Subsonic Radio

July 22 – 29, 2007 – JWG Trip Report

Well, I’m an infrequent visitor of the world (every 3-4 years or so), so this is my first Trip Report, I’ll try to focus more on the happenings of the week and specifics to our trip versus what’s there since you all know that. This will be chronological by day, so you’ll see us jump from park to park a bit. This will end up being more than post, likely by day.

Sunday, July 22, 2007 – Arrival.

After 4 nights in Florida (2 in Bradenton/Sarasota) and 2 in Cape Canaveral visiting NASA, we were all very excited to finally be at our main attraction. We arrived at the Boardwalk (Villas) at about 9:30am in the midst of mass checkout. We didn’t really expect our rooms to be ready, but wanted to at least get our “try again atâ€

Sounds like a great and relaxing start at the BWI!

I've always wanted to stay at the Boardwalk....sounds awesome.

Monday, July 23, 2007 – MGM / Magic Kingdom / Epcot

Hit the extra magic hour at MGM. They do not check if you’re really a resort guest for the early hour. Anyone who knows the park can get in. My ticket was not on my room key so they certainly didn’t know I was a hotel guest. They did, per usual, open the turnstiles about 10 to 8:00am and then held us at a rope at the intersection of Sunset and Hollywood Blvd. until 8:00am. No pre-show for opening today. The “directorâ€

Can't wait to hear more, JWG!

Great summary! you've already given me wonderful ideas for my upcoming trip.

Monday, July 23 PM – Illuminations Grand Gathering

If you ever have the chance and opportunity to do a Grand Gathering/Magical Gathering do one. If they’re all as good as the Illuminations event, they’re well worth the $60/person if you can get 8 or more people together.

We arrived at The Odyssey Restaurant at 7:00pm for our 7:30pm event. We were asked to be there between 7:00 and 7:15. Around 7:05 they started checking each group in by gathering name. The “rope watcherâ€

Wow. That sounds amazing. After reading all the food descriptions, I think I'm getting hungry!

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 – Animal Kingdom / Epcot / House of Blues

Again, woke up early to head out to the extra magic hour at Animal Kingdom. We were hoping for an active safari ride. They did, unexpectedly do the opening “showâ€

Thursday, July 26, 2007 (Mom-in-laws 60th B-Day!) – Epcot / Fantasmic / Epcot EMH

We finally were able to spend some time at what has traditionally been my favorite park, Epcot. I have to say, I’m excited to see what McPhee will do as Epcot needs help. Part of the issue is the work that is being done already, so its short-term pain for what will be long-term gain. We entered, as we always do, through the International Gateway being we’re at an Epcot resort. This entrance is not as convenient as it used to be. Because most people enter through the front, there are limited resources at International Gateway, many times there was only 1 security guard bag checking. That, and with only 3-4 turnstiles the ongoing issue of guests not understanding how to use the park ticket and finger scanning technology the lines can get bad – especially if you arrive right after a boat has dropped off or prior to park opening and there’s a line. We also were a little hosed by the park opening at the same time in front and back. International gateway is certainly further from Future World and the main attractions than the front entrance. Since International gateway is only resort guests it’d be nice if we got a few minutes jump on the front entrance to cover the extra distance.

We first hit JII w/ Figment. Here was a telling tale. Every ride at Future World had a wait except for 2: Circle of Life and JII. We walked immediately on to JII. This ride needs help. There is 0 interest. I really hope the rumors of an upcoming Refurb. are right. It’s an unfortunate circumstance that this pavilion has failed. They have a map of the attraction outside and it’s clear they’re using less than ½ of the space. Obviously the 2nd floor is vacant, but looking at the map a good portion of the 1st floor isn’t used and a good portion of what is in use is for Imageworks and line queuing. What I will say is that when you exit the ride into Imageworks there’s a CM in a lab coat to greet you. We were asked if we’d been on the ride before. When I responded, “not since its been re-doneâ€

Friday, July 27, 2007 (Animal Kingdom / Pool / Spirit of Aloha)

