turn I had to change to the 10th due to Frances taking longer than expected to run it’s course. Unfortunately US Airways gave me some baloney that the return flights I had booked were no longer on “the same code” and put me on a much earlier flight for the return journey which meant I would not get any time in the parks on my last day and my dad would be picking me up at the airport at 6:30 in the am.
This left me with the problem that my Annual Pass would expire with a few days of the holiday left. Fortunately I had a contact number at Disney, and she was happy to grant an extension.
Things still failed to go smoothly the day prior to my flight. After work I was riding home on my motorbike when sixteen years worth of testosterone tried to overtake between a traffic island and me and nearly brought the pair of us down. I got home put my case in the car and headed to my folks, where I would stay the night prior to the flight. Nearing their house I was seconds away from being in a big accident – some pillock in an expensive flash car did not realise that he could not take a ninety degree corner at 70mph and came tearing around the corner, out of control on my side of the road. Fortunately I had time to stop. But for a couple of seconds waiting to turn into this side road from the main road I would have been hit big time. I then decided that because I had NOT been in two accidents my luck was in a rare state of working.
Friday, September 10th arrived and after checking that the transatlantic flight was only half an hour behind schedule and thus not really a problem, as that would still give an hour and a half to make my connection in Charlotte, I was given a lift to Gatwick. At Gatwick I picked up my new tickets and managed to sweet talk them into giving me my original return flight back – whoopee a final half day in the parks and my Dad won’t have to get up a stupid o’clock in the morning when I return.
The flight eventually left over an hour and a half late as we waited for passengers from other US Airways flights that had been cancelled. This left a little uncertainty as to whether I could clear immigration and customs and make the connecting flight in the space of twenty minutes!
Upon arrival I indeed had twenty minutes to make the connection. US Airways ground staff assured all the people in similar boats (60% of the passengers had connections to various places) that no planes had departed. I made it through immigration, a little slower than in the past as the officer asked more questions that I have ever heard in all my previous trips combined. Fortunately I quickly claimed my luggage, cleared customs pronto and was greeted by US Airways staff, again saying the plane has not left, dump your bag here and run to the gate.
The official guide to the airport says leave ten to twenty minutes to get to your gate. I made it through the security check in short order then sprinted to my gate in two minutes, skidding to a halt with a minute to spare and -all sign of the plane. A US Airways desk assistant smiles at my sweaty out of breath carcass and announces that they did not hold the plane. However I was booked on the next one. I had broken the Charlotte Airport Land Speed Record for nothing!
Anyhue, I was given the new tickets and the desk assistant showed me the current internet coverage of Hurricane Ivan – still undecided as to whether it would hit or not. I spent a couple of hours reading more chapters of Magician and listening to some entertaining announcements. A couple of examples were “Mr Smith please return to the gate, you left your laptop” and “Mrs Jones return to security, you left your boarding pass”. The funny part being that all these announcements were made in a tone of voice that appeared to add the following statement to each announcement “You steaming great idiot”.
After all that and a couple of Krispy Kremes I made the last leg to Orlando Airport, where everything had been specially laid out to be as far apart as possible.
The plane terminated at the gate farthest from the main terminal. There were a lot of missing ceiling tiles courtesy of the hurricanes and a temporary air conditioning system, consisting mainly of a polythene tube with holes in it. http://images3.fotopic.net/?iid=yfr7t8&outx=600&noresize=1&nostamp=1
I got to the terminal to discover baggage reclaim was on the carousel furthest away – possibly right underneath the gate I had just come from. I then followed the signs to the car rental counters to discover that Alamo had their counter, yes, you guessed it dear readers, right the other end of the building, I suspect somewhere in Kissimmee – there were no windows so you could not tell how far that tunnel went.
On the plus side there were no customers at any of the other rental company desks as I made my way down the line and through a couple of time zones. But when I got to Alamo there was a line – of about eight. It took half an hour’s wait in the queue to get served. When the agent started the spiel to try and get me to upgrade to an SUV I calmly stated that one very tired, cranky Englishman and his single item of luggage will fit in the economy car he had ordered and to please expedite his obtaining it. (I’ve been on the go for about 22-23 hours by now).
I had a choice of two Chevy Cavaliers or a Pontiac Sunfire. I picked the Sunfire and headed to 192. I was expecting to see big tailbacks at gas stations and shortages in the stores with another hurricane scare on the way, but this was not the case. Gas stations were open and I had no problem picking up a few supplies from Walmart.
I checked in, unpacked then went to sleep.
Before I commence with the details of the park visits there are a couple of things I will vent about:
One sad thing I had noticed through the whole trip – whilst many smokers were considerate enough to use the designated areas, still there were lots who did not care where they smoked and I never once saw a cast member intervene. I would assume that it’s not worth their getting the verbal abuse that inevitably would follow such a situation. It’s very sad because I know other smokers with think “If they are smoking where they want, then I’ll smoke where I want”.
