Trip Report

[gjpjtj]

September 2002 Trip Report

Well let me start by saying we had a great time! It's nice to see that Disney Magic is alive and well. Forgive me if I ramble, and be prepared this could be a long one!

Friday 13th-Saturday 14th
We started our trip from Long Island, New York after picking up my sister. Leaving at 6pm, we quickly found the first 2 hours of our trip would be a nightmare. The Belt Parkway was bumper to bumper, yet moving slowly, and the Goethals bridge was shut down due to a fire. Well at about 8:30pm we finally hit I-95 in New Jersey, (a trip that should have taken us about 40 mins).
The rest of the journey down I-95 was uneventful. A few stops for the bathroom and gas, and 18 hours later we were in Orlando.
Our first stop on our trip was at the Hampton Inn Maingate East. This was just a one night stay to refresh ourselves for WDW the next morning. This hotel was clean, roomy and comfortable. My family hit the pool, as I took a nap, and we all went to a local buffet for dinner.
Our stay at this hotel was short but pleasant. The rooms were roomy, (there were 4 of us with room to spare), clean, and affordable @ $44.10. Here is a link to the hotelHampton Inn Maingate East

Sunday September 15th
We awoke early and checked in at the All Star Music resort at about 8:00am. There was no line for check-in, and the process should have been painless, but just my luck, I had a Cast Member who was just "filling in". He was however very friendly, just a little slow with the process. Our room was not ready, but did not expect it to be, so we headed to our bus for the Magic Kingdom.
The bus seemed crowded and I grew concerned that the park would be mobbed. We arrived at the MK unloaded and headed for the security bag checks. Once inside, Main Street, too seemed crowded, we rushed to Fantasyland, only stopping for a picture in front of the castle. (By the way, on Sunday the crane was till there, and it was in use!). My son had to ride Dumbo first so we hurried our way throught the castle, up to Dumbo's gates..but wait there were no lines! We walked right on.
This set the tone for the rest of the trip. We basically walked right on to all of the rides, and rode everything as much as we liked. We couldn't believe how much we'd accomplished. By 1 pm we had ridden: Dumbo, Cinderella's Carousel, Snow White, IASW, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, TTA, Buzz Lightyear, Splash Mountain, BTMR, PoTC, Jungle Cruise and the Tea Cups.
Thrilled with our progress we decided to take the monorail to EPCOT. Once there we rode: Spaceship Earth, Test Track and JIYI. My wife loves Figment and she was thrilled with the refurb. Around 5pm we returned to the ASM resort and got our room.
The room was OK, smaller than that of the Hampton Inn, but I knew what to expect. We payed the extra money for a preffered room, and boy was it worth it. We were ground floor, pool side, and a short walk to the food court. After dinner at the food court and a short break, we headed for Disney Quest. Played some games, let my son run around for a while, and back to the hotel for bed. What a busy day!

If you can bear it, there is more to follow check back!:sohappy:

 

[wannabeBelle]

More Please!!!!! I love trip reports!!! Belle

 

[gjpjtj]

September 2002 Trip report continued

Monday September 16th
We started this day with a plan. Since we hit EPCOT the night before, we thought we'd go to MGM. Well when we saw the line for the bus for MGM, and no one waiting for EPCOT, we changed our minds. EPCOT here we come!
We again started with Spaceship Earth, (I just can't get enough of this ride). The new monitors at the begining of the ride really take away from the effects at first, but the rest of the ride is spectacular. From there we went on TT, my little one even got to ride this time. What a blast!
We next rode the Universe of Energy and enjoyed the air conditioning for the 40 mins or so of this ride. Did I forget to mention that it was HOT ! 94 degrees and humid! We were dripping, and constantly going from the heat, to the cool rides has giving me a cold, but anyway...
Next off to the Land pavillion, I had never done the boat ride through the Land, and found it very interesting! The food court was our next stop, but couldn't find meals to please everyone, so we ate at the Electric Umbrella instead. Typical fare here burgers fries and a hot dog but everyone was happy. Seeing as we had completed much of Future World, we flipped a coin and headed to Animal Kingdom.
I had never been to Animal Kingdom before and was looking forward to it. Animal Kingdom far exceeded my expectations. The Dinosaur ride is awesome. The Kilimanjaro Safari has become my sons favorite ride, (not because of the animals, he likes it because the bus drives through the water!).
Characters are everywhere, the Tough too be a Bug movie is great, and we did the Rapids ride in Asia twice. The second time on this ride I was in the "wrong" seat, and got soaked! The park was closing and my sister and I were the only people on the ride.
We slowly made our way out of the park, and most of the crowds had already left (the longest line we ever waited on was for the bus to our resort!). Fortunately 2 busses arrived simultaneously and the trip back wasn't bad.
After a quick swim in the pool, just to cool off, we drove to EPCOT to watch Reflections of Earth. Arriving in plenty of time we secured a good spot on the fence just before Canada. At about 8:30 it started to rain. I mean it poured. We waited in a bathroom alcove, but 9:00pm came and the rain wasn't letting up.
Unprepared as we were, (Our ponchos and umbrellas were in the car...doh!) we watched the show in the rain. We got soaked I mean really wet! This still wasn't that bad, it was warm out. The problem came on the walk back to the parking lot. The water had no where to go and we had to walk through pools of water nearly 4 inches deep! Our shoes got soaked which would cause us problems later on. We drove back to the hotel and called it a night.

