Yet Another Review of 8 Days In WDW w/PICS!

[mindflipper]

Also depends upon how tired you from walking all day at the parks too...young legs, yes, it may be faster; but older legs, not necessarily so...

Well, it isn't like you are running a marathon.

If I remember correctly (and Len can confirm or not) there are benches along the path. Not to mention you can stop and rest. There are no signs that say "Just keep walking. Just keep walking."

And holy Christmas, you walked all the way from the Studios to your resort? Oh well, when I was young and skinny I guess I could have done that, too. 1990s, how I miss thee.

Thats nothing. Try walking from Epcot to MGM and vice versa.

I understand that, MadEye, but the point I was making different. Len had stated, and you agreed, that "being faster to walk than use the friendships [boats]" from DHS (not MGM any more) to the resorts. My point was that it all depends upon the individual: may be true for those with younger legs, but for those who don't the boat would indeed be faster. If you're having to stop along the way to rest on a bench and watch the boat pass you by - then wouldn't it be quicker to have taken the boat in the first place?

[sandi]

Hey guys, the walk from the Boardwalk or Beach Club to Disney Hollywood Studios is not a bad one, even on a hot day. It's a 10 to 15 min. walk, max. The 4 of us in our group (who are 57 to 63!!! )walk it every time we go there. I get blisters and I still do the walk!!!! I also don't think there are benches along the walkway. The benches are near the entrance to the park so if you want to take a break, you sit there!!! Being able to walk into 2 parks is one of the reasons our family stays there.

[Len90]

It is not the greatest walk but definitely not the worst walk I have ever had in my life. I am not sire about the benches along the way but would not do it in the prime heat of the afternoon.

[Mousekedude]

Good stuff, but we need to see the video of you doing the Electric Slide.

Okay, new rule, if any Subsonicers' are dancing in Disney Parks it must be caught on camera and posted here

For some crazy-odd reason, I'm just now getting a clue that Len posted his trip report! So I'm posting commentary as I catch up... So I hereby third/fourth/fifth that motion, Boilerdude! Hurry up and post the pics and video, Len!!!

Also, on the subject of walking: it could be said that you walk like a gazillion miles in the parks; why would you want to walk to your resort as well?! But on the other hand, sometimes it's worth it. For example, when we stayed at Saratoga Springs it was nothing to walk to DTD and back. I know there's a lot of other comparable situations there as well, so it really depends on how you feel and what you're capable of doing. I'm looking forward to walking back and forth to Epcot when we stay at the Boardwalk this December. Some situations like that are definitely faster than regular transportation. Anyway, on with the show.... Len...?

[MadEye]

I understand that, MadEye, but the point I was making different. Len had stated, and you agreed, that "being faster to walk than use the friendships [boats]" from DHS (not MGM any more) to the resorts. My point was that it all depends upon the individual: may be true for those with younger legs, but for those who don't the boat would indeed be faster. If you're having to stop along the way to rest on a bench and watch the boat pass you by - then wouldn't it be quicker to have taken the boat in the first place?

All good. If it was me though, I wouldn't race the boat. I'd take my time and take in the atmosphere at Boardwalk or something. But that's just me.

[Len90]

We didn't race the boat at all. My brother and I were taking in the scenery as we walked. We even stopped to take a quick look at the boardwalk pool to see how well we remembered it.

As far as pictures go. I could easily add one or two into each day, but I do plan on putting a couple of hundred up at once and I want to keep them all together in order when I upload them to photobucket. I promise the pictures will be worth the wait and will almost tell the story of the trip report! Now onto Day 4....

Day 4: So this would be the morning we woke up the earliest. We had to get to the Grand Floridian for our 10:45AM breakfast at 1900 Park Fare. We decided the night before that this can actually be pretty easy to accomplish by waking up later and taking our rental car out there. Oh, I had forgotten to mention that our rental car was a very fancy 2009 Kia Amanti with close to 25,000 miles on it. Thanks to National for that “free” upgrade to a “premium” car. We drove out to the Grand Floridian and I have to say that they have the most confusing parking lot and roads of any resort we have been to. It took us a good 5-10 minutes of driving around to figure out where we were going and how many wrong places we went while driving around. After finally parking we walked in and had a 5-minute wait to get in for our breakfast.

