Prologue – Who’s Going?
I’m Kirk, a 29 year old Annual Passholder from Cincinnati who loves Walt Disney World and have ever since I was 8 years old. This is my third trip this year to WDW. My mom, who was there last year with her husband – my step-dad – is excited to go with me because of what she perceives is my expertise on how to do Disney right. We used to go when I was a kid almost every year, but we’ve never been there for the Christmas season, and we’re both excited to see all the extras. Mom and I are both very Type-A, impatient, driven, and fast, but we agreed that we would need to monitor that so that a) we didn’t kill each other and b) so we had a relaxing trip. We essentially decided that nothing trivial would get to us and we would make the best out of whatever happened. I mean, we were in Disney World, for crying out loud! How could that EVER be a bad thing? (No, that’s not foreshadowing. We really had a blast!)
December 7th - Day One – Arrive & Epcot
I arrived at the Greater Cincinnati airport in time to meet Mom, who was coming in from Columbus, and sat at her gate reading the Unofficial Guide 2006 to kill the time. I expected her plane any minute when my cell phone rang and she said she was in the terminal preparing to go to our departure gate when a skycap offered to drive her down. I took off towards the gate, as well, and saw her 50 yards ahead and called back and told her to make the guy wait so I could ride along. That was such a fun ride through the airport with this nice older gentleman. We made it to our gate with time to spare, so I bought a ham croissant from the deli and we boarded the plane shortly after.
We arrived on the ground and because the Mickey-hands people have been banned from the security checkpoint area, we went the wrong way and had to be redirected by someone. Check-in took less than 5 minutes and we got in line for the bus to the Animal Kingdom Lodge. We shared the bus with the Pop Century and Coronado Springs, and of course we were the last stop. But no worries, we had plenty of time before our reservation for lunch at Le Cellier at what I thought was 2:30 or so.
We finally made it to the AKL and Mom explored the vast lobby while I checked in. CM Michelle was very helpful and checked to see if there were any rooms available to upgrade to for free, but the hotel was sold out. We were able to go to our room, even though it was only a little after noon, and we had a nice pool view from the balcony of our room in Giraffe Trail #3012.
I thought it would be a good idea to go and check on our dining reservations for the entire trip, and mom needed to get tickets to the parks, so we went to the Lobby Concierge desk and to my dismay I once again encountered CM PAUL! OH THE HORROR! See, last time at stayed at AKL, Paul checked me into my room with less personality and lifelikeness than the bathing elephants in the Jungle Cruise. He couldn’t have been less friendly or competent. When I asked then about any chance of a free upgrade, he was personally offended and rude. He could not have been any worse at his job, I thought.
He proved otherwise.
I told him we needed a 4 day park hopper pass and he stoically began processing that. I got nervous when he didn’t ask for her room key and I said, “Can you put it on the key?” and he said, “Oh, I already did it this way. Uh, sorry?” I rolled my eyes at him and decided not to let PAUL ruin my day. I said, “OK, one more thing and we’ll quit bugging you,” you know, trying to be casual and aloof and friendly and he said something like, “Oh, OK.” What a moron. Anyway, I wanted my dining reservations printed and I wanted to change a couple of them around. He seemed to have difficulty understanding what I wanted to do and I nearly walked away to do it over the phone or later on with a non-animatronic CM, but I stuck it out and got done. My mom was puzzled by the whole thing, because she didn’t know PAUL and our tumultuous history and now began to think that most CMs don’t care about their jobs and have no semblance of a personality. Fortunately, we would discover differently throughout the rest of our stay.
When I looked at the printout of our reservations, I realized that we needed to hustle to EPCOT, because our lunch was actually 1:40 PM and not 2:30. We walked to the bus stop and waited for less than 5 minutes for the bus to arrive. We got to EPCOT very quickly (the idea that the AKL is remote and takes forever to get anywhere is a major misnomer – but its one I hope continues because I don’t want everyone to discover what an awesome resort it is) and walked straight over to Canada to check in lunch. We were early and they were running a little late so we walked outside to look at the flowers and landscape. While we were waiting, Papa Noel appeared in the distance and began telling his Christmas story. Sooner than we expected, they called us for our table.
Our server was Claude and he was very friendly and did a great job. Mom ordered the French Dip without onions and I got the Calgary Maple Barbecue Chicken sandwich. We both got fries and the Cheddar Cheese soup for an appetizer. Claude brought us plenty of bread. I love the Pretzel Bread and mom liked the multi-grain the best. When the food came, Mom’s sandwich had onions on it, so Claude had to take it back. It took FOREVER for it to return, but Claude and the manager were both appropriately apologetic. It tasted good and again nothing trivial was going to ruin our day.
