AkiraRaptor's Oct 9-16th Trip Report

Day 1 and 2

Our Disney trip this year was in the second week of October. We arrived on a Monday and left the following Sunday. The party contained my wife and myself.

As usual, we drove down from Pennsylvania, like we do every year. We left very early on a Sunday morning, and arrived in the early evening in Ponte Vedra, outside of Jacsonville, FL. We always stay here for one night, and get a fresh start at Disney the following morning.

This year we stayed at the Ponte Vedra Inn, right on the beach. This place was great. Nothing like opening you door, and being able to see the beach, and walking right on to it. The room and service was top notch. And while pricy for a hotel room, not any more expensive than a good deluxe at Disney, and much less than a concierge room.

We left after breakfast the next morning, and drove A1A through St. Augustine and jumped back on to I95 at Palm Coast. This is such a nice drive, and you get to see really beautiful parts of the Florida coastline.

We arrive at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge at about Noon. Greeted by the bellhop, we are taken strait to our room on the 5th floor as we are on concierge this year. Our room is the very first deluxe after the suite next to the lobby. And our view overlooks Arusha Savanna.

So on to our first park, which is Disney MGM Studios. Now, anyone who knows me knows that MGM is my least favorite of the parks. I just don’t care much for this one. Yes, it has a few great attractions that I like, but overall, the park seems dated to me, and the layout is chaotic at best.

But, we’re here to see the new stunt show, Lights, Motors, Action! So we beeline for it and get make it in for the a show that was about to begin. Great timing. Well, it ok. My wife said it best when she said it needs more stunts and less pretend movie making. It’s done in the same format as Indy, but at a much slower pace, and it seems to loose something. And they can loose the Herby part altogether.

Ok, we then took rides on Great Movie Ride, Muppets, Little Mermaid, and the Animation Tour. The Animation was new for us since they were redoing it last year when we were there. It was no where near as good as before. Robin Williams and Walter were much better. They should bring them back.

Now you must be wondering what about Tower of Terror or Rock and Rock? Well, unfortunately, my wife will not ride these, and this year…I can’t. You see I had a heart attack about 8 weeks ago, and had three stints placed in me. My doctors have advised that I still go to Disney this year, but not to ride the big rides like those. Thus my favorite rides are out this year like ToT, Test Track, and my favorite, Dinosaur.

So, by this time, we need to get to Spoodles for our dining reservations. We take the boat. Have a great dinner, and then go to Epcot, for desert at the French pastry shop, Boulangerie Patisserie. I love chocolate mousse.

We then skipped the fireworks this night and went back to our resort and ended our first day at Disney.

 

[AkiraRaptor]

Day 3 and 4

Our first morning at Disney, and our first tour is also this day. We quickly ate, and then got over to Epcot for the Around the World on a Segway Tour. We love this tour; we did it last year when they first started it. It has very quickly gained in popularity, and they now do two tours a day, every day. We took the early morning one so we can be in World Showcase with no people around.

The rest of the day we spent walking about the World Showcase and sampling the foods and drinks for the Food and Wine Festival. We did do one new thing though. And that would be Soarin’. Now that is Disney at its finest. Been a while since the magic was around. Mission Space was good, even though I can’t ride it because of my heart, or the fact that it makes me feel sick, but it never had that magical feel to me. Soarin’ does to me. I wish it was a longer ride.

We had to Fastpass it, and we still had a 10-15 wait. Later in the week we did it a second time, and the Fastpass’s were all gone by 1:30 PM, and the standby line was at over 270 minuets! Nothing else in the entire WDW parks had a line that long. Even MK on Saturday was only 30 minute lines for every ride.

We then finished the night off with Teppanyaki dining in Japan. We had Ken as our chef. And he was great. Telling jokes, doing fancy stuff with the food including throwing it at us. Ever see a shrimp fly. We did. Several times.

Again, we snuck out before the fireworks to avoid the crowds. There is a reason though we keep skipping them.

The next morning was our 9th anniversary. We honeymooned in WDW, so to mark the occasion we eat at the breakfast restaurant we ate at every morning that week nine years ago, Kona Café.

Then the rain began, and my ankle started to act up. I’ve got a bum ankle, and walking around Epcot the entire day before put on the hurt real bad. So since it was raining anyways, we decided to return to the AKL resort and rest for most of the day. My wife spent her time in the shops and around the resort while I relaxed the ankle.

The in the afternoon, we drove over to Boardwalk for dinner. We ate at Flying Fish, our favorite place to eat, with our favorite dessert, the Valrhona Chocolate Souffle. Yum.

