Captain Hank's 5/31-6/5 Trip Report

Okay, here goes. Overall, my trip was really great, with a few minor exceptions (to be discussed later). I set a few goals for this trip, first to try a lot of the foods that have been talked about on the forums, and second to search out as many secrets and inside jokes as I could. I succeeded on both fronts, and will be sprinkling them throughout the trip report.

The first little incident happened about two weeks before we left. I was making sure that all of the tickets and everything were together when I took a close look at the flight times. It turns out that the airline made a rather spectacular mistake when scheduling our connecting flight on the way back home. The flight date should have read 05JUN05 (June 5, 2005). Instead, it read 05JAN06 (January 5, 2006). We were scheuled for a one-year layover! We called the airline, and after giving us a bit of grief, they straigthened it out, now with only a 2 hour layover.

The actual flight down was pretty uneventful, however. We were staying at the Wilderness Lodge, and it was wonderful! We'd gotten a great rate, though we were staying in the standard view (or GM/Ford view, as the CRO agent said). However, much to our surprise, the front desk upgraded us, not to a forest view, but to a pool view. Here's the view from our balcony:

Nice, eh?

I spent the rest of the day resort hopping and seeing about picking up my Disney Store comp tickets. I'd never been to either the Polynesian or Grand Floridian resorts, and only briefly in the Contemporary, so I took the water launch to the Contemporary and hopped on the resort monorail. I forgot my camera, so no pictures from the resorts. I did, however, locate the five-legged goat in the Contemporary (it's on the side of the mural that faces the monorail station) and a Hidden Mickey in Bout-tiki (on the back of the Tiki god that greets you as you enter through the main entrance. I was also quite impressed with the Grand Floridian. Then, I picked up my tickets from the Magic Kingdom guest relations and caught the water launch back to the Lodge. I took a few more pics of the Lodge before calling it a night.

Day 2 (Magic Kingdom) Coming Soon.

 

[ogryn]

Nice photos

 

[KnK]

Love Love Love WL. We look forward to it every year. Thanks for the teaser pictures of the Lodge.

 

[LouDisney]

Great pics!!

 

[Captain Hank]

Day 2--The Magic Kingdom

Quote of the Day: "Uh, hello, this is Eric returning your call..."



While thinking back on the trip, I realized that each day, there was a quote that either struck me as insanely funny, or was representative of the day as a whole. Each day, the quote will be explained somewhere in the post. Also, it rained every day, and not just the expected 4:00 shower. But that meant long stretches with short lines .



I got to the MK at about 9:30, a half hour after opening. I'd planned on being there at opening, but had trouble wrenching myself from bed. But, coupled with the fact that it was still early, and actively raining, crowds were extremely light. Here's the obligatory golden castle picture:

Since I hadn't ever been on Splash Mountain before, I headed straight there. It was a literal walk-on. My first time through, I really didn't know what to expect, so I was a bit pre-occupied with the drop at the end. I'm not a huge fan of drops in general, but the rest of the attraction more than made up for it. The theming and animatronics were incredible. I ended up riding it twice in a row (both literal walk-ons) and the hopping Bre’r Rabbit showed up both times.

Afterwards, I wandered around the Frontierland area, just enjoying the theming. Then, I was going to meet up with my parents right by the Carousel of Progress. First, though, I rode on the TTA and saw the “The City of Tomorrow is a great electrical machine working for You” projection over the Epcot model. Even with the ride on the TTA, I was a good ten minutes early for the meeting with my parents. However, my parents turned out to be a good 45 minutes late, because of long lines for the water launch. In fact, I ended up calling the room from a pay phone near Space Mountain to see if they’d left yet.

I didn’t know the Wilderness Lodge number, so I called WDW-INFO. Or, at least, I thought I called INFO. When the guy on the other end picked the phone up, I was greeted with “Uh, hello, this is Eric returning your call…” which struck me as quite odd, since I was the one making the call. I was very confused, so I hung up and redialed, this time ultimately reaching the room, with no answer. By the time I got back to the COP, my parents had arrived and were looking vaguely lost. We just made it over to the Liberty Tree Tavern in time for the reservation.

