Elyse's trip report: August 15-17, 2007

Here is the short version (main points) for anyone that doesn't care to look at pictures or read the whole thing.

Check-in: tried at 10, wasn’t ready until 2:30! 1st time not having it when we got there.
AK: packed. Rode nothing and ate at Rainforest café!
Epcot: rude waiter at Chefs de France, great food though.
EMH at MGM: Blast! TOT sequences were awesome!
Brown Derby lunch: awesome waitress, gonna send in a comment card to Disney (need help knowing how to do that though). AMAZING FOOD!
Yachtsmen dinner: Chateaubriand = amazing. The meat almost melted in your mouth.
EMH Epcot: rode Nemo, watched the fishies.
MK morning: SM, TTA, Pinocchio with a window seat to IASW. Mmmm chicken strips.
Had to leave for home.
Short trip, relaxing too. Didn’t try to stuff in a lot but it was a great mother-daughter time.


Precursor:

My parents were staying at the Contemporary for their 30th wedding anniversary (they stayed at the Contemporary on their honeymoon and multiple other anniversaries including but not limited to their 10th, 20th, 25th, and more!
They had been keeping me up to date on their day-to-day events while on the trip (Cali Grill, V&A, Narcossee’s, etc.). I of course was at the peak of my need for a Disney trip! Somehow they had come up with the idea for me to meet them at Disney on the last day or their trip (2 days before). My dad had to head back to Fort Myers to work, and my mom is just like me, can never get enough of Disney. So when I agreed, they hopped on the phone, tried to get ressies at any hotel they could and ended up getting Coronado Springs, which I had never stayed at before. Mom also hopped on the phone and got ADRs at Scifi, Chefs de France, Brown Derby, and Yachtsmen. Way to go Mom! :sohappy:

 

[LeeSeeBabe]

August 15, 2007:

I got up at 5 AM the morning I was heading out, and was out of the house by 5:45. The drive was pretty darn quick, and I got there by 9:30. I took Western Way and tried to get a pic of Disney in the distance. It was hard because I was driving, but if you look closely, you can see some stuff!

I waited for my parents in the lobby for them to transfer from Contemporary. We checked for our room and it wasn’t ready. After I gave my parents their anniversary gift, we put Mom’s stuff in my car so Dad could hit the road and Mom and I could head to the park.

Off to AK we go. When we got on the bus the driver told us that it was EMH at AK that morning. Wooops :shrug:. We usually like to steer clear of those parks. I just wanted Mom to ride EE because she never had before and I love it!! When we got to the park, we had to update my ticket from a seasonal pass to an annual since it was 2 days before the block-out date ended. My parents had known that before I came but they said they didn’t care.

The time board had said EE was a 45-min wait. Now my family is NOT the type to wait long for a ride at all since we’ve been on most everything, but EE was the only reason we came to AK so we headed that direction. We got in line for it and waited about 20 minutes in the same spot. When we finally got to where we could see the time board at the entrance, it was from that point 70 minutes!!! UH, NO THANKS! We hopped out of line while everyone looked at us like we were crazy. We then headed toward Dinoland and the line for Nemo was astronomical. We checked the wait times for everything there and it was not to our liking :lookaroun. We had ADRs for Sci-fi in a couple of hours, but I HAD HAD HAD to eat! We ended up deciding to eat at Rainforest even though I am not a big fan because it technically isn’t a Disney restaurant. Though, Lunch was delish: I am not a vegetarian but I did get the vegetarian sandwich because I love portabella mushrooms. MMMM it was good. But it was much better when I dipped it into my mom’s balsamic dressing.


On our way out of the park, the little talking tree was talking to the kids. Mom and I stopped to watch for a little.

Guess who I found in the mean time (potential SPOILER alert):

We were constantly calling the hotel to see if our room was ready. No such luck. I was already so tired and hot there was no way I could have gone out to another park before heading back to the room to rest. So even though it wasn’t ready, we still headed back to the resort. My mom got us off at the ‘first’ bus stop, not the main lobby, so we had to trek around the lake in the heat. We looked around the store: here's me and the donkey:

Then we grabbed a raspberry-flavored frozen margarita at the swimming pool bar (wayyyy to sweet for my liking) before the room was finally ready.