Now, it’s time for the Epcot fireworks. We made our way to Yacht and Beach Club Resort to take our ride on Breathless, Disney’s Chris Craft boat. We were taken out on a slow ride of the waterways up to MGM and then back to Epcot, just in time for the firework show.

Now that we’ve seen then from the boat view, it’s going to be difficult to watch them from a crowded walkway anymore. One note, the fire barge was not present because of the earlier mishap a few weeks ago. The boat driver said he was told that the company that made the fire barge no longer exists, and that there was so much damage, that it’s not coming back. It will be replaced with something new or a new show in 2007.

I’ll chalk that up to rumor for now until I see more proof.

Thus ends or anniversary day.

 

[AkiraRaptor]

Day 5 and 6

Well, this day will be full of fun. We are doing our second tour, and for us, this is a new one. The Wildlife Discovery Excursion. This is a special tour available to all concierge guests at every deluxe resort. Basically you go in a special truck through the Kilimanjaro Safari ride. The difference being, you’re out there for an hour and the vehicle stops a lot. The guide is an animal handler. And you get to get pretty close to the animals.

We’ve done the Sunrise Safari, and the Wild by Design Tour that puts you on the ride too, but this one was perhaps the best of the them to see the animals. For the first time we actually got to see all 5 Cheetahs. Bet you didn’t even know they was one or too, not the least five. All the other tours zip by the animals so fast, you never get to see them. We did this time.

It’s still not as personal as the Sunset Safari at AKL’s savannahs, but this was very good and worth a second tour in my opinion.

We spent the remainder of the day at Animal Kingdom, then back to the resort for a short rest and to dry off as it began to really rain down at the end. The rain stopped, and we were off to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party.

We had dinner reservation at Liberty Tree Tavern. We could see some of the first parade through the window. But my mind was focused on the food. We love this place, and seeing the characters dressed up in Halloween costumes is a bonus.

After dinner we staked out a spot for the new fireworks show, HallowWishes. We though this was one of the best fireworks Disney has done. The show was long, the music was delightfull. They did the whole fireworks all around the park several times during the show. Wow, it was a great show.

Once they were over, it was ride time. And first up was Stitch. Last year it opend the week after we were there. So we missed it. But it was open now, and like most rides on MNSSHP nights, it was walk on.

We love Stitch. We have a Stitch in our resort that we bring with us every year. But I warned her that a lot of you here said it was not good. Well, I’m here to say, I don’t care what you think. I liked it. I laughed throughout, and so did my wife. It was fun, and filled with neat little Stitchisims, if that could be a word.

I never liked Alien Encounter. It had really nothing to do with Disney, was was to scarry for small children, but was sitting in the middle of MK, a place ment for the child in all of us. And quick frankly, was not very entertaining after you saw it once.

Stitch, even though it’s basically the same ride, has something different. A Disney character that people care about. And I love seeing Stitch do things and say stuff, and be naughty. Beside the fact that the Stitch animatronic is absolutely spellbindling. The motion and mechanics that went into that are amazing. It was great to watch.

So there, put me in the loved it camp, I don’t care. We love Stitch, and hope he stays for a long time.

We then finished off the night riding other rides like Buzz, Haunted Mansion, Pirates and Philharmagic.

We missed the second parade, but it ok, we’ve seen it every year before. I did wish that the Jungle Cruise was open to ride though, oh well, can’t have them all.

The next morning we ate at Boma for breakfast. Always good as usual. We then decided to do Downtown Disney and do some shopping. After that we went over to MK for a Casey’s hot dog for lunch, and to pick up Jungle Cruise that we missed the night before.

Well, the crowds were quite a bit more than the night before, and Jungle had a long one. So we got a Fastpass for Stitch instead, did PotC and the TTA, then onto Stitch again, which we still loved the second time around. It was even better because we were in the first row, and my wife got a full on spit on her.

Then back to AKL for dinner with some local friends at Jiko. We ended up being there talking and enjoying wine until about 10:30 PM. Diner started at 7:00 PM. But the waiter got a nice tip, so no one cared.

 

[AkiraRaptor]

Day 7 and 8

This was our last full day and night at Disney. We spent the day at Epcot, doing all the rides and shows. It’s been a long time since we’ve done that. We picked up Soarin’ again, plus Spaceship Earth, Energy, Imagination, Circle of Life, Living with the Land, El Rio del Tiempo, Impressions de France, O Canada, Reflections of China, and Maelstrom. We did the American Adventure earlier in the week.