Lunch was great. Our server was also great, a cast member named Samra. She was very friendly and got a recipe for us (the very good onion soup). Apparently it was only her second day at the Liberty Tree Tavern, as she’d transferred from Spoodles. After lunch, my family and I grabbed a Philharmagic fastpass and rode the Haunted Mansion. The Mansion looked to be in decent shape. The audio has been a bit better, and Mme. Leota’s projector needs to be cleaned, though.

After that, we headed over to Philharmagic. It was my dad’s first time on it, and he was mightily impressed. The only odd thing that I noticed about the film was that the apple pie scent was cued several times before it should have been, resulting in about three spritzes of the scent even before the pie came onscreen. Other than that, the film was perfect, and it remains my favorite 3-D film on property.

By this time, my parents were starting to lose steam and were thinking about heading back to the resort (my dad’s idea of a great vacation involves many, many naps), but first I suggested that we get some Dole Whip :slurp:. While in line, I met a cast member on the College Program named Alex, who works at the Great Movie Ride. He was very nice, and was able to answer a few questions about the program. We then left the MK just as the parade was arriving at Main Street.

We had a dinner reservation that night at the Whispering Canyon Café with relatives that live in the area, so I decided to take a nap and planned to return to the MK in time for the evening entertainment. I got back about 9:10, during the first run of Spectromagic. As I’d hoped, I was directed backstage behind Main Street. It’s so incredibly different back there. You’d never believe that 19th century shops exist just on the other side of these industrial buildings, and vice-versa. There were cast members along the way, so I didn’t want to risk taking pictures.

I made it back to Tomorrowland in time to catch the Carousel of Progress, which is in excellent shape. The only thing I noticed was that Rover’s tail was having a great deal of trouble wagging during the second scene. Otherwise, the show was perfect. I got out just in time to work my way across the Tomorrowland bridge and catch Wishes, which was spectacular. I tried taking pictures, but without a tripod or handy surface to put my camera on the first several didn’t come out well, and I decided to just enjoy the show. After the show, I left the hub area to make way for the crowds and headed for Liberty Square to get a seat for Spectromagic. Though my camera won’t take good night pictures in general, the reflective surfaces on the Spectromagic floats make for some great pictures:

My EMH consisted of first, the Haunted Mansion at midnight, and then the renovated IASW:

I then headed over to Philharmagic again, and then, just because I’d never done it and was in the area, I decided to try Winnie the Pooh. Overall, I wasn’t too impressed, though it’s a good attraction for its target audience. I did like the way they did the rain in the Floody Place. Then, I headed over to Tomorrowland again for my final attraction of the night, Stitch’s Great Escape. I thought it was okay, though not spectacularly great. I’d be willing to give it a second try to see if I like it more. The projections of Stitch running around the room were nice, and I’d imagine the attraction was horribly boring without them. The animatronics were awesome, though. As for the chili dog smell, :hurl:.

That’s it for Day 2. Sorry if I was a bit long-winded. Day 3 (Epcot) is coming up sometime tomorrow.

 

[WDWScottieBoy]

EXCELLENT pictures and thanks for the report thus far. I'm impressed with your Spectro shots as it's one of the hardest things to take pictures of at WDW.

Cant' wait to see the other random quotes from your trip. Day 2's had my cracking up. :lol:

 

[jcat2312]

Great report so far! The pics are awesome

 

[Slipknot]

... Then, I headed over to Tomorrowland again for my final attraction of the night, Stitch’s Great Escape. I thought it was okay, though not spectacularly great. I’d be willing to give it a second try to see if I like it more. The projections of Stitch running around the room were nice, and I’d imagine the attraction was horribly boring without them. The animatronics were awesome, though. As for the chili dog smell, :hurl:.