 

[SpongeScott]

MORE!! MORE!! Don't stop now!

 

[Kingdom Konsultant]

WOW! It sounds like you had a great trip so far. I can't wait to go again.

Pam

 

[CAPTAIN HOOK]

Sounds like a good trip so far - where's part 3 ?

 

[gjpjtj]

Trip report continued

Tuesday September 17th
Well we waited out the crowds for the bus, and hit MGM studios. Again we found small crowds and little wait. (I feel spoiled, I think we'll go in September from now on). Rode ToT and RnR a couple of times.

My son was too small for both, so we appeased him with the Playhouse Disney Live show. We got there about 20 mins before show time, and sat one row from the front. The show was pretty good.

Next we went to the Walt Disney, One Man's Dream tour and show. I found this very interesting, seeing the scale models of WDW and Disneyland attractions, and the historic "artifacts" of Walt Disney. I thought the movie was really informative too.

After leaving the show we wanted to ride the Backlot tour, however they were having "technical difficulties" so we left. On our way out catching some photos with Buzz Lightyear and Jessie. At this point , melting in our clothes, we decided to head to Blizzard Beach. Something we found out on this trip, that we previously didn't know is you can take a bus directly from MGM to Blizzard Beach. We did this and it made the trip easy.

Blizzard Beach had alot of people in it, yet few lines to be found. Did the Family tube ride, it was great, the lazy river, and played in the kiddie area. We rode the chairlift to the top of the mountain and found it was the only way to go. We bought one of the refillable barcode mugs and shared it for the day. (Not the best deal for $10 a day, but better than buying sodas individually). After drying off we headed back to the bus for MGM to catch what we had missed earlier.

This visit to MGM we were able to ride the Backlot tour, and then grabbed a bite to eat at the ABC commisary. Being a former ABC employee at the New York studios I felt right at home. The design is very similar to that of the real thing. While eating we suddenly saw people running, and an awful sound from the roof! Yes, it was raining again.
After eating we dashed to the GMR and hoped to ride out the storm, as Fantasmic was only an hour a way. Well, it was only raining harder as we left GMR and we decided not to do Fantasmic. This time standing in the rain for the bus, as everyone else decided to go home too. Again however the busses were great and our wait was no more than 10 mins. We returned back to the hotel for the night.
:snore:

 

[gjpjtj]

Trip report continued

Wednesday September 18th

Wednesday my sister, son and I got up early. We went to MK and got there before opening. My son and I were the first people through the turnstiles that morning. As such, we had the place to ourselves. My son wanted to do Buzz Lightyear again, then Astro Orbiter, (really cool being the only people on both!). Then went to Tommorowland speedway for a nice leisurely drive around the track. We did Winnie the Pooh twice along with Peter Pan 3 times.(He really like Peter pan). All of this accomplished in 1 hour and 15 mins!

We met my wife at the monorail station (she had slept in), and headed to Chef Mickey's for a character breakfast. We had a great time, all the characters were wonderful and spent alot of time at the table. (The food was good too.)

From Chef Mickeys back to MK to ride Splash Mountain (talked my son into it as well, he just made it on the height requirement). Tyler (my son) and I sat in the front row. We did not get wet...we got soaked. He really enjoyed the ride untill then! Next on to PoTC again, another of my favorites, and a stop at the ice cream shop for a waffle dish sundae on the way out.

Here is were we ran into a problem. We wanted to go to Typhoon Lagoon next, however we found out you can't get there from TTC, you have to go to a resort and catch a bus.
We got back on the monorail and got off at the Polynesian. Caught the bus from there and stayed on that bus for 40 mins, as it stopped at all of the MK resorts and Downtown Disney before arriving at TL. A miserable ride. Oh well, live and learn...we won' t do that again.

Typhoon Lagoon was nice, relaxing, we did the wave pool, the lazy river, family tube ride, and one of the single rider tubes. Had a nice time. Left there for the hotel and a snack, to prepare for our second attempt at enjoying Illuminations.