Once we left Canada, I told Mom we needed to go ride Soarin. She was very accommodating with my recommendations, because after all, I’m the expert. So, we got in the standby line and waited for maybe 20 minutes. Mom just laughed and oohed and ahhed the whole time. She wanted to ride again, so we grabbed Fastpasses for later. I suggested we go ride Test Track, so after a quick restroom break in my new secret hidden restroom (inside the new Meet & Greet area by Innoventions), we literally walked on to Test Track. We only waited as long as it took for the pre-show to begin. I asked the CM to place us in the front of the car because of my knees not fitting well in the back and they were very accommodating. The ride seemed to go faster through the early testing phases than I’d remembered. Mom wasn’t blown away by the ride, but she didn’t hate it either. She’s not big on thrill rides, but is brave and will try most things once. Except Mission:Space – that was out of the question for both of us. I did it once on my last trip and I had to end my day after that.
Mom really wanted to see the Candlelight Processional, and so I suggested we start walking that way around the lagoon. We went inside Mexico and Mom suggested we ride El Rio del Tiempo, but then she must have remembered doing it in the past because she said, “Oh wait, is it lame?” And I said, “Well, yeah, pretty much, but we can do it if you want.” She walked out of that pavilion so fast I had trouble keeping up. Next stop was Maelstrom, and we walked right in. I instructed Mom that we would be walking straight through the theater and that she was to just follow me.
We got to China just in time to see the conclusion of a Chinese Children gymnastics squad. We browsed a couple shops in Germany, looked at the trains, and saw the line forming for the Processional, so we went ahead and got in it. We had no trouble getting a seat and we were one row back from the folks who’d bought the Dinner Package. I’m glad we didn’t fork out the money for that. I was exhausted by this point, having been up since like 3:30 AM getting ready and not being able to sleep from excitement. I caught myself dozing off during the choir concert. It was well done, but I’ve seen things like that all my life in various churches. Jaci Velasquez did a fine job, but it just didn’t seem all that spectacular to me. It really didn’t feel very “Disney.”
We left prior to the big finale to avoid the mass exodus and went into the American Adventure where we heard the Hanukkah story teller. She was engaging, but a little over the top. We watched the show, which I always enjoy, and then we went and rode Soarin one more time before heading back to the hotel. Once we got back to the room, we decided we were hungry, so we went to Mara. Mom got a banana or something and I got a burger and took it back to the room to eat it before crawling into bed for a good night’s sleep.
TOMORROW: Downtown Disney, Resort Hopping, and MVMCP!
I’m Kirk, a 29 year old Annual Passholder from Cincinnati who loves Walt Disney World and have ever since I was 8 years old. This is my third trip this year to WDW. My mom, who was there last year with her husband – my step-dad – is excited to go with me because of what she perceives is my expertise on how to do Disney right. We used to go when I was a kid almost every year, but we’ve never been there for the Christmas season, and we’re both excited to see all the extras. Mom and I are both very Type-A, impatient, driven, and fast, but we agreed that we would need to monitor that so that a) we didn’t kill each other and b) so we had a relaxing trip. We essentially decided that nothing trivial would get to us and we would make the best out of whatever happened. I mean, we were in Disney World, for crying out loud! How could that EVER be a bad thing? (No, that’s not foreshadowing. We really had a blast!)
December 7th - Day One – Arrive & Epcot
I arrived at the Greater Cincinnati airport in time to meet Mom, who was coming in from Columbus, and sat at her gate reading the Unofficial Guide 2006 to kill the time. I expected her plane any minute when my cell phone rang and she said she was in the terminal preparing to go to our departure gate when a skycap offered to drive her down. I took off towards the gate, as well, and saw her 50 yards ahead and called back and told her to make the guy wait so I could ride along. That was such a fun ride through the airport with this nice older gentleman. We made it to our gate with time to spare, so I bought a ham croissant from the deli and we boarded the plane shortly after.
We arrived on the ground and because the Mickey-hands people have been banned from the security checkpoint area, we went the wrong way and had to be redirected by someone. Check-in took less than 5 minutes and we got in line for the bus to the Animal Kingdom Lodge. We shared the bus with the Pop Century and Coronado Springs, and of course we were the last stop. But no worries, we had plenty of time before our reservation for lunch at Le Cellier at what I thought was 2:30 or so.
We finally made it to the AKL and Mom explored the vast lobby while I checked in. CM Michelle was very helpful and checked to see if there were any rooms available to upgrade to for free, but the hotel was sold out. We were able to go to our room, even though it was only a little after noon, and we had a nice pool view from the balcony of our room in Giraffe Trail #3012.
I thought it would be a good idea to go and check on our dining reservations for the entire trip, and mom needed to get tickets to the parks, so we went to the Lobby Concierge desk and to my dismay I once again encountered CM PAUL! OH THE HORROR! See, last time at stayed at AKL, Paul checked me into my room with less personality and lifelikeness than the bathing elephants in the Jungle Cruise. He couldn’t have been less friendly or competent. When I asked then about any chance of a free upgrade, he was personally offended and rude. He could not have been any worse at his job, I thought.