I also saw quite a few French Connection UK shirts, though I have been led to believe that it will be policy to get people wearing these to turn them inside out. For those not familiar with this company, they only place the initials of the brand on the shirt, which at first glance looks like the wearer has a certain four-letter word across his or her chest. Hardly appropriate to a family park. As were the British children under ten years old with the word “” on the back of their shorts.
Anyway – on to the fun part of the trip.
Saturday 11th:
No surprises as to which park I visited on my first day – Animal Kingdom. This was a pattern to many days – start at Animal Kingdom and check out the Safari before the day got too hot for the animals. The days I did not start at Animal Kingdom I first went to Magic Kingdom.
The driver’s microphone was on the fritz in the Safari, so half of what he said was missed. At then unloading dock he got a new headset and invited everyone to stay onboard and try again.
I would also check out the Pangani trail and Maharaja Jungle trek in the morning. Generally I found you had a good chance of seeing the gorilla family quite active at this time, though my other favourites – the tigers tended to be more active in the last hour of the day.
I noticed that the park was very quiet in terms of guest numbers and that many of the exhibits around the Tree of Life and Discovery Island were empty. This was due to the fear of another hurricane. They did not want to put the animals back out only to put them through the stress of being captured and put in safe enclosures a couple of days later.
I was able to say a quick personal “hello” to a performer I know in Festival of the Lion King as well as some of her fellow dancers after one of the morning shows before they headed to lunch.
My lunch was at Flame Tree Barbeque. I love eating the ribs here, taking them down to the lily pad pond that many people seem to bypass. http://images1.fotopic.net/?iid=yfr7vw&outx=600&noresize=1&nostamp=1
Very peaceful. As well as ribs I can also recommend the fruit salad – a huge pile of fresh fruit guaranteed to keep you hydrated and full.
My other favoured counter restaurant at Animal Kingdom is Tusker House; where I was know to partake of a spot of salmon and corn chowder. Most days I bought the meal voucher and so had an Ice cream and bottle of Diet Coke to look forward to later in the day.
One unusual thing I had never seen before – all six tigers were out. I have been told that the big red tiger is the head girl and that she really does not like one of the other five. If the two of them are out, one or the other has to be in the second area. Today was the first time I witnessed that.
I had a good laugh at a British guest, in Guest Relations being quite abusive to a Cast Member, demanding a free ticket to Epcot as she had just found out that Animal Kingdom did not have a firework display. I pondered butting in, however the CM had everything in control.
Special Cast Members – Barbie in the Mombassa Market Place, where I was killing time before the parade, I enjoyed a good chat with her. Robert outside the Pangani Forrest Trail, where he was doing the shift to get people coming off the safari to go along the trail saying “See the gorillas”. We had a laugh when I questioned if the other cast members on the trail appreciated being called that.
Most evenings I would park hop to either Epcot or The Studios. Tonight I went to Epcot where Mission Space and Test Track were both walk on - no queues. It stayed that way for the first week then gradually built up to small queues in the second week. I enjoyed a stroll around World Showcase and my first School bread in almost a year. The Norwegian bakery was closed on my last visit, so it tasted even better. It was not to be my last on this trip.
After Illuminations I headed back to my hotel and straight to sleep. The long journey the day before was starting to take its toll. A more sane person would have taken time out to relax. My sanity was questionable in this instance and I would have to ease up a couple of evenings later on to get some strength back.
Sunday 12th:
I met up with Missy28 at Animal Kingdom and saw the pre-rope drop routine with Mickey, Minnie and Pluto on the bus. The previous one I saw did not have Mickey in the bus, but Goofy. Mickey then appeared on a hydraulic platform in front of the tree of life. http://images3.fotopic.net/?iid=yfrcr5&outx=600&noresize=1&nostamp=1
Missy and I had a good laugh – she is a fun lass, and even decided to feel brave and go on Dinosaur. She says she managed to keep her eyes open for the first half of it. It was quite sweet seeing her photo on the way out – head down, with one hand covering her eyes.
Missy kept the bravery thing going by watching Flights of Wonder. She is a tad nervous of birds flying overhead. Despite the odd flinch I think she enjoyed the show. I was careful to pick seats that were not in the flight path of the owl or the crown crane. I chuckled to myself when they asked for an adult volunteer with a dollar bill – Missy started to encourage me to volunteer, but because I am not a total and utter git I declined. For those who have not seen the show – the volunteer holds the dollar bill out and a bird will fly over to them to collect it. Whilst it would have provided much amusement watching Missy become the fastest moving thing in Disney World I thought better of it. Guano Jane was on the show today, and good though she is the chap currently playing Guano Joe is a lot funnier, maybe as he seems more willing to take the mickey out of himself.
