Walt Disney World Weekend...

[cousininmiami]

Well, here we are back at WDW. Drove up from Miami took 3 1/2 hours, checked into our hotel and were in EPCOT Center by 4pm! For the first time ever we decided to by the Tables In Wonderland pass. For Florida resident passholders, it was $75. I think this will pay for itself as we do go a few times throughout the year. We bought the pass at Guest Services in EPCOT next to Spaceship Earth, and we're off!

We rode Spaceship Earth, love it!!!!!!!! Then, where to go?? Well, Test Track was not working and Soarin' was a 100 minute wait with all the Fast passes gone... so we went to see Captain EO then went towards the countries. Starting in Mexico, we did some shopping and went into the Tequila Cave for a Margarita! Continued the fun until our dinner at The Biergarten in Germany. This was really good and a lot of fun. When you have a 15 year old son with you, filling him up is always challenging, but this was a great choice. The buffet was nice and the entertainment was fun! We saved $21 on the dinner with our Tables in Wonderland, so it does work!! We would give the Biergarten two thumbs up and go there again.

We finished dinner and Illuminations started 5 minutes later! Great timing! We watched Illuminations and popped into Karamel Kuche for the highlight of the day. Wow, the caramel corn was unbelievable!!!!! Not we are back to the hotel to get some sleep before a big day tomorrow. Our son is finally old enough for the Richard Petty Driving Experience ride-along. We will go there at 9am tomorrow morning then afterwards off to Magic Kingdom for the day. My not-so-secret (secret) for parking at Magic Kingdom is to go to the Polynesian, tell the security we are eating there, then ride the Monorail to MK! Works every time. Hummmmmm, maybe a Dole Whip at the hotel before we get to the park?

Anyways, off to bed.... will check in tomorrow and report!

[Len90]

Sounds exciting. Don't think we've had a trip report that included the Richard Petty Driving Experience. Looking forward to the big full day.

[MadEye]

What road did you take to drive up to Central Florida? Turnpike or something else?

[Amy]

Sounds like a great start to the trip! I am looking forward to hearing more about the driving experience too. I'm also curious to see how your Tables in Wonderland card ends up working out for you.

[cousininmiami]

We started off Saturday morning going to the Richard Petty Driving Experience! Arrived about 9:30am and were the first ones there. I intended to have my husband and my almost 15 year-old son do a ride along. We have annual passes so the cost was only $79. But they informed us of a new deal at Richard Petty Driving... any 14 to 19 year old is FREE with a paying adult! Pretty cool huh? So I signed them in and they got suited up!


This was awesome to say the least! 140mph on the back-stretch and couldn't wipe the smile off his face all weekend as he made vrooooom car noises the rest of the weekend! More in a little while! ( I gotta work a little!)

[mindflipper]

$79 for two is NOT a bad deal! Congrats!

[Amy]

Very nice ~ awesome that you were able to get such a fantastic deal too! Your son's smile is pretty big in the "before the experience" picture. I can only imagine how happy he looks after the ride!

[cousininmiami]

As a wrap up to the Richard Petty Experience, they take an on-board video the entire ride along, it ends up being a split screen video of the track from the nose of the car and the other half is the inside with all your reactions! Price $39.00, thought it was a bargain considering it was free for my son to do the ride along. So, I purchased that and it will arrive in 2-4 weeks, yay!



From there it was on to the Magic Kingdom for the day, and night as it were... we left at midnight! Parking at the Polynesian makes it an enjoyable trip to the park.



It was a beautiful day, not crowded at all. I suppose two weeks before Easter is a good time, less crowds. First to Space Mountain, a 10 minute wait only! Lots of fun and the new scenery before and after the ride is why I go on it! Kinda reminds me of Horizon's.




No lines anywhere to speak of, and use of the Fast-pass worked like it should. Get a fastpass, time is for 45 minutes later, ride another ride with no line, then go on the fastpass ride. Then by that time, another fastpass is available. We went on EVERYTHING, even the new Winnie The Pooh!


We especially loved the new interactive queue for the Haunted Mansion. It was very interesting how they placed the old tombstones and made several more. As you have probably seen already, there is an interactive Organ, new sculptures, an interactive music wall, a new headstone for Master Gracey, and the disappearing/appearing ink book.


The most exciting part is the new hitchhiking ghosts at the end. Our ghost was on the roof of our Doombuggy and had a picture of my husbands and my heads. Put them in a smoke thing and swapped our heads! It was awesome! And my son's head was in a smoke picture, and the ghost blew his head up like it was a balloon and popped it! Totally cool!!!!

Lots of fun that we haven't done in a very long time was to go to Tom Sawyer's island via the Mike Fink Keelboats. It was around 3pm, but I thought I would ask anyways about if the paintbrushes have already been found. She said yes have all been found but since I asked she gave us 3 fastpasses for Splash Mountain anyways! Such a deal!


Ok, so back to work I go.... will report more with pictures later!

[Amy]

That is a nice photo of you and your son at the Poly
Loving all your photos so far!

[momeja]

Lots of fun that we haven't done in a very long time was to go to Tom Sawyer's island via the Mike Fink Keelboats. It was around 3pm, but I thought I would ask anyways about if the paintbrushes have already been found. She said yes have all been found but since I asked she gave us 3 fastpasses for Splash Mountain anyways! Such a deal!

Thanks for the tip!

[cousininmiami]

And by the way, when she pulled out the fast passes, she had a wad of them! She must have had 100, for several different rides too. So, if you are stuck for a fast pass... I suppose just ask, it never hurts to try!

[cousininmiami]

So, in this part of the report, I wanted to tell everyone how The Tables in Wonderland worked out. And I am happy to report, it worked great! We ate at The Biergarten, and Crystal Palace for this trip. Once we were presented with the bill, we gave the server our Tables in Wonderland card.They would return with the bill adjusted. Although the bill was not adjusted by much, it was still a good deal. You see how it works is you get your bill for let's say $100 including food, alcohol and taxes, but not the tip. Normally most people would give 15% - 20%. We always give the server 20% on the high end because as my husband manages a restaurant, he knows that the servers make no money otherwise. So, the bill would be $100 + $20 tip = $120. So then the adjusted bill comes back to you with 20% off the original bill now is $80, but then 18% tip is automatically added to the original amount... so it ends up being a total new bill of like $98 or $99. So, what you save is truly about 20%.

Because we are annual passholders, it was only $75 for the Tables in Wonderland card, and it is good all but a few days, Easter, Mother's Day, Christmas etc. Also, it is good for up to 10 people dining at the same table! We have already save $40 this past weekend, so $35 more and we have paid for the card. We will be there for a week this summer and will save a lot more!

[Amy]

Thanks for the explanation on the Tables in Wonderland card ~ I was wondering how it worked out for you...

[Len90]

Very cool to hear about the paintbrushes that late in the day. It's also good to see pictures of the new interactive queue at the Haunted Mansion.

BTW: I really like the angle of the riverboat in that last picture. The trees all around it really make it stand out.