Let's just say that, IMHO, the attraction is still awful and "horribly boring" with the "updates." And what is it with the chili dog smell? I honestly don't smell a thing when he burps on us...

 

[Captain Hank]

Let's just say that, IMHO, the attraction is still awful and "horribly boring" with the "updates." And what is it with the chili dog smell? I honestly don't smell a thing when he burps on us...

Eh, everyone has their own opinion about it. SGE is definately not one of WDW's headliner attractions, and any further improvements would definately be welcome. Overall, I didn't think the attraction was great, just not spectacularly awful. As for the smell, it might depend on how well the smell delivery system is working in your particular chair. In mine, it was overwhelming, though in other seats it might not work as well.

 

[Captain Hank]

Day 3--Epcot

Quote of the Day: "We Love Norway!"

I got to Epcot a little late, about an hour after opening. My first stop was Mission: Space, with a singles line walk-on. I actually found it a bit more intense than I remembered, but just as fun, nonetheless. I also played a round of Mission: Space Race. My next stop was The Land to check out the new theming and Soarin's wait time.

The wait time was about 65 mins, and the Fastpass return time coincided with my family's Behind the Seeds tour time, so I decided to wait until that evening's EMH. I did, however, pick up a Fastpass for Living with the Land, and noticed a familiar icon on the sides of the kiosks:

Since I had some time before I was to meet up with my parents at the Coral Reef, I decided to walk around and enjoy the festival. My first stop was the festival center in Innoventions. While I was browsing, I remembered that one of the hallways in the building was supposed to have the old Communicore logo carpet still intact. When I looked down, I realized that it was this hallway:

After a visit with our friends at Nature on the Rocks, it was time for my AR at the Coral Reef. Lunch was good, and afterwards we paused a the Land to use my LWTL Fastpass. Then, it was off to Norway for dessert--School Bread. It was quite good, but I was dissappointed by one thing. A usual bonus of the Norway pavilion is the female Cast Members, however there were none to be found. I may just not have been looking hard enough, but that will be explained a bit later.

At this point, it was time to go Behind the Seeds. It was a great tour, and very worth it. I'm looking into an internship at the Land, and our tour guide went as far as to take me aside during the tour and give me some adivce on what all the internship entails. With a bit of luck, I might be working in the greenhouse and giving the tour in a year or two. Here are some pics I took while in the greenhouses:

Squash being grown aeropinically--with roots exposed and traveling through mist chambers.

The inside of a mist chamber.

America's first tomoato tree. It's actually being entered into the Guinness Book of World Records for most tomatoes grown on a single tree. We were given free samples of the tomatoes, and they were incredibly sweet. I usually don't like tomatoes, but these were outstanding.

A winter melon.

My family and I decided to go back to the resort to take a break, but not before riding Spaceship Earth and catching a few pics of the landscaping.

Looks like today is going to be broken into two parts. Part 2 coming a bit later.

 

[Captain Hank]

Okay, Day 3, Part 2

Sorry about the delay, I was called into work on short notice. We're doing a stage set, and my manager wanted my help

After a bit of R and R, my dad and I went to Downtown Disney to pick up a few things. One little gem I found was a pin of Goofy asking Mickey what time the 3:00 parade started. I can't believe that wasn't a cast-exclusive! Unfortunately, we got hung up, and I didn't make it back to Epcot until 9:30, a half hour after EMH started. I headed straight over to Soarin' only to find a rapidly growing line, a posted 75 minute wait, and no fastpasses (they'd run out ten minutes prior). By this time, the line was halfway out into the middle of the food court area, and a cast member said there was a 2 1/2 hour wait from that point.

I really, really wanted to ride Soarin', but I also really, really didn't want to wait in line for that entire time. So, I decided to go get some food and try the line right before the end of EMH. One of the few places open was the Harry Ramsden Fish and Chips stand in the UK. I know people have talked about how good it is, so I decided to stroll over and have some. World Showcase is so pleasant in the evening, especially with nobody around. The fish was quite good and hit the spot perfectly. Afterwards, I decided to explore the UK shops in search of a prop that looks like a Mary Poppins bag with a lamp coming out of it. In the process, I got into an approximately half-hour conversation with one of the Cast Members there about the international program and her various experiences. It was fascinating, and probably wouldn't have happened during the day when there were more guests in the park. I never was able to find the bag...