I had really no clue as to what I should expect from this restaurant, as we had never eaten here in the past. I was overjoyed that they were the only breakfast that featured the Mad Hatter and Alice. In addition to those two, they also had Mary Poppins, Pooh, and Tigger. Where we were seated allowed us to immediately make our run for food at the buffet. They had one of the best breakfast buffets I had ever seen. There was an omlet station and Ice Cream machines! The best part was that it cost the same as the buffet breakfast at Cape May. It actually made me disappointed in Cape May since they charge the same price and offer you a lot less than 1900 Park Fare. We made it back to our table just in time for the characters to start coming around our section. Mary Poppins came first and she actually looked like she was on the CP! However, she had the accent and played her role perfectly. Immediately after her were Pooh, Alice, and Tigger. However, the restaurant doesn’t really want more than one character at a table at a time so they each rotated around a set of three tables. Pooh was okay and Alice was her usual self. She was funny, but not hysterical. She really needed the Hatter in order to beome hysterical. Tigger came immediately after and he was awesome. He played around with Mark and I and tried being a bit rough like Tigger should be. He even made a few sounds to add to it. After all was said and done, we were still missing one character, the Hatter. He was taking his sweet time with his rotation, but he would be worth the wait. He came over and did his normal routine that you expect. He was quick and witty and fast with an answer. After hanging out at our table and never smiling for any of our pictures he continued on. A few tables later decided to sit down and put his feet on the table. Everybody around got up and made there way over to take pictures as he then proceeded to pick his nose. When questioned he explained it was called “getting a snack”.

After about 20 minutes the characters had all finished their rotations and the restaurant had died down. There were not many new tables and a lot of people had left. Somehow the hatter came back to our area and began to play around with us again. Mark has video of the hilarity that took place. All I remember is the Mad Hatter getting caught by Alice while he was eating a snack, he tried giving us Alice as a souvenir, ran out of the restaurant, and did a few other things. Finally, when we were getting ready to leave, the Hatter managed to get back to our table for a third time. That is where my avatar comes from. We politely asked if we could all take a picture posing together as we all went looking for a snack. Mom was nice enough to take the picture of Dad, Mark, Hatter, and I picking a snack. The Hatter left us with some words of wisdom that will forever be stuck in my head. “You just paid $24.99 for a meal while mine was free. It also happened to be freshly picked. Whose the one that’s laughing now?” Needless to say, 1900 Park Fare is a must do for us now in the future. It is EXTREMELY well worth the money as the characters were fantastic. They played their roles, and interacted with one another as if they were really who they were supposed to be. Oh yeah, the food was also amazing!

Following breakfast we decided that it would be smart to quickly hit up Animal Kingdom and take care of a few attractions there. We never really plan on spending so much time there as it involves a lot of walking and is extremely hot, especially by the early afternoon. We made our way immediately to Kilimanjaro Safari, which actually had a minimal wait of about 15-20 minutes. We were lucky to see the baby elephant, which you may have recently read about in the Disney Parks Blog, and were treated to a giraffe that was up against the side of the road. It even looked inside our truck at us. Disney really has done a lot over the years to keep the animals within view. I have found that you tend to see more animals now than you did in the early 2000’s. After the safari we headed over to Dinoland for Dinosaur. We were also thinking about doing Festival of the Lion King, but our timing was not great and the heat was killing us. We decided to amend plans and leave Festival of the Lion King for another year and head back to the hotel after Dinosaur for a dip in the pool. We never even made it out to Asia!

We headed back to our resort and we were greeted by a pleasant surprise in our hotel room. A certain member on the board, who I will keep anonymous until he/she speaks, surprised us with a package. That member had tipped me off about it, but somehow it had slipped my mind on that morning after laughing with the Hatter and dehydrating at Animal Kingdom. I will say that it was extremely well thought out and very creative. We hit the pool for 3 o’clock and I was actually very happy about this timing. We had about 90 minutes to hang out in the pool before we had to head up and get ready for dinner at Le Cellier. If you have not stayed at the Yacht or Beach Club before, they have a thing where at 4:15 you can dance with the morning lifeguards dance as they celebrate the end of their day. We had never been in the pool for this so I was really happy to finally see this and perhaps partake in it. It ends up being the guards dance the cupid shuffle and then on select days will dance a second song. On this day it was Cotton-Eyed Joe. I aced the Cupid Shuffle as it is really just four moves you have to know, but was a bit rusty on Cotton-Eyed Joe. However, after 30 seconds I had the dance down and was keeping up with the professionals (lifeguards who had danced it hundreds of times).