Not an early morning this morning. Time catches up with you on these trips. We hit Animal Kingdom arriving around 10:00am. We headed for the Nemo Musical and there was little line yet so we passed to Everest to see the wait time and Fastpass line. Fastpass was already 4:40pm. We went back to the Nemo Musical line. They let us in about 11:15, 15 minutes prior to the show. Something delayed the show as it didn’t start until nearly 11:40. With all of the groups from Brazil chanting it seemed like a long long wait. The show itself is very good. For a 30 minute free theater production (ok not free since we pay the value of a car to enter the parks) it is actually really good. The actors are good, the music itself is good, the puppets work well. This is one I wouldn’t be surprised to see expanded to a full length musical if The Little Mermaid is successful. Worth seeing even if I did wait for 90 minutes to see it.

After Nemo we wondered through Asia into Africa. I wanted to buy a hat (not a baseball cap but a real hat) and couldn’t find one for my gigantic ape head. They were all tight and since I was sporting a crew cut knew it wouldn’t fit with hair. Too bad because I’d have purchased one had they fit. The only thing that did fit was the leather Indy Jones style hats – nice but not real practical. After a little shopping we headed back to the ring to meet up with my wife and mother-in-law as the mom-in-law was heading out.

We had a quick lunch in the room and then headed to the pool with our 11 mos. Old. The kiddee pool was ok, she could sit up and splash and it was warm. She seemed to like it ok. After some time in the kiddie pool we took her to the big pool and held her in the water and through her up in the air – she had a ball. The Boardwalk pool was in great condition, two life guards on duty and the slide was fully operational. For as busy as the parks were, the pool wasn’t so bad. There was never a line for the slide of more than 2-3 people deep and it was easy to find a nice place to play around without bumping elbows.

Friday evening my wife and I left the baby with Grandma and Grandpa and headed to Magic Kingdom to kill an hour or so before hitting the Poly for the Spirit of Aloha dinner show. We drove to Magic Kingdom thinking we’d head back there for EMH after the show. Let me say driving was slick. We just showed our resort key and were able to park for free at the park. Had we purchased through AAA and received a Preferred Diamond card we’d have been able to park for free right at the TTC. We killed some time at MK and were able to do a few things at Tomorrowland as many of he waits were 20-25 minutes (less Space Mountain and Laugh Floor). It seemed to be a quiet night in the Kingdom.

We arrived to the Poly at 7:00 as we were told to arrive by about 7:15 for the show. At 8:00 they started seating us in our assigned seats. Not sure why they had us all there so early. I get they don’t want late comers but to get there 45 minutes before you’ll even get seated was a bit rough. They give you a lei and take your picture as you head in, it’s a nice photo that they heavily over charge for later if you choose to purchase. At $60 for the event they could have reasonable prices for the photos.

Anyway, the food is spectacular. You get a pineapple hawaiin bread, pineapple slices and an apricot type salad. They were all very good. The other plus is drinks are free, alcoholic or otherwise and the servers are very good with refills. The main course was an incredible combination of pork ribs in sweet BBQ/honey glaze and chicken over rice. Also extremely good. They don’t portion the food by group size because they don’t have time, so as a group of 2, we had so much food we had no chance of eating it. It’s a waste of food because there’s no way 90% of people can finish what they get, but I get the need for speed. Dessert was a chocolate mousse that was also quite good, but by that time you’re so stuffed its almost (I said almost) hard to enjoy.

The show itself is ok. The first half, while you’re eating is a more comical jovial show about friends and family together to welcome someone back home from being away at school. Its humurous and entertaining. Once dinner is done the show goes to a more traditional luau show with traditional dancing and music. Its good, just not quite as entertianing as the pre-show stuff. There’s about a 20 minute lull until the fire tossing which is absolutely unbelievable. All in all, it was a good show. I wouldn’t go solely for the food because for $60 you can get pretty good food anywhere, but the good is very good and show isn’t bad. I’m happy to have done it once. I don’t think I’d rush back. The table text to us was a couple who come every year. This was the 10th year in a row they’ve come and seen the show. I was amazed, I don’t know if I could do the exact same show 10 years in a row anywhere. If you have the expendable cash and want a dinner show, its worth it. The food is better than the standard comfort foods at most character meals and the Hoop Dee Doo.

