I'm back to reality!
It was a wonderful trip, but awfully tiring. Since I had to play "tour guide" to a couple of our friends who were making their first trip to WDW, it was a bit more hectic than the normal pace that I am used to. Still, we had a great time.
The "Red Shirt" day at the Magic Kingdom went amazingly smoothly, mainly because many folks probably got scared away due to the weather. We did almost every single ride in Fantasyland well before 10:30 am, so we avoided a lot of the long lines that formed later on that day. The whole park was still not as crowded as it would normally be at that time of the year. We had rain on and off all day (and evening), but nothing to stop people from doing all the stuff if they want to. We had a terrific time, and once again, had a great Jungle Cruise captain who played along with the rather "red" crowd in her boat. It was a lot of fun.
Saturday evening party at Disney-MGM Studios went well for the first half. They held us at the Light, Motor, Action stadium while they clear up the rest of the park of the regular guests. What was amazing to me was that, for the first time ever, a Disney representative took to the stage to officially welcome us to the event. It was the first official acknowledgment of the Disney company of the "event" at their theme park after 17 years! Better late than never. But then again, the first few years were only made up of a bunch of friends going to MK wearing red shirts. And now, it has grown into a 140,000 strong attendance.
At 9:30 pm, Kathy Griffin took to the stage and she was at her outrageous best! Let's just say that you'll never hear or see that kind of a show at Disney!
No one was safe. She took shots at Donald Trump, Star Jones, Ryan Seacrest, etc.. etc. She was hysterical. She did her set in a light drizzle that didn't dampen her enthusiasm at all (no pun intended). That alone was worth the admission price.
We then got herded into the rest of the park, especially by the Sorcerer Hat and the Tower of Terror-Rock 'N Rollercoaster area. There were just a lot more people than I remember from previous years. Star Tours, Tower of Terror, and Rock 'N Roller Coaster were all open, but the lines are just unbelievably long! I used to be able to ride these things multiple times during this event, and that night, I didn't even want to stay in lines that long. So I didn't ride any.
Donna Summer was supposed to perform at 11:30 pm, but she was late. With drizzle and all, and having had a rather long day, I was running out of energy really fast, and by 11:40 pm, we decided to call it quits just as Donna Summer took to the stage. She had someone held an umbrella over her while she sang! What a diva!
We left anyway, and by the time we reached our resort, we could hear from a distance the fireworks going on. They were almost 15 minutes late.
We spend out last day at Epcot and had a leisure time around the park before heading out to the airport. It was the end of another memorable and wonderful vacation at the Happiest Place on Earth. I'm disappointed that I didn't get the special Mickey ears hat that they give to selected guess, but I guess getting that Dream Fastpass was more than what we were expecting.
BTW, we ate at Le Cellier and I know many people rave about this restaurant. I like it as well, but let me give you a friendly hint: DON'T ORDER THE SEAFOOD of any kind there. I knew that I should have stuck to the steak and meat dishes, but noooooo.... I had to be different and try something new. I order their seared rare tuna appetizer to start with. Bad choice. The tuna appeared to have been cooked earlier in the day and it is cold on the outside (it's supposed to be seared). It was also hard! I'd rather they just give me a piece of raw, sashimi-grade tune and I would have been happy. This was not a good dish.
I then had their bouillabaisse. Another disappointment. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either, especially for that type of a restaurant. So just stick to the cheese soup and the meat entree there, and you'll be fine.
I will post more pictures and a few other commentaries once I recover from this trip. Now, I just need to find that switch for me to get back into the work mode.
Zz.