He proved otherwise.
I told him we needed a 4 day park hopper pass and he stoically began processing that. I got nervous when he didn’t ask for her room key and I said, “Can you put it on the key?” and he said, “Oh, I already did it this way. Uh, sorry?” I rolled my eyes at him and decided not to let PAUL ruin my day. I said, “OK, one more thing and we’ll quit bugging you,” you know, trying to be casual and aloof and friendly and he said something like, “Oh, OK.” What a moron. Anyway, I wanted my dining reservations printed and I wanted to change a couple of them around. He seemed to have difficulty understanding what I wanted to do and I nearly walked away to do it over the phone or later on with a non-animatronic CM, but I stuck it out and got done. My mom was puzzled by the whole thing, because she didn’t know PAUL and our tumultuous history and now began to think that most CMs don’t care about their jobs and have no semblance of a personality. Fortunately, we would discover differently throughout the rest of our stay.
When I looked at the printout of our reservations, I realized that we needed to hustle to EPCOT, because our lunch was actually 1:40 PM and not 2:30. We walked to the bus stop and waited for less than 5 minutes for the bus to arrive. We got to EPCOT very quickly (the idea that the AKL is remote and takes forever to get anywhere is a major misnomer – but its one I hope continues because I don’t want everyone to discover what an awesome resort it is) and walked straight over to Canada to check in lunch. We were early and they were running a little late so we walked outside to look at the flowers and landscape. While we were waiting, Papa Noel appeared in the distance and began telling his Christmas story. Sooner than we expected, they called us for our table.
Our server was Claude and he was very friendly and did a great job. Mom ordered the French Dip without onions and I got the Calgary Maple Barbecue Chicken sandwich. We both got fries and the Cheddar Cheese soup for an appetizer. Claude brought us plenty of bread. I love the Pretzel Bread and mom liked the multi-grain the best. When the food came, Mom’s sandwich had onions on it, so Claude had to take it back. It took FOREVER for it to return, but Claude and the manager were both appropriately apologetic. It tasted good and again nothing trivial was going to ruin our day.
Once we left Canada, I told Mom we needed to go ride Soarin. She was very accommodating with my recommendations, because after all, I’m the expert. So, we got in the standby line and waited for maybe 20 minutes. Mom just laughed and oohed and ahhed the whole time. She wanted to ride again, so we grabbed Fastpasses for later. I suggested we go ride Test Track, so after a quick restroom break in my new secret hidden restroom (inside the new Meet & Greet area by Innoventions), we literally walked on to Test Track. We only waited as long as it took for the pre-show to begin. I asked the CM to place us in the front of the car because of my knees not fitting well in the back and they were very accommodating. The ride seemed to go faster through the early testing phases than I’d remembered. Mom wasn’t blown away by the ride, but she didn’t hate it either. She’s not big on thrill rides, but is brave and will try most things once. Except Mission:Space – that was out of the question for both of us. I did it once on my last trip and I had to end my day after that.
Mom really wanted to see the Candlelight Processional, and so I suggested we start walking that way around the lagoon. We went inside Mexico and Mom suggested we ride El Rio del Tiempo, but then she must have remembered doing it in the past because she said, “Oh wait, is it lame?” And I said, “Well, yeah, pretty much, but we can do it if you want.” She walked out of that pavilion so fast I had trouble keeping up. Next stop was Maelstrom, and we walked right in. I instructed Mom that we would be walking straight through the theater and that she was to just follow me.
We got to China just in time to see the conclusion of a Chinese Children gymnastics squad. We browsed a couple shops in Germany, looked at the trains, and saw the line forming for the Processional, so we went ahead and got in it. We had no trouble getting a seat and we were one row back from the folks who’d bought the Dinner Package. I’m glad we didn’t fork out the money for that. I was exhausted by this point, having been up since like 3:30 AM getting ready and not being able to sleep from excitement. I caught myself dozing off during the choir concert. It was well done, but I’ve seen things like that all my life in various churches. Jaci Velasquez did a fine job, but it just didn’t seem all that spectacular to me. It really didn’t feel very “Disney.”
We left prior to the big finale to avoid the mass exodus and went into the American Adventure where we heard the Hanukkah story teller. She was engaging, but a little over the top. We watched the show, which I always enjoy, and then we went and rode Soarin one more time before heading back to the hotel. Once we got back to the room, we decided we were hungry, so we went to Mara. Mom got a banana or something and I got a burger and took it back to the room to eat it before crawling into bed for a good night’s sleep.
TOMORROW: Downtown Disney, Resort Hopping, and MVMCP!