We went on the Primeval Whirl and I’ve never known it spin so fast. I’m a big bloke and the couple that rode with us were not exactly shy when it came to eating the pies. I think this extra weight gave it the extra spin speed.
I discovered that Missy is a magnet for trouble – at Festival of the Lion King I was picked by Zuwaddi (sp?) to show the warthog section how to make the warthog sound. Being a smart , when she said “Put your fingers up to be your tusks and make the sound of a warthog” I came out with “’Ello. I’m a warthog!” http://images3.fotopic.net/?iid=yfrcte&outx=600&noresize=1&nostamp=1
I have never been asked anything by Disney researchers, other than where am I from? But with Missy around I had a couple of full-blown surveys, a request for an email survey (which has still to arrive) and an exit survey. Also in Epcot, sitting next to her on the kerb in the UK I was dragged into the street theatre show. (Side note on the exit survey – they were surprised when I was honest enough to slate the poor choice of food at Magic Kingdom.)
Missy departed after lunch, with plans for us to get back together in the evening at Epcot. I then hit Tarzan Rocks – nobody in the front row so I made full use of this to play with my new second hand digital camera.
Special Cast Members – Dave in camp Minnie Mickey – I gave special mention to him earlier in the year and was delighted to see him still plugging away giving his all. He is a real credit to all that is good about Disney CMs, as is Michael on the Maharaja Jungle Trek. He was chatting to all the guests watching the tigers in the last hour of the day, offering information and answering questions. He retired to Florida and has spent several years working for Disney, first at Magic Kingdom and the last two years at Animal Kingdom.
After Animal Kingdom closed I headed to Epcot and rode Mission Space before sneaking up behind Missy at the tips board and gently saying “Hello”. It still made her jump. OK – so I can be a little bit eeeevil.
A relaxing evening was had, after walking straight onto Test Track. Rode the Mexico boats whilst Missy supped a Margarita, strolled over to Canada to catch the last Off Kilter set then roam the countries, have munchies at the Norway bakery and watch Illuminations. We stood back from the boundary wall and were both conducting the music. Anybody would think we’d seen the show before.
One thing I learnt from Missy, although I do not know how far out from Atlanta this applies – you can say anything you like about a person, so matter how nasty, as long as you first say “bless their heart”
Monday 13th:
I had to go to Magic Kingdom – two days passed and still no Main Street USA? That’s just not right! Space Mountain was not operating at opening, so I did a quick circuit of the park, which was almost deserted. They had yet to switch on the water for the drop on Splash Mountain.
I met Rob at 9:30, Space Mountain was now open and I had to ride it – a trip to Disney is not complete without Space Mountain. We then hit Haunted Mansion, where Rob noticed a missing instrumental soundtrack in the graveyard scene. On to Splash and I was happy to see all the animatronics working. A big improvement on my last visit. Watched as a bloke in the front of the log saw his baseball cap tumble away at the bottom of the little Slippin’ Falls to land on the track behind us and get squished by the next log.
I finally made it onto one ride I have never been on in all my visits – Dumbo. I rode it to get a look at the 20K area. Also, I did not feel guilty taking a kids space on it as there was no queue and the ride even went up with a vacant Dumbo. Yes folks, it really was that quiet! We went to Cosmic Rays as I had been looking forward to trying the BBQ that was reported to be on sale there. No sign of it, so I decided to have the steak sandwich I had last time, but it too had disappeared. In the end I had the chicken sandwich. No matter how many toppings I used it was still ultra-bland. Is there a device back in the kitchen to suck the flavour out of food?
After a visit to Philarmagic Rob bade me farewell and headed off to work. I headed back to Space Mountain then went Photo Dave spotting on Main Street and was successful in this undertaking.
At 3:00 I took the monorail to Epcot. From the train there was a clear view of the damage caused by the hurricanes – lots of trees down in the woods around the monorail track. The rain hammered down, but stopped just before I rejoined Missy.
It was during this encounter that I was dragged into the King Arthur production put on by the World Showcase Players in the UK pavilion. A tabard was shoved over my head and a lance thrust in my hand to make me Sir Lancelot. The thespian in me came out and I made a suitable fool of myself, right down to my “victory dance” being a time-step.
We headed by monorail to Magic Kingdom for Wishes. I introduced Missy to Dave and we were chatting with him when a Canadian wearing a kilt and carrying a leopard skin set of bagpipes drew our attention. This was not a cast member, but a guest. Having thought he’d seen it all, Dave asks, “What’s with the bagpipes”, to which the guest’s reply was “What do you mean, what’s with the bagpipes?” I must be an everyday thing for that particular gentleman to roam around with leopard skin bagpipes, but to the rest of us it was a novelty. He then explained that he liked to get photos of him in places with the pipes. I guess some people take their teddy bears places to photograph it there, so it’s not really that much different to do it with a traditional Scottish Instrument they nicked from the Irish.