We took the bus to EPCOT this time, and were prepared with ponchos and umbrellas. Kind of hungry we hoped to eat at the Canadian pavilion, but without PS, the wait was 50 mins. Instead we continued on and found the Pub in England only had a 20 min wait. The hostess gave my wife a pager and we waited in the UK for our turn. I found the UK Kidcot station and Tyler had fun creating a mask. The cast member was very friendly and helped Tyler with his project. Right on time, we were paged for dinner and enjoyed our meal inside the Pub. We emerged just in time to squeeze in at the railing and enjoy a "rain free" showing of Reflections of earth.....it was beautiful.
We again took the bus home for the evening.

 

[gjpjtj]

Trip report continued

Thursday September 19th

Well this was our last full day and decided to do some repeats. Tyler again wanted to do MK, and we went on Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, etc., again. This time however we rode the train from Main Street to Toon Town Fair, got our pictures taken with Mickey, did Goofy's Barnstormer and just took a leisurely pace through the park.

In the afternoon my family decided to take a nap in the room, and I went and rode the waves at Typhoon Lagoon. When we met again a couple of hours later, we made PS for Portabello's restaurant and enjoyed a delicious dinner there.

Next we went to Once Upon a Toy and spent too much money. The create your own potato head is really cool. I had a lot of fun trying to stuff as many pieces in the box as I could. I realized later that I could have fit probably twice as much as I did If I had filled the Potato Head's body with pieces as well. I didn't even think of opening the "trap door" on his rear.

Next some shopping at Pin Traders and the World of Disney store, and back to the room for the night. By the way we drove to Downtown Disney, after our Typhoon Lagoon trip, we were not getting on the bus to Downtown Disney again!

 

[Katherine]

Sounds Great! Is there more? I hope so I love your trip so far I hope mine has as many lines as your's does!

 

[gjpjtj]

Trip report continued

Friday September 20th

Well unfortunately this was the day we had to leave. We awoke at around 7:00am, began packing our things, and loading the car. At around 9:30am we said goodbye to the All Star Music resort , and headed by car to our final destination, EPCOT. Arriving at EPCOT we were able to do Spaceship Earth, and Test Track, while my wife did some souvenir shopping.

After that we headed to the World Showcase and the Mexico Pavilion. We rode El Rio del Tiempo, and then off to the American Pavilion. We had a quick lunch at America, with just enough time to see the American Adventure. What a wonderful show, and a great way to end our visit. We took a Friendship boat across the lake to save our feet, and around 1:45pm, sadly headed to the parking lot for the last time this trip.

Our trip home was fairly uneventful a few traffic tie ups in Orlando, Jacksonville and a detour near Washington D.C., but we made in back to Long Island by 8:30 am Saturday morning. (About 18 hours). Well thanks for reading all this, I hope you enjoyed,......by the way only 360 more days to go!!!!!:wave:

 

[wannabeBelle]

Awesome report. I thank you so much for sharing your wonderful memories with us!! Belle
P.S. I grew up in Long Island, Nesconset to be specific, then I got moved to Staten Island!!!

 

[gjpjtj]

Here is Tyler, myself and Pooh at AK.

 

[gjpjtj]

Originally posted by wannabeBelle
Awesome report. I thank you so much for sharing your wonderful memories with us!! Belle
P.S. I grew up in Long Island, Nesconset to be specific, then I got moved to Staten Island!!!

Thank you I'm glad you enjoyed it. I always like the long trip reports, so I thought I'd reciprocate. I grew up in Oceanside, in Nassau County. My family still lives there. We now live in the Poconos.

 

[gjpjtj]

Here is Tyler and myself on Astro Orbiter, my sister was in the rocket behind us, and we were the only people on the ride!

 

[gjpjtj]

Here we are in front of Spaceship Earth.

 

[gjpjtj]

Here is the create your own Potato Head at Once Upon a Toy.

 

[MinnieFan]

Thanks for the great trip report. I'm glad you had a magical time.
Your family photo's were a really nice touch too!

only 65 more days for me!:sohappy: :sohappy: :sohappy:

 

[gjpjtj]

Here is a shot from Main Street one morning. It is pretty empty.

 

[Kingdom Konsultant]

Originally posted by gjpjtj


Thank you I'm glad you enjoyed it. I always like the long trip reports, so I thought I'd reciprocate. I grew up in Oceanside, in Nassau County. My family still lives there. We now live in the Poconos.

I loved your trip report. By the way, my husband grew up in Huntington. We had a big family reunion in Montauk the weekend of the 14th. His mom now lives in Patchogue.