Afterwards, I wandered into Future World, and snapped the Ice Station Cool pics in my update, along with this, shot from an ISC iceberg:

I peeked back in on the Land, and the Soarin' line didn't seem to be much better, so I headed over to the Living Seas to catch the last showing of Turtle Talk with Crush. It was really cool! The whole show was well done. To sum it up: duuuuuuuuuuuude! Afterwards, I wandered around Sea Base Alpha, and noticed this at the bottom of one of the displays in the shark exhibit:

On the way out of the park, I went by a group of several spectacularly drunk guys, each carrying one of those yard-long beer glasses and yelling at the tops of their lungs "We love Norway!" I wonder if they referring to the cast members...

Day 4 coming up sometime soon.

 

[Captain Hank]

I know about the pictures and I'm working on it. Day 4 and pictures coming soon.

 

[sheryl2007]

Great report, I enjoyed it!! I take it I am not the only one who can't see pics?? I don't want to be left out! Thanks for the tidbits too, they are interesting Well as soon as I posted this, Some of the pictures came up and they are great !!!

 

[Captain Hank]

Great report, I enjoyed it!! I take it I am not the only one who can't see pics?? I don't want to be left out! Thanks for the tidbits too, they are interesting Well as soon as I posted this, Some of the pictures came up and they are great !!!

Working on the pics right now. They should slowly be reappearing.

Edit: ok, all the pics should be visible.

By the way, thanks everyone for your encouragement! I'll try to get Day 4 up tonight. Check back in an hour or so.

 

[WDWScottieBoy]

I'll have to check Day 4 out tomorrow at work, but excellent job so far. It just keeps getting better.

BTW, I LOVE that picture of SSE from the ISC iceburg. That has got to be one of the coolest shots of it I've ever seen!

 

[Captain Hank]

Day 4--Epcot and Disney-MGM Studios (Star Wars Weekends)

Quote of the day--"Okay, who wants to take their microphone away from them?"

Since I didn't catch Soarin' the previous night, I decided to get to Epcot for park opening and ride. It was totally worth it. The film is gorgeous and the ride structure moves just enough to produce the flying sensation. I definately found myself lifting my legs up to avoid hitting the passing trees. One thing, though, I didn't notice any smells or water spray. Still, it was great and I'm definately riding on future trips.

After Soarin', I headed over to MGM to enjoy Star Wars Weekends. MGM was the most crowded park of the week, with many guests wearing Jedi robes and carrying lightsabres. Also, today was the raniest day of the week, with very few times during the day when it wasn't raining. I started off by investigating some of the SWW merchandise. I didn't see anything that really jumped out at me. I was thinking about getting one of the pins, but didn't make it in time to get any. I also arrived too late to get any of the celebrity fastpasses. I did, however, see the Star Wars motorcade. While I was waiting for it, I heared the quote of the day. There were two actors trying to warm up the crowd, and utterly failing to do so. Personally, I felt for them; we were all getting wet, and weren't in the standup comedy mood, and the characters were trying. A few others around me had a rather lower opinion of them, and suggested various attempts on their microphones. Here are a few pics of the motorcade:

Don Bies, Droid supervisor for the prequels

Warwick Davis, AKA Wicket the Ewok

After the motorcade, I decided to take refuge from the rain instead of waiting around for the session with the celebrities. I went next door to my favorite show at the Studios, MuppetVision 3-D. It was as funny as ever, though I noticed that either Waldorf or Statler's (not sure which) mouth was hanging open and not moving. Afterwards, I was feeling a bit hungry, so I went over to the Studio Catering Co. to check out their new menu. I had a steak gyro, which was decent, though not outstanding.

