Trip Report 8/14-8/21

Well, a lot of trip reports seemed to have sprung up for the same week I went! But, I suppose it's my turn to add my two cents.

The Cast: DBF (20) and myself (19), for my ninth trip and technically his fourth (but the first two times he only went for a day and he doesn't really remember it, so we call it his second.)

Day #1
After waking up at the insanely early time of 4:45 to catch our 8:55am flight out of Providence, Rhode Island, we arrive at Orlando International at about 12:45--- ten minutes ahead of schedule! (As a side note, it only took so long because we had an hour layover in Charlotte. I absolutely love the Charlotte airport, however, so no complaints from us!) We take the shuttle and walk around aimlessly until we see the man in the Mickey Mouse hands holding the Magical Express sign. I run over to him excitedly, and he tells me to take the elevator downstairs. DBF and I do so, and I check us in. (I planned the entire trip, after all, so I have to be "the man" the whole week, heh). We are on our bus about ten minutes later, and on our way to Saratoga Springs about twenty-five minutes later. SSR is, of course, the last stop on our magical express, but I tell DBF he gets to see the other hotels he's never seen so he can't complain.

After we *finally* get to SSR we are terribly impressed by the prettiness of it all. We stayed at Pop Century for a week last year and, while we love Pop, it cannot compare to SSR's beauty! The girl who checked us in was from New York and a Yankees fan, so she teased us about our Red Sox devotion, but she was quite pleasant. Our room was ready when we checked in at about 2:30, so we walked over to our home for the next week: room 8123, a studio on the first floor of The Grandstand Building. The room was quite cute, and had a beautiful view of the perfectly manicured grass. It was also a short walk from the Grandstand pool, and only about a 4 minute walk from the lobby and the Artist's Palette.

Speaking of the Artist's Palette, after we put our luggage down we realized we were starving, so we decided to get a bite to eat before we headed to the parks. DBF got a cheese flatbread pizza and a delicious chocolate brownie (we were on the DDP) and I got a barbecue pulled pork flatbread pizza with one of those huge sugar cookies with mickey mouse sprinkles. Because, really, how can you be in Disney and pass up mickey sprinkles?! Both pizzas and desserts were excellent! DBF is also a very talented artist, and he drew a picture of my dog on the easel at our table while we ate.

After food... it was time for Epcot! We had dinner reservations at Alfredo's for 8:15, and Epcot had the EMH, so we decided to spend our first day there. I didn't even take any obligatory photos of SE because the crane just made it look ugly, which kind of annoyed me. The bulletin board informed us everything but Mission: Space had an insanely long wait time, so we headed over to M:S where it informed us that the green team only had a 10 minute wait. That sold us! It was... okay. I've never really liked M:S, and it still made me feel kind of queasy, so I think it's a ride I can skip next time. DBF felt the same way. After M:S we headed to HISTA because DBF likes it a lot and, well, it was 95 degrees outside and HISTA never has a wait. We walked in halfway through the cheesy preshow and took our seats.

Now, let me just take this time to vent. I HATE PEOPLE WHO SIT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE THEATER INSTEAD OF MOVING ALL THE WAY DOWN!!!!!!!!! It is TERRIBLY rude and inconsiderate and selfish! ANYWAY, so HISTA is the same as usual. The mice still freak me out, but I always know when it's coming so I put my feet up minutes in advance and laugh at other people screaming.

After HISTA, we went on Ellen's Energy Adventure, which, surprisingly, I had never been on before. It was... okay, and definitely a great thing to do on a scorching hot day. I love Ellen and I love Jeopardy, but they should update it a bit. Alex Trebec still has a mustache and the highest value of the clues is only $1000! And why is Bill Nye the Science Guy everywhere?! Still, I love dinosaurs, and the ride had plenty of those to keep me happy.
After Ellen, it was time to head over to the World Showcase so we could browse through some stores before dinner. DBF drooled forever over the insanely priced action figures in Japan while I wished we weren't about to eat dinner so I could have a Napoleon in France.