Immediately following the dancing with the guards, it was off to the room to shower and get ready for Le Cellier. My mouth watered as I thought about the upcoming Kansas City Strip Steak I was going to order there. We ordered the cheese soup, duck three ways, our Kansas City Strip Steaks, and for dessert had the Chocolate Moose. The meal was phenomenal and Le Cellier was easily able to fulfill the high expectations I had from previous years. I did ask about them becoming a signature place and they stated that it was a rumor they have heard and it could possibly happen for October when the Food and Wine Festival takes place. After dinner it was off to Future World for some attractions. Captain EO was still not doing any soft opening so that was on hold. We accomplished Soarin, which had a small wait due to everybody heading off for Illuminations. Then we headed over to SSE while Illuminations was going on. It felt kind of weird to hear some of the fireworks boom from inside the ball, but it didn’t take away from the attraction at all. I still really love all that has been done with the attraction. I really think it has come a long way. We got out of SSE just as Illuminations crowds were pouring out. We decided to cut through and hit up the East side of Future World. First up was Mission Space. I had a craving for Orange team but didn’t want to go by myself. Somehow I convinced Dad, whom happens to not really be a fan of G-forces, to join me as Mom and Mark headed onto Green team. I had thought it was about 1.8 so it shouldn’t be so bad. As we load into our vehicle I ask the question to find out it is 2.5 g’s Somehow we survived it but not without a lot of screaming and holding each others hands. We actually skipped off hand in hand celebrating that we had lived through it. After Mission Space was Test Track which was also somewhat of a walk on due to EMH. Mom and I were the only two who went on it and we had a blast. I always love the last turn and the entire outside loop at night.

Following all the thrill rides, we headed over to the Character Connection. There was only a 20-25 minute wait, so it was not too drastic. Following our run through with all the characters we headed back the long way to the Yacht Club so we could walk through the entire World Showcase. We stopped off for a cookie at the Norway bakery, which was the best cookie that I had ever eaten. It tasted like the classic Nestle Tollhouse with a piece of white chocolate on top. Just thinking about it right now makes my mouth drool. I will say that EPCOT tends to lack during EMH. The World Showcase is really quiet and a lot of the countries shut down or start closing up early. Next up is Day 5 or as I would like to say, the day the weather changed.

Day 4 Pictures: http://s885.photobucket.com/albums/ac53 ... 20Day%204/

[mindflipper]

Wow, Len90, you get around alot in one day: GF, AK, EPCOT - did you retire your shoes after this trip? There can't be any tread left on the soles of those shoes...

[Len90]

Wow, Len90, you get around alot in one day: GF, AK, EPCOT - did you retire your shoes after this trip? There can't be any tread left on the soles of those shoes...

I took a pair of Flip-flops and some great Under Armor sneakers. Wore the sneakers for the first couple of days and then was mostly in flip flops. All footwear made it back to Jersey, but the soles did get worn down A LOT!!!

Could it possibly be that Day 5 is also ready to be posted? Well it is a short one thanks to the changing of the weather. Enjoy!

Day 5: The day the weather changed. Up until this point it had been sunny and hot each day. The weather was fantastic, but a hurricane named Alex decided that it was time for a change. Even though Alex went right through the Gulf and made landfall in Texas, he still caused lots of cloud cover and a lot of storms to make their way into Central Florida. On this day the morning would be fine where we got in plenty of pool time. We actually hung out at the pool for a longer time than usual. I received a text message tip from a fellow subsonicer Packwingfn that Captain EO was finally doing a soft opening. It worked out well since our dinner was at Teppan Edo. We headed off to the park at around 4 PM and were able to catch Captain EO on a soft opening even before the press preview. I honestly never liked the original one and I was not a fan of this. It really made me miss HISTA.

After EO, and JII, it was off to dinner. We walked out of the Imagination Pavilion and were greeted by the scariest looking sky we could have ever seen. It was really gray and extremely cloudy. You could tell the rains were coming. We quickly made our way over to Japan to beat out the rains. We luckily made it onto a Friendship across the lagoon. We didn’t care which side we took just as long as we could get across and not get stuck in the coming storm. Just as our boat docked at Germany the skies began to open. We quickly ducked into Germany and tactically made our way over to Japan without getting very wet. I was not going to give in and spend $7.50 on a poncho.

We were seated at Teppan Edo around 10 minutes following our arrival. The table seats 8 so we ended up eating with two younger couples that were from the tri-state area. In fact one was also from New Jersey. I was really surprised by the cost of everything on the menu. The prices were really high but we had heard good things about this place and figured you might as well splurge when you are on vacation. Another thing that was surprising is that for the money it cost, everything was ala-carte. Usually when you order a Hibachi meal it comes with a soup, salad, and shrimp appetizer. That was not the case here. We did order the soup, which was excellent. Our chef was fantastic and the food was pretty good. However, it was not worth the money at all. The portions were small and for the money we spent, we actually left hungry.

Following dinner, it was still raining pretty heavy so we hung around the Japan store until it quieted down a bit. Once it quieted down, we saw our chance and began our trek back to our home. We had made it almost to the Beach Club when suddenly the skies opened again. We quickly ditched into a side door by the Beach Club pool and decided to use the resort as a way to cut through to the Yacht Club. Once we got near Cape May Café, my mom and dad heard my name being called. It was none other than fellow subsonicer Sandi. It was great to meet a fellow subsonicer vacationing in Disney World.