We ate in China at Nine Dragons, and had another desert in France at the Boulangerie Patisserie shop. Later in the afternoon, we went back to the resort to change into better attire because we had the Party for the Senses to attend that evening.

We returned to Epcot and went to the party. For those who have never been, I’ll explain it. Basically you in a large hall that has a center stage, tables and chairs everywhere, food and wine areas set up, and everything is color coded in five colors.

You are given a book with the list of food and wines available, by color. A plate, and a wine glass.

It was OK, but we wouldn’t do it again. And here’s why.

First off, we got there at 6:30 PM, when the doors were suppose to open. They opened them at 6:15 PM, so we started it off late, or behind everyone else. Second, they didn’t tell us anything, kind of through you at the wolves so to speak. Tables are not assigned. We were told later than everyone rushes in and grabs a table. There were people who had groups of five, taking up 10 seat tables, and refused to give up the seats.

My wife and I had a very difficult time getting two seats just for us. Three people let us sit at there small 5 person table, and we ended up having some great conversations with them all night. That was probably the highlight of the evening for us.

The food was ok, but most of it was chefs trying out some really bizarre food combinations. These are the stuff you’d see in really fancy restaurants or cook books, but no once ever eats most of it.

And the wine, well a few were actually quality top notch wines, but most were wines you could pick up at a local store for under $6. Not exactly what I was expecting for $100 a person. There saving grace should have been the Cirque du Soliel performers that were there. But we could hardly see them, so that wasn’t a plus for them either.

Overall, we were not that impressed with it all, and came out a little sad over it, and still hungry cos’ the lines for some of the better food were so long, it was best just to sit it out and not eat at all.

We will not be doing that again.

And thus ended our last day in Disney.

In the morning, we packed up, had a quick breakfast in the concierge lounge, and checked out. Driving strait home and getting back to PA by 12:30 AM.

 

[AkiraRaptor]

You can see my phone camera photos at http://akiraraptor.textamerica.com/

And I'm upping some photos at my WDWMagic Photo Album here http://photoalbums.wdwmagic.com/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=1436

 

[CAPTAIN HOOK]

I was sorry to read of the quite a few disappointments during your stay - I hope that overall you had a good time (appears so from the report). I'll bet the long drive home is a bummer.
Thanks for the report - it made good reading

 

[FanofDinsey1981]

thanks for the report! I was wondering how the party for the senses worked, I think I will stick to the world showcase and the high priced dinners that tend to come along with it!

 

[AkiraRaptor]

I was sorry to read of the quite a few disappointments during your stay - I hope that overall you had a good time (appears so from the report). I'll bet the long drive home is a bummer.
Thanks for the report - it made good reading

Overall, it was a good trip. We've been tring to do some of the Food and Wine extras every year. Last year we did a Lunch and Learn. And while I liked it, my wife thought it was a bit to "classy" for her tastes. Party for the Senses was more of the same to her.

And while I agreed with her on not doing Party again, I liked the Lunch and Learn. And I was quite toated after that morning, since they gave us full galsses 5 times during the session. While at Party, you were luck to get more than two sips to "taste" from these $6 wine vendors.

But we had a good time the whole week, and don't look back on any of it negitivly, even Party for the Senses. We had some really nice conversations with the 3 people we sat from, and that made the evening more than Disney did.

Plus we got to do Soarin' and Stitch for the first time. And we loved them both.

 

[AkiraRaptor]

thanks for the report! I was wondering how the party for the senses worked, I think I will stick to the world showcase and the high priced dinners that tend to come along with it!

Yep, from my experiance, I'd say stick with the regular places. Now the people we were with were FL regulars, and they had done multiple Party's before, and said that this year was not as good. That last year had $100 bottles of wine, and larger portions of food. And less people.

Oh well. Guess Disney saw a way to make a little more cash at our expense, so to speak.

 

[Cinderella Fan]

Thank you for such an amazing trip report. Sometimes I am amazed at how some people remember such details of the trip. Because I teach kindergarten, I try not to use my mind too awfully much while on vacation. :hammer:

But again, thanks for the report. It sounded like you and your wife had a great time.

Also, Happy Anniversary!:sohappy:

 

[diddy_mouse]

I was there the same week as you (it was our honeymoon ) and we had a lovely time too. I thought Soarin' was amazing and couldn't believe the standby line! 170-210 minutes.....thats crazy. Our brief wait in the Fastpass line was definitely worth it. Also I thought Stich was cute, would I do it again? Yeah, not a priority though.

Glad you had an enjoyable trip!

 

[ClemsonTigger]

Thanks for sharing your report. Good insight as usual.

Fine way to recover from your earlier "trials".