Once we checked in at Alfredo's, we were seated quite quickly. DBF didn't get an appetizer, but I got a Caesar salad. DBF munched on the bread, and my salad was quite good because it had bacon in it, and I adore bacon. DBF had lasagna for his entree, and I had the obligatory fettuccine alfredo. We weren't terribly pleased by either. The fettuccine as a lot thicker and cheesier than I usually like it, and his lasagna just wasn't that great. We were full, however, and got our desserts to go: DBF got the chocolate cake, and I got the teeniest cannoli I have ever seen! The service was not that great as I had feared about the DDP--- it took DBF ten minutes just to get a refill on his plain old lemonade! It wasn't, however, terrible, so we deemed our first food night "okay."

After dinner, we were going to go check the wait times for Soarin' and TT, but we were both just so tired we wanted to go back to the room. I hadn't been able to fall asleep until 2:30am that day out of the Disney Excitement (I'm sure you know the feeling) and DBF was also working on just a few hours of sleep. We decided to hit the hay so we could get up early for the next day---- the Magic Kingdom!!! We went back to the room and unpacked, and laid down on our SOOOO soft bed! Seriously, the beds at SSR were absolutely amazing!

Well, I think that's all for tonight... is this TR too long?! I've never done one before, so just let me know if I'm writing too much. I hope you're enjoying it so far!

 

[CAPTAIN HOOK]

Great start - looking forward to the rest.

I agree with about those selfish folk who refuse to move all the way down the aisle of seats

 

[KnK]

Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to the next installments.

 

[Monty]

For some of us there is no such thing as a "too long" trip report!

Write to your heart's content... We'll eat it up!

 

[Turcicus]

I'm one of those who believes that a trip report can never be too long. The more you write, the more it feels like I'm there too!

And I'm right there with your BF - I drool over the high-priced action figures in Japan as well.

 

[minnie2000]

Great report - waiting for the next part. Any photos?

 

[PanfanAL]

Long trip reports are fine by me. It gets me excited about my trip in October.

 

[Ravenclaw87]

Day #2

Sorry for the typos in the last day, guys! I think I was a little more tired than I realized when I wrote it.

DBF and I had a wonderful night's sleep in our comfy bed, so we woke up early to tackle the Magic Kingdom. And tackle it we did!!! We arrived at the park just in time to catch the little show at the front of the park, and after Mickey appeared I kinda sorta cried a little bit--- but don't tell anyone. Disney just doesn't feel like Disney until I've been to the Magic Kingdom, and seeing Mickey there just made me realizing I was at Walt Disney World, this place that I just love so much. I'm sure many of you have felt that, and I was just so happy that a tear or two trickled down. But don't tell DBF!!! hee hee

When the show ended, DBF and I raced to get fast passes for Space Mountain. We had a decent enough time--- 10:15 to 11:15 maybe??? so we started to head over to BTM. We noticed that Pooh didn't have any line whatsoever on the way there, and, because neither of us had never been on it (I was still mourning Mr. Toad), we decided to give it a shot. And, amazingly, I loved it! I'm a huge Eeyore fan, and I loved how they featured the pages out of books to make it seem like you're in the story. The bouncing along with Tigger was also quite cool.

After Pooh, we decided we better move it to BTM or we'd have an hour wait. Well, we were wrong, because we had no wait for BTM! After BTM we decided to go on to Pirates where, again, we just walked on! We were becoming terribly spoiled by these 0 wait times, especially because after Pirates, we walked right on to Jungle Cruise! A note about these two rides: I think they should have updated Pirates a little more. Why isn't Barbossa standing on a model of the Black Pearl!?! How cool would that have been!?! And I must say I love the Britney Spears joke on JC.

By then, it was 10:15 so we got fps for PPF(DBF loved Peter when he was little and I have all these pictures of little DBF dressed like Peter Pan so I make him go on PPF whenever we're in WDW). We started walking over to SM and even got in line, but by the time we were 15 people or so away from getting on the ride, of course, breaks down!!! Frusturating, yes, but after making us wait 20 minutes we're each given two fastpasses and I got some awesome pictures of the SM track all lit up. So, all in all, I'd say I was just fine with SM breaking down!