We got to relax before heading out to Epcot for dindin. We didn’t do any rides that night before dinner, just started heading around the world to do a little drinkin’ round the world.

Then there was dinner at Chefs de France. I was NOT pleased with the waiter. Now I have no problem flashing my I.D. to any waiter that needs to see it, I am 22 years old and in certain clothes have the tendency to look younger than that. I did have a glass of wine that I brought in from outside and still had no problem showing it. But the way he asked was extremely rude, looking at me and my I.D. like I still waslying or something. My mom and I are extremely friendly and always start up conversations with CMs, and I understand he was probably busy, but he was just flat out rude! The food was good though, Mom had the pork and I had the scallops and shrimp :slurp:.


We got another glass of wine outside at the kiosk and started talking to the cute CM. I told him that I had been to France and went to Paris and Mont St. Michelle. He had never even heard of the place!!!!!! I was appalled!! Anyway, we walked around the rest of the world. Rode the ride in Mexico. (I thought the flash was OFF, but here's Donald and me!)

We then headed to EMH at MGM (excuse me Hollywood Studios). We had a BLAST at MGM that night. It was opened until 1 AM and we stayed until about 12:30. Of course Mom and I were feeling pretty good from 'walking around the world' and decided to get a fastpass at TOT and grab a beer! That thing took a while to go down :animwink:!! Haha. We watched the Little Mermaid show and had an obnoxious teenager sitting next to me yelling during it. We did TOT twice. The first time everyone in the elevator was encouraging this one kid that was trying to get off to stay on. He stayed on and loved it. The second time: AMAZING. No one knew until we looked at the picture, but almost everyone on the ride did something. The kids in the back row did YMCA with and exclamation point, the people to the front right are all praying, I tried to look bored but it ended up looking like I was thinking I was hot hahaha. It was fun. (Mom and I are the front left).

We got back to the hotel and ordered breakfast for the morning, since the pepper market was confusing and packed. Zzzzzz.

 

[LeeSeeBabe]

August 16, 2007:


We got up, got our coffee and breakfast and headed to AK AGAIN to try and get mom on EE. We rode it once (it said 30 and we waited about 15-20) and she loved it so we check the time (now 60 minutes). We decided to do the single rider line. They said 15-20 and we waited about 10. They would just toss a single rider in every now and then. Well, I got my own row and they called for another single rider…my mom! I almost felt embarrassed to get through that fast. But hey, we didn’t do it, Disney did!

Next, we got in line for Primeval Whirl which said it was only a 15 minute wait. WHAT A MISTAKE! It had a ‘technical difficulty’. But before they decided to tell everyone that was waiting in line, we had already waited about 20 minutes. So we got out of the ASAP. We checked the wait at Dinosaur which I thought my mom would love but the wait was 40 minutes and we needed to head to DHS for our ADRs at Brown Derby. It was FANTASTIC! I eat there at least every other trip and this was by far the best. Cobb Salad and Salmon. Mmmmm. Here's us with our Creme Brulee:

After that we rode TOT twice and headed back to the hotel.
We were exhausted from the heat so we changed our Yachtsmen ADRs from 6:15 to 9:05. I am SOOO glad we did. We got to do a little relaxing at the room before heading out. Mother/Daughter picture in our CS hotel room. Our head tilt is the exact same angle!

We hopped a bus to MGM and then hopped a boat to Yacht club.

Dinner was A M A Z I N G. The Chateaubriand was the best piece of meat I have had in years. We also split the lobster bisque. We told them we were going to split it and if they could just bring 2 spoons but they ended up splitting it into 2 bowls for us! Mmmmmmm :slurp:.

Here's me at the meeting point of Yacht and Beach!!!

Epcot had EMH that night so we headed over there and rode Nemo. Mom had never been on it before and loved it! We were beat, and headed back to the hotel for some sleep.

August 17, 2007:

We got breakfast at the room again, loaded up the car, and headed to MK since we hadn’t been there yet. We rode SM (waited about 10 minutes). I can tell I’m getting “old” because I had a headache after that for about 30 minutes. After riding the TTA, Mom and I just walked around and watched Tigger, Pooh, and Belle interact with the children. We ate a Pinocchio then headed back to the hotel to get on the rode.

