I just got back last night from my quick, 2-day trip to "The World". I have only two complaints about the trip: Number 1, we didn't stay on the Disney property because I have really cheap friends, but I will be staying at the French Quarter next week. Number 2, my friends think that Disney is boring, so we did one day in the Disney Parks, and one in the Universal parks. IMO, the Universal parks are horrible. They have plenty of rides, but cleanliness and courtesy are obviously not in their dictionary. Anyway, let's begin the trip report.
I started out the day by doing the "Keys to the Kingdom" tour. My tour started at 8:30am, but I arrived at the park at about 8:00, so I walked around the park for a bit after checking in. It's a great feeling to have the park all to yourself. Anyway, Our tour guide was Matthew. He is by far, the best tour guide I have encountered. He was very knowledgeable and made the tour really fun. The tour started out with a trip down Main Street. This part of the tour deals a lot with Walt and his dreams and ideas. Next, we made a quick stop at Cinderella Castle. He explained how all the buildings in Main Street and all around the park, are built with a forced prospective, giving the illusion that the buildings are taller than they really are. Next stop - Adventureland. The tour guide explained how Disneyland was a complete failure at first and put the Disney brothers in a lot of debt. But from that, came a good lesson which helped them when it was time to make Disney World. He also explained how the idea for the Utilidor came about. After that quick chat, we took a trip backstage behind Splash Mountain. For most of us, this was our first glimpse at "backstage". After that, we took a private tour of the Jungle Cruise where the guide pointed out a lot of things not usually pointed out by the skippers. Ding! Time for lunch! Lunch was served at the Columbia Harbour House. 11:00 is a bit early for lunch, but I liked the fact that we had the 2nd floor all to ourselves and lunch was already waiting for us when we got there. After lunch, we took another quick look at Cinderella Castle from a different angle where we were better able to see the forced perspective come into play. From there, we went behind Crystal Palace and into the backstage area again and went into the Utilidor. Seeing the utilidor was a neat experience. There's really nothing out of this world down there, but it's pretty cool knowing that you're one of the few, non-CM people that has ever seen the utilidor. My overall rating of the tour is a perfect 10. I really learned a lot about different parts of the park and I would recommend it to anyone.
After the tour was over, I walked around the park for a while to take a couple of pictures. Here are some from MK:
Main Street Station is done! (sorta) They're still doing some painting, but the station itself is open.
Main Street is very well decorated for Christmas.
Walt's Windows
After that, I went over to Animal Kingdom to get my first look at EE. One complaint I have about EE, it that if you're all the way in the back of the parking lot, you can see part of the building which really takes away from the magic and just doesn't look good. I really hope they either decorate that side of the building or place some trees to cover it up.
Everest's snowy peak can be seen from the parking lot
AK X-Mas Tree
Some pics of Everest and Entrance/Queue area
BTW... I was told by a CM near EE that the AP preview of EE will be at the same time as the DVC preview and actually has a good chance of getting pushed forward a bit. I know that doesn't really mean much and is not something you should pay a lot of attention to, but it does give us a bit a bit of hope that maybe we'll be riding EE sooner than we think.
I started out the day by doing the "Keys to the Kingdom" tour. My tour started at 8:30am, but I arrived at the park at about 8:00, so I walked around the park for a bit after checking in. It's a great feeling to have the park all to yourself. Anyway, Our tour guide was Matthew. He is by far, the best tour guide I have encountered. He was very knowledgeable and made the tour really fun. The tour started out with a trip down Main Street. This part of the tour deals a lot with Walt and his dreams and ideas. Next, we made a quick stop at Cinderella Castle. He explained how all the buildings in Main Street and all around the park, are built with a forced prospective, giving the illusion that the buildings are taller than they really are. Next stop - Adventureland. The tour guide explained how Disneyland was a complete failure at first and put the Disney brothers in a lot of debt. But from that, came a good lesson which helped them when it was time to make Disney World. He also explained how the idea for the Utilidor came about. After that quick chat, we took a trip backstage behind Splash Mountain. For most of us, this was our first glimpse at "backstage". After that, we took a private tour of the Jungle Cruise where the guide pointed out a lot of things not usually pointed out by the skippers. Ding! Time for lunch! Lunch was served at the Columbia Harbour House. 11:00 is a bit early for lunch, but I liked the fact that we had the 2nd floor all to ourselves and lunch was already waiting for us when we got there. After lunch, we took another quick look at Cinderella Castle from a different angle where we were better able to see the forced perspective come into play. From there, we went behind Crystal Palace and into the backstage area again and went into the Utilidor. Seeing the utilidor was a neat experience. There's really nothing out of this world down there, but it's pretty cool knowing that you're one of the few, non-CM people that has ever seen the utilidor. My overall rating of the tour is a perfect 10. I really learned a lot about different parts of the park and I would recommend it to anyone.
After the tour was over, I walked around the park for a while to take a couple of pictures. Here are some from MK:
Main Street Station is done! (sorta) They're still doing some painting, but the station itself is open.
Main Street is very well decorated for Christmas.
Walt's Windows
After that, I went over to Animal Kingdom to get my first look at EE. One complaint I have about EE, it that if you're all the way in the back of the parking lot, you can see part of the building which really takes away from the magic and just doesn't look good. I really hope they either decorate that side of the building or place some trees to cover it up.
Everest's snowy peak can be seen from the parking lot
AK X-Mas Tree
Some pics of Everest and Entrance/Queue area
BTW... I was told by a CM near EE that the AP preview of EE will be at the same time as the DVC preview and actually has a good chance of getting pushed forward a bit. I know that doesn't really mean much and is not something you should pay a lot of attention to, but it does give us a bit a bit of hope that maybe we'll be riding EE sooner than we think.