We headed over to the Starlight Cafe for some grub, and I think it's my favorite QS place in the MK. It's nice and air conditioned and you get humungous drinks with the meal plan. And DBF was able to get cheese fries--- he's *so* healthy. After food came Peter (classic as always... although when did they make one of the mermaids look like Ariel?!) and Philharmagic. Now, I was quite angered when they took the Lion King show out of that building, but I love Philharmagic. I love looking at all the little kids oohing whenever one of the princesses comes on the screen, and, well, it's just a feel-good show, don't you think?

After Phil, we decided to head back to SSR for a swim. Even though we had a "quiet pool" near our room we wanted to go to the big pool because it's just so gosh darned pretty! The slide was pretty fun, but there were just so many small children running around everywhere! Ever notice how much cuter the little kids are in the MK than in your hotel? :lol:

It was around 5:30 before we decided to head to MGM for dinner--- we had reservations at 7:00 for the Hollywood and Vine, and we wanted to do some stuff and see Fantasmic. Well, that was the *plan* anyway: MGM was absolutely MOBBED!!! Everything had at least a 45 minute wait, and I refuse to wait that long for something I've already seen bunches of times. We walked around the shops until dinner, hoping that the lines would be shorter afterwards. H and V ended up being... bland, I suppose is the best word. The food was okay, but there was nothing I really wanted to get seconds for.

The lines were no better after dinner, and it was still grotesquely hot, so we decided to come back another day and go to DTD for a while. I could not stand WoD because it was too crowded, but DBF bought an "Art of Pirates of the Caribbean" book. We also got huge oreos dipped in chocolate and candy at Goofy's Candy Co. We ended up not having too much time before the shops closed, so we left, planning on coming back later in the week.

We ate our cookies and collapsed in the room after DTD. May I just say it is so hard to get a lot of stuff done in WDW when it's 95 degrees outside!! Looking back, we didn't do too much, but it was just so hot it felt like soo much more!!

Coming Up: The Hell that was Animal Kingdom and some fantastic French food!

 

[CAPTAIN HOOK]

Looking forward to reading Day 3

 

[H20Babie]

More! More!

 

[DisneyGigi]

Great report! Can't wait to read the rest! :wave:

 

[OhioDisneyLover]

Enjoying your trip report. Any pictures to share?

 

[Ravenclaw87]

Gah! Sorry I haven't updated this thing in forever. I just moved back to college and things have been hectic lately. (I'm actually typing this at my work study job... )

I'll have the next day up by tomorrow night, I promise!

 

[Ravenclaw87]

Day #3

DBF and I decide to head to DAK because we haven't been there yet. DBF and I get started about 10 minutes behind schedule, and we wound up not getting to DAK until about 9:15. Only 15 minutes after the park opened, yes, but this would wind up making all the difference.

After the seemingly never-ending trek from the bus stop to the park, we enter and we rush over to KS to get FP, the plan being to do EE after we get the KS FPs. (Wow, that was a lot of abbreviations--- or, as my first college roomie would call them, abbrevs.) Our return time is sometime around 10:30, but, after mulling it over, I decided to chicken out of EE. I'm not really a rollercoaster kind of girl and, while I had heard EE wasn't that bad, the drop looked BIG. I told DBF to go on it without me and I'd go find a cup of coffee somewhere, but DBF refused to go alone. After telling DBF over and over to go on it, I gave up, and we decided to head over to Dinosaur!

All I can say is I had forgotten just how incredibly huge DAK was. Keep in mind, it was only 9:30ish and it was already climbing into the mid 80's, and it was hot, and humid, and, no matter what direction DBF and I walked in, we seemed to be going uphill. It wasn't even 10 o'clock yet and DAK had already tuckered us out!!

When we FINALLY reach Dinosaur, the line was only 20 minutes or so, and air conditioned, so we were quite happy. And... as for when we got on...