The event takes exactly 2 hours. They have the timing down pat. We got out almost at 10:00pm on the nose. I was impressed with the timing. Afterwards we chose to go back to the hotel, we were both exhausted and ready to get a good nights sleep as we were hitting Epcot a open the next morning. We were getting out at almost the same time as Wishes by the time we got the monorail back to the TTC as we didn’t hurry out of the Poly. I was a bit worried, but clearly everyone was taking Disney Transportation back to their resorts as getting out of TTC was a piece of cake via car. Much faster back to the hotel as well. I’m starting to be a believer in driving over taking the bus if you have a car available to you.

More to come...

This is a great report, JWG. Thanks for the detail!

Saturday July 28, 2007 (Epcot / Magic Kingdom)

Sorry for the big delay, sick child – nasty rash… anyway….

We hit Epcot right at open. Were at the gate at 8:45 (International Gateway). They let us in at about 10 to 9 per usual. Up to the rope anyway. The security guy made a job about letting us in 2 minutes early – I didn’t chuckle considering we were 4 minutes further away from Future World from the front entrance. Test Track actually took the worst hit. We went straight for Soarin’ knowing that’s the attraction we hadn’t seen. 20 minute standby wait, so we did that and took baby swap tickets so my parents could get on right after. While we were in line my dad got Test Track fastpasses that weren’t until 10:50 (It was about 9:30 when he got them). We hit Imagination after Soarin’ as I was confident it would be our last time through the current version. That, and our 11 mos. really liked it. She has a Figment plush as a result. I do miss the yellow sweater and orange sweater (come on Kodak!!).

After Test Track we headed to Magic Kingdom via Monorail. Lines were long. 45 minute plus waits at most attractions. 110 minutes for Splash Mountain, 80 minutes for Thunder Mountain Railroad, 60-70 minutes for Space Mountain. I guess it was a Saturday. We had a hard time finding anyplace for lunch – all of the CS restaurants were packed. We finally ate at Peso Bills (is that right?) in Frontier land. After we went to the Country Bear Jamboree – that had no wait other than the show resetting. That’s an original attraction that is dying a slow death I think. It was ok. Everything seemed to be working appropriately which is a plus. After we went to get Fastpasses at Splash Mountain, the comeback time was about 3 hours later (based on a 110 minute standby line, not surprised). We then headed of to Space Mountain which was down. We were told to come back in 30 minutes or longer and that our Fastpasses would be good all day. I was worried that would kill the fastpass line as it backed up later with all the comebacks. By now it was raining. We found a nice covered place along the parade route (in front of the DVC stand in Frontierland). They left us alone because my parents are already members .
The parade was delayed by about 40 minutes due to weather – of course they didn’t say that. At 3:15 they finally announced the parade would start “in a few minutesâ€

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS AND NOTES:

I was at two parks for opening (at least the main entrance as Epcot we were there, but at International Gateway). MGM did NOT do an opening event but Animal Kingdom did.

Bus transportation for the Epcot resorts is terrible. The Animal Kingdom route stops at all resorts (Yacht, Beach, Boardwalk, Swan and Dolphin) as well as Blizzard Beach. It makes some sense from a routing perspective but not a load perspective. The busses are always overfilled with people standing in all aisle spaces. Those routes need to get split somehow. Not only that, we waited for an Animal Kingdom bus for quite some time one morning while 3 Magic Kingdom busses came by as well as a Downtown Disney and Blizzard Beach bus.

The SSE wand removal is going very slow. They only worked 3 of the 7 nights we were there. I believe when they say it will take until October at the rate its going. Maybe it will pick up once the high crane work is complete (which it pretty much is now). I was hoping to see more happen since I could look at SSE out of my room window.

Cape May’s character breakfast was not all that great. They only had 3 characters out and moving around. There were many options on the buffet (including infamous Mickey waffles), but they tasted no different than any buffet. It was good, by no means bad, but for nearly $30 a person, you just expect a little more.

Epcot needs whatever work it is getting. Universe of Energy is dated, Test Track is also dated. It still has appeal, but cars have changed, features have changed and the ride’s retro ‘90’s “shopâ€