In the time before Wishes, Missy and I saw Philarmagic, all the Fantasyland dark rides and Splash Mountain. Yes folks, it was still that quiet, you could walk straight on to Pooh and Peter Pan an hour before Wishes!
After Wishes we went our separate way, Missy to pack for her journey home and me to Mara at Animal Kingdom Lodge for African Stew and Zebra Domes. This is something I did more than once, sometimes for supper and sometimes when leaving Animal Kingdom, especially if I was headed to the Studios as the counter food there is dire.
Tuesday 14th:
The Animals at Animal Kingdom were very active, particularly on the safari and the Gorilla family. On safari I saw both the baby elephants for the first time. I met Sillyspook13 when she was working in the Lion King theatre. She gets into the spirit of the audience participation thing – here she is in the left of the frame singing along with Simba and the gang http://images3.fotopic.net/?iid=yfrcue&outx=600&noresize=1&nostamp=1
During the first week at Lion King they were doing a publicity thing for the Lion King II DVD where before the performance started, the stage manager would bring a child or group of siblings to the centre of the stage, get them in introduce themselves and where they were from before getting them to say “Let the festival begin” and presenting them with a copy of the DVD.
On this day there were three sisters, the eldest gave her name and home the youngest, who was quite little, then got confused and gave the name of the eldest sister at which point the middle child hit her. The whole theatre went “awwww” as the toddler ran back crying to her parents before completing the ceremony.
Guano Joe was back at Flights on Wonder, and was in all the remaining shows I watched throughout the holiday.
I spent the evening at the Studios – walking straight onto Tower of Terror and Rock n Roller. I decided to give The Commissary one more chance at providing an edible meal. Big mistake I had some dire fish and chips, of which I can find nothing positive to say.
I was feeling beat, so headed back to the hotel before Fantasmic. At 11:30pm a phone call woke me – it was Rob asking if I wanted to get a bite to eat. I declined the kind invitation, chatted for a while, arranged for him to give me a bell at 8:30 am to confirm meeting up at AK the following morning, then wished him Bon Apetite and then totally failed to get back to sleep.
Wednesday 15th:
When Rob failed to call in the morning I took it as read he had probably just got to sleep, so left him to it and headed for an early morning safari, where the animals were very active as were the gorilla kids. After a few calls and a false start I met up with Rob at 2:00.
Prior to that I took in the sights and the animals and taught someone that it’s a bad idea to sit down in the Dinosaur briefing room and sprawl with their legs out full. It’s dark in there and they could hurt someone by making them trip. That is, unless a large Englishman clumps down on your outstretched limbs.
I found out how close the macro function on my camera is. Here is a photo of one of those little lizards you see scurrying around the parks.
http://images2.fotopic.net/?iid=yfrux1&outx=600&noresize=1&nostamp=1
Bumped into Sillyspook13 again. She was on her day off and can be even more theatrical when not a cast member: http://images2.fotopic.net/?iid=yfra5x&outx=600&noresize=1&nostamp=1
Her demonstration of the difficulties encountered riding Space Mountain in a skirt was hilarious; sadly I could not get my camera out in time to record this gem of a moment.
Special Cast Member – Janice at Tusker House, she just gave off happy energy.
When I met Rob, we headed to the Safari. There were barely half a dozen people in the truck. Yes folks, it was still that quiet. After checking that we had all ridden before, the driver took the soundtrack off and gave us her own commentary, which made for a nice change. At the end we stayed on and rode a second time.
Rob then took me on the fastest ride at Disney – his car on the back roads. Saw a few new backstage areas and we came across rehearsals for the new stunt show taking place in an abandoned corner of the Epcot parking lot.
I managed to annoy Rob, and when I retold ths tale to Dave he found the whole thing very amusing: Rob was asking if I was scared of his driving, which I was not – I live in the English city that has the worst reputation for selfish, aggressive drivers so zipping along deserted three lane highways is not that bad.
Anyway, I agreed that the fact he uses indicators / directionals could be seen as a European influence. Rob then asked if I thought he drove like a Spaniard. I could not verify this from personal experiences, so he suggested I compare his technique to an Italian. I pointed out that his hands were on the steering wheel too much rather than being used in conversation to be Italian. However I suggested that he was arrogant enough to be French……I nearly had to walk back to the Animal Kingdom parking lot.
Thursday 16th
I spent the morning at Magic Kingdom, did some shopping in the afternoon at the discount stores and headed to Epcot late afternoon, saw some live performances, ate at Morocco and took some night shots later in the evening before Illuminations. The smoke hung in the air quite a bit after the show, as you can see from its presence at the exit http://images2.fotopic.net/?iid=yfrakx&outx=600&noresize=1&nostamp=1