...I have been on this ride probably five times, and I have only kept my eyes open through the whole thing once. The sheer memory of that first time scares the crap out of me, and so I tend to close my eyes throughout 70% of this ride. And I scream. Lots. I think the couple next to me were quite annoyed with me, but, whatever--- I was petrified. DBF just laughed at me.

It was just about time to go on KS now, so we walked the five and a half miles uphill (or so it seemed anyway) back to it. This was probably the most eventful safari ride I had ever been on--- the lion actually roared a bunch of times, and I have never seen the lion do anything but lay there. Mrs. Lion, however, was fast asleep.

After KS, DBF and I browsed some shops before deciding to go see The Festival of the Lion King. The walk to FOTLF was, of course, more uphill walking in the now scorching heat. DBF and I got to the line, waited five minutes, then just decided to go back to the hotel. We just didn't want to be in DAK anymore. It was hot, there was hardly any air conditioning, and it was insanely crowded. DAK is just a terrible place to be in the summer. It's definitely my least favorite park, but I think I'd like it a lot more if I could go in one of the cooler months.

DBF and I got some food in the Artist's Palette (I love this place!!!) and went for a swim in the huge, pretty main pool. I know some people have complained about it being too small, but I thought it was definitely big enough. The waterfalls were gorgeous, and the slide was quite fun, albeit crowded with too-cool twelve-year-olds. DBF and I just lounged around for a bit after the pool until our dinner ressies at Chefs de France at 7:00.

DBF and I got to Epcot around 5:30ish and decided to walk around the World Showcase because the wait for Soarin' was, of course, around 100 minutes. We browsed the shops for a bit before dinner, and we went on the new Mexico ride.

...It was awful. The "Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros" is one of *THE* worst rides ojn Disney property. It portrays random scenes of Mexico that don't really make too much since, and all of the footage just looks like B-roll. You would think Disney could have done something better with this ride--- the entire Mexican pavilion just feels cheap to me.

Anyway, once it was time for dinner we didn't have to wait too long for a seat. Our waitress was incredibly friendly. DBF got the cheese plate for an appetizer, I got the salad, and both were tasty. Our waitress checked on us twice to make sure everything was okay, which amazed us. DBF and I liked one of the cheeses so much (I forget what it is now) that we had her write it down so we could buy it later. As for the main entree, DBF and I bought got the fancy mac and cheese...

And it was incredible. I'll post a picture of it later. It was, quite possibly, my favorite meal of the entire trip, and I ate at Le Cellier too! Now, being a big kid at heart, I love mac and cheese, but this was just incredible stuff.

DBF and I didn't get dessert because we were stuffed, but I did order a cappuccino (delicious, by the way) so I could tip the waitress extra. She was just SO sweet that I felt she deserved it.

After dinner we were quite happy, and somehow we ended up in the British shop that sells expensive perfumes. And, somehow, the saleswoman convinced me to buy a $70 bottle of Burberry Brit perfume. I have NO idea how she did it, but she did, and it has such a sweet, soft, almost-but-not-quite sensual scent, and I love it, and I just had to share that because if my dad knew I bought $70 perfume he'd kill me.

ANYWAY, after my splurge we watched Illuminations, which DBF had never seen before. It was, truth be told, same as usual--- Illuminations has never been my favorite nighttime show. I did get some cool pictures of it, which, again, I'll post later-- my pictures aren't even on my computer yet!

We rode TT in the single rider's line after Illuminations because it only had a 20 minute wait, as opposed to the 50 minute regular standby line. After TT, we were about to headed to Soarin, but the line was quite long so we decided to do the walk on to Living with the Land instead because, well, we were there! DBF was not happy with me at first for making him go on this ride (which I had actually never been on before... shhh!), but then we saw the 9lb lemon, and we were satisfied. The ride is a little boring, but I think it's definitely worth seeing.

After LwtL, we were exhausted, and Soarin' still had a 40 minute wait, and we just wanted to go to sleep. So we headed back to SSR to rest up for a MGM morning.