On this night DHS had the extra magic hours. We decided to dry off in our room and wait it out to see if the rains would let up. Luckily by around 8:15 the rain stopped and there was a good chance of it being dry the rest of the night. We headed off to accomplish a lot of attractions in DHS. It was the perfect idea. Almost everything was a Disney Walk-on. We rode Star Tours for the final time where I made sure to take numerous pictures of the queue, loading area, and of Talon Traders. After Star Tours it was off to Muppet Vision 3D, which recently had an update in film quality. I thoroughly enjoyed the update. We made our way through NY Street and around the back of the park to get to Pixar Place. Midway Mania was also pretty quiet with a small wait. During our ride though the systems actually locked up and we never got to play the final game and bonus round. I still was able to beat everybody in our vehicle! We notified the CM’s and they granted us another ride through on a different vehicle. Around midway through the second go around I started to feel pain in my middle finger. I ignored it and kept firing as fast as I could. I managed score a 172,000 and easily beat the entire car once again. After exiting Pixar Place I finally looked down at my finger and saw I was bleeding from a large area on my middle finger. Apparently from the way I fire the guns on Midway Mania I managed to get a massive blister on the side of my finger that I also ended up ripping open. After a quick do it yourself band-aid fix (no need for first-aid) it was off to TGMR (another walk-on). They were only showing Show B with the gangster. We requested and received the front row of the vehicle. Our tour guide was a CP CM who I ended up talking to a lot about Disney in general. Our Mugsy was fantastic. He kept his role and even tried to deviate a bit from the script. Upon return of our guide we talked some more. We even talked through the final movie about the wand at EPCOT and the hat in DHS. TGMR would be our last attraction for the night as we had successfully stayed until closing time.

We made our way back to our home and realized that we were starving. The best place we could think of to eat at was Planet Hollywood. They are open until around 1 AM so it was the perfect place to go. The food was decent but my only complaint was that the music was too loud. I know it is supposed to be noisy, but it shouldn’t be where you have to shout to your waitress when she is two feet away from you. With the ending of the meal, we returned back to our home in our fancy Kia Amanti with 25,000 + miles on it and called it a night. Our vacation was already over halfway over and I was having a blast.

Day 5 Pictures: http://s885.photobucket.com/albums/ac53 ... 20Day%205/

[mindflipper]

It's Florida in the summer - got live with those afternoon thunderstorms!

Sorry to hear about the finger injury. But like a good tourist, you soldiered on without a complaint. I think PH is trying to compete with HRC in seeing who can be the loudest - WHY?!? It's annoying.

Never been to Teppan Edo, but having read you left hungry it makes me rather try the affordable but lower quality fast-food place in Japan instead.

BTW not to be pushy, Len, but we're up to Day 5 and....still NO PHOTOS?!? Have you seen all the beauts posted by cousininmiami?

We want photos!
We want photos!
We want...wait, that is being a bit pushy.

[boilerbabe]

Wow Len, I'm exhausted from reading your trip report!!! Sounds like you guys had a blast so far and I can't wait to read the rest of your report and see pictures!!! I love your detail, I feel like I'm right there with you!!!

[Amy]

Great trip report so far Len...I must agree with mindflipper that we are missing some important elements without the photos
I know, I know, you are just encouraging us to use our imaginations to illustrate the report in our heads...is that what you are doing you sneaky Enchanted Tiki Room Witch Doctor you?!
I can't believe you wore flip-flops My feet hurt just thinking about having flip-flops on with all that walking!

[Future Guy]

Enjoying the report, Len! It sure sounds like you guys were able to cram a lot into your trip!

[Mousekedude]

I can vouch for the flip-flops... as long as they're Crocs. Very comfortable, and handy when the rain starts or when going on water-related rides. If I'm wearing my New Balances, I usually still bring a pair of Crocs in my backpack or keep them in a locker for just such a situation.

Keep the report coming, Len! Looking forward to the pics!

[Amy]

Len, I have a question. Is hitting the pool in the morning a family tradition? Is it your whole family or just you and Mark? Why the morning and not later in the day when it is hotter ~ is it because the pool is less crowded in the am?
Just curious. I usually skip any pool time in favor of more park time. I can swim around home, but can't do all the other cool stuff Disney has to offer. And I realize the pools are themed wonderfully but somehow it seems like I am wasting time I could be doing something else.

[Len90]

Just quickly respond to everybody's questions. The flip flops were I believe made by sketchers. They were just as uncomfortable as any sneakers you wear after all the walking. I did take a pair of crocs, but I used those almost exclusively for the pool. They also happened to be Mickey Crocs!

As for the pool, we tended to hit it for around 11:30. We would stay until 1 or so in order to hit the parks for 2:15-2:30. We would use dinners to break up the time in the afternoon heat. It is actually best to hit up Stormalong Bay earlier in the afternoon since it tended to be the sunniest part of the day and it was easier to get chairs. It would be all four of us in the pool as a family.