I had some time to kill afterwards, so I decided to make an attempt on the Hot Seat in Who Wants to be a Millionaire--Play it. It was the first normal show of the day, as I didn't take a huge amount of stock in my knowledge of Star Wars trivia. The host was great, though I don't remember his name. I actually did pretty well, and was in the number two spot during one of the score checks. Alas, I never did make it to the hot seat. On the way out of WWTBAM, I was greeted with a torrential downpour, and had to meet my parents on the other side of the park.

They both wanted to see MuppetVision, so we did that again. Waldorf or Statler's face was still stuck in a prepetual look of surprise. Afterwards, I talked my Dad into going on the Tower of Terror, and we headed over to Sunset Blvd. to check on the wait time. It was a bit long, so we both got Fastpasses for later in the evening. I did, however, grab this pic first:

Dad was starting to drag a bit, so he headed back to the room for a nap. Mom and I went to the Great Movie Ride, and met up with Alex who we'd talked with in the MK. He was working the door at the entrance to the movie theater section of the queue.

Something rather interesting, at least 3 people within 5 minutes came up to him and asked if the movie was all there was. Pardon me, but the last time I checked, the attraction was called the Great Movie Ride, not the Great Movie Standing Around and Watching Old Movie Trailers. :brick: The worst part of it was that some didn't believe him and asked to go to the exit! :brick: :brick:

Mom was starting to wear out a bit, so we decided to go grab a milkshake at the 50's Prime Time Cafe before she left the park. It was an off time, so we were able to walk into the restaraunt. My family had wanted to eat there for years, but we always seemed to arrive at the most crowded time, and without a PS. Our "cousin" was Phillip, and he was really good. We ended up having the onion rings (very good, as was the dipping sauce), my mom had a Chocolate Malt, and I had a PB&J milkshake slurp: )

After my mom left, I went off for another round of WWTBAM, and again was in the top ten during a score check. I then headed over to Star Tours, which I felt obligated to ride, since it was SWW. On the way there, I did notice this:

Any other Star Wars/Lucas nerds out there that get the joke? (I'll explain if necessary)

After Star Tours, it was time to meet up with Dad and go on the ToT. It was as great as I remembered, and I think we had the longest of the drop profiles. We had the sparking ghost figures, the breaking window, and more electricity projections. I was a bit to pre-occupied to be counting drops, though. Dad had never been on the Great Movie Ride, so we did that, and got stuck as we were leaving the Oz scene. I was in the front row, so I got to see the door to the movie screen room get stuck, and several cast members come and move it by hand.

By this time, it was about time to get seating for Fantasmic. However, I really wasn't sure how the weather would hold up, so Dad and I decided to take in the Magic of Disney Animation. I liked it, but the previous incarnation was much, much better (especially since it was actually a working studio then). On the way out, I tried to get a Tomorrowland attraction poster from the Art of Disney gallery's Print on Demand. Unfortunately, they ran out of paper for the day, so they told me to come back tomorrow. We then left to avoid the exiting Fantasmic crowds. We could see a few fireworks blasts, so it looked like the show was going on.

Day 5 (MGM, Animal Kingdom, Epcot) coming soon

 

[Captain Hank]

Day 5--MGM, AK, Epcot

Quote of the Day--"Hey, that's the girl we drank to earlier! I wonder if we should tell her?"

Today was hectic, to say the least. My day started off at MGM, picking up a Tomorrowland poster from the Art of Disney store there. I would have gotten it at another Art of Disney location, but I hadn't seen any other Art on Demand locations. They said it would take about an hour for my poster to be ready, so I took another spin on Star Tours and enjoyed some of the SWW atmosphere, since it was significantly drier than the previous day. I also stopped in on the AFI showcase to check out the Villians exhibit. While there, I got into a really nice conversation with one of the Hong Kong Disneyland CM's that was training there. She said she was pretty confident that HKDL will be a decent tourist draw once the phase 2 attractions come online. It was interesting to get a CM's perspective on a brand new park. By now, it was past time to get my poster, and I headed back to the resort to drop it off, since the packing tube was too huge to carry around.