All round, it was a fun trip. I loved the repost and our room was very nice. We had a corner room and the car was parked right down stairs. We tried to make it relaxing as we didn’t ride many rides, but it was so darn hot out, it wipe the energy out of us!

 

[CyKosis]

Great report! I wish my parents would go on the big rides!

 

[mouselvrmom]

Sounds like you had fun!

I can't wait until my daughters are old enough to have a little mommy/daughter time at the world together!

 

[ArielWannaBe]

Sounds like you had an awesome trip! I love love love the ToT picture~!
I always make the worst faces in my pics ... I always forget about the pics! lol

 

[Mikester71]

Love your report! Can't wait to go back again in 2 years .

I have only rode ToT once and was wondering when exactly it is that they take the picture? I know it is on the way down or up obviously, but is it when the doors open for the first time or second or does it just depend.

 

[LeeSeeBabe]

Typically, it is when you hit the top, literally the second before you drop. I normally hit a pose when it stops at the top and wait until it starts to fall again, because it is always in that frame.

 

[primetime52]

Perfect Trip Report! Short, to the point, and with lots of pictures! Good work.

I feel like we're the only 2 people who actually like the Nemo ride. Everyone always flames it so badly around here. I can't wait to ride the nemo submarine voyage in DL and compare the 2 (I have a feeling that one will blow ours out of the water, though. no pun intended).

I've also had rude waiters at Chefs De France. They don't exactly try to fight that stereotype about French people being rude. I had less rude waiters when I was actually IN France.

I'm glad you got your mom on EE. It's a great ride, especially the lift hill at the beginning which builds the anticipation for the rest. I guess she's more of a thrillseeker than my mom, because I can rarely ever convince mine to ride ToT.

Did you spend any time in MK?

 

[Mikester71]

Typically, it is when you hit the top, literally the second before you drop. I normally hit a pose when it stops at the top and wait until it starts to fall again, because it is always in that frame.

That is what I thought, but wasn't 100% sure. Now I just have to get up some b@lls to ride it again next time we go down (rode it my first trip there in 2005, but chickened out this past March). Thanks!

 

[LeeSeeBabe]

Perfect Trip Report! Short, to the point, and with lots of pictures! Good work.

I feel like we're the only 2 people who actually like the Nemo ride. Everyone always flames it so badly around here. I can't wait to ride the nemo submarine voyage in DL and compare the 2 (I have a feeling that one will blow ours out of the water, though. no pun intended).

I've also had rude waiters at Chefs De France. They don't exactly try to fight that stereotype about French people being rude. I had less rude waiters when I was actually IN France.

I'm glad you got your mom on EE. It's a great ride, especially the lift hill at the beginning which builds the anticipation for the rest. I guess she's more of a thrillseeker than my mom, because I can rarely ever convince mine to ride ToT.

Did you spend any time in MK?

I love the new Nemo ride! I think it is quite catchy!

True about the French people. When I was in France a few years ago, I thought that they were the kindest out of our whole trip.

I had a little blurb about MK at the end of my trip, we did it the morning of our last day. With how crowded the parks were [for us anyway] MK wasn't a top priority. For my family, we meet at Disney so much that if we don't do it one trip, we'll do it the next.

 

[primetime52]

I love the new Nemo ride! I think it is quite catchy!

True about the French people. When I was in France a few years ago, I thought that they were the kindest out of our whole trip.

I had a little blurb about MK at the end of my trip, we did it the morning of our last day. With how crowded the parks were [for us anyway] MK wasn't a top priority. For my family, we meet at Disney so much that if we don't do it one trip, we'll do it the next.

Cool. I guess my ADD must have been kicking in by the end of the report so I didn't notice that part haha.

I'm the same way with my trips. We only spent about 2 hours in AK last trip (just rode EE). I'll surely devote a full day to it next time.

 

[dhcalva]

Epcot: rude waiter at Chefs de France, great food though

Maybe that was part of the "French Experiance"? :ROFLOL:

 

[mpoppins76]

Great report!!! Love the TOT pic!! :lol: :lol:

 

[slacker]

I was there at the same time! I just needed to say that my family and I have stayed at the Beach Club the last 4 times we've gone and I've NEVER noticed the meeting point between the two hotels. that's neat.

 

[CAPTAIN HOOK]

Nice report - thanks for sharing