After that, I headed straight to the Animal Kingdom to catch Lucky:

Lucky's handler was trying to explain the Boneyard to Lucky in a way that wouldn't make him sad.

Just after Lucky shuffled off backstage, it started to rain. On a whim, I decided to check out the wait for Kilimanjaro Safaris. I was pleasantly surprised--10 mins. And what was even more surprising, I saw far more animals than I ever had before. They seemed to love the rain, far moreso than the themepark guests.

With not much time remaining before I had to meet up with my parents for dinner, I wandered over to Asia to take the requisite Everest pics. Also, something I haven't seen much of is the village below the mountain, which is extraordinarily detailed.

 

[Captain Hank]

I left the park and met up with my parents for dinner at Boma at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. The place was amazing! Great food, most of which I hadn't ever seen before. The Carrot Ginger soup was incredible. I'd definately suggest that anyone with a remotely adventurous pallatte check this out. Oh, and zebra domes = :slurp:

After dinner, I headed to Epcot for the evening. Wary of seeing dinner again, I decided to bypass Mission: Space. Instead, I decided to head over to Norway to ride Maelstrom, which I hadn't been on in several years. On the way, I noticed this amazing view:

However, there just seemed to be something missing from it. That something showed up in about 5 minutes:

Further along the walkway, I took this shot:

I think it's my favorite picture of the whole trip.

Oh, and I noticed this outside of the Oddessy center.

Maelstrom was a lot shorter than I remembered, and I remembered it being very brief. Afterwards, I did feel a twinge of guilt as I made a break for the exit doors in the theater before the movie started. I decided not to watch Illuminations, and instead wanted to take a spin on Test Track. It was a literal walk-on, and I timed it perfectly. Just as we exited the building for the "victory lap," the exploding comets over WS were visible. I did pause in the Innoventions plaza to watch the final shells of Illuminations, and caught a picture of this, in honor of the F&G festival:

I thought that this might also be of interest, looking exactly opposite of the previous pic.

After this, I hopped on the monorail (front seat!) to the Magic Kingdom. On the way up the monorail platform, I was right behind a moderately intoxicated couple. All of the sudden, she pointed to a girl farther up on the ramp and said "Hey, that's the girl we drank to earlier! I wonder if we should tell her?" I'm not sure why, but I found it hillarious at the time. I arrived at the TTC just in time to watch wishes from across the Seven Seas Lagoon. Sorry, I wasn't able to take any good pics of this, since I didn't have anything to set the camera on for stability. However, it was beautiful to watch it from this vantage point, and I'd heartily recommend it to anyone familiar to the show. It was the perfect end to a great trip.

Day 6

Quote of the day--"And what circle of hell have we decended into now?"

The trip back was pretty uneventful all the way until our connecting flight from Cincinatti to Cleveland. There was no air conditioning on the plane, and it was hotter in Ohio than it was in Florida. Furthermore, there were two young children that were most definately not thrilled with the hot plane and pressure changes involved in taking off and landing. So, as my family and I sat in the darkened plane, (we were instructed to keep the window shades down to cut down on light and heat entering the plane) feeling like roasting chickens, and listening to the wonderfully ear-shattering shreik of the kids, yours truly uttered today's quote of the day. It was very quietly, of course, whispered in my mom's ear so as not to make it akward for the parents of the kids.

Well, that about sums up my Disney trip. Hope you've enjoyed! :wave:

 

[CAPTAIN HOOK]

Great Photos and a great trip report

 

[nibblesandbits]

Great report! Thank you for posting it! I also had a quote on my trip that me and my b/f kept repeating over and over. We were on the plane and after take-off, this little girl behind us said "We're almost in space dad!" I just bust out laughing b/c I thought it was the funniest thing...so I definitely understand why you (and I"m sure the rest of us) enjoyed your quotes of the day. (My favorite was the Eric one!)