Dec 2010: Mayhem Invades Disney World!!!

[NaCler]

Day 2, December 3 (Friday):

I want to start off by saying that Mouseoholic and Len90 really inspired me to actually make an itinerary for this trip as usually we just wing it. So, I thought it would be fun to begin each day listing the plans that I had for the day, then explain how well we stuck with the plan.

Proposed Itinerary:

8-9am: Leave Jacksonville and drive to Orlando
11:30-Noon: Arrive at Yacht Club Resort and attempt to check-in
Noon-1pm: Quick small bite to eat at Beaches & Cream
1pm-2pm: Head for Hollywood Studios
2pm-4pm: Toy Story Mania/Muppets/One Man's Dream/Great Movie Ride/ToT
4:15pm: Dinner at Brown Derby
6pm: Osborne Lights
6:30pm-8pm: Do whatever we didn't get to earlier.
8pm-9pm: Travel to Downtown Disney
11pm: Back to Yacht Club for the night

What REALLY happened:

We arrived at Disney's Yacht Club Resort about 12:15pm and had no problem checking in early. Here are some pics to get Len90 excited:




The CM who checked us in mentioned that our room was VERY far from the lobby but that the room and the view would be worth it. I'll let you be the judge:


The view from our balcony:



The view from our left side window:


Once we got to our room we were itching to get into a park. It didn't matter which one, we just had to go. So, we bypassed Beaches & Cream and went straight to Hollywood Studios. We took Friendship 8 (for Len90 I tried to remember all the Friendship numbers we rode on) and really enjoyed the ride. We got to the park about 2pm so we were pretty close to our original "schedule."

We went over to the Attraction wait times board to see what the damage was for Toy Story Mania. It was about an 80 minute wait with all of the fastpasses gone for the day! We decided to check out the Muppets since I haven't seen it since the refurb. I showed my mother the key under the mat as she had never seen it before and we got to see all of the pre-show. I didn't notice much of a change but it had been a long time since I had seen it.

We then went to the Great Movie Ride to kill some time before our dinner reservation. We waited about 15 minutes and got the gangster scene. I was happy as I was able to locate the Hidden Mickey in the upstairs window. I couldn't get a good picture of it so I can't post it, sorry guys. I was also able to locate the Mickey/Donald Hieroglyphics on the wall before you enter the Indiana Jones scene, so I was pretty happy about that as well, but again, no picture. We got out around 3:30 which was basically an hour before our dinner reservation at Brown Derby. They had no problems taking us earlier.

I started with the Famous Cobb salad that the BD is known for. I did not get a picture of the salad as I was pretty hungry by then. I chose the Madeira Braised Lamb Shank with Creamy Goat Cheese and Rosemary Polenta with a Madeira and Root Vegetable Demi:

Mom got the Char-grilled Filet of Beef - with Herb-roasted Fingerling Potatoes, Cremini Mushrooms, Cippolini Onions, and Cabernet Wine Syrup:


I had never had Lamb before so I do not know what it was supposed to taste like and it was pretty good but it tasted like a pot roast to me. It was just a lot more tender and not as stringy as a roast can get. For dessert we decided to try the famous grapefruit cake... we should have skipped it. Too tart for our liking, but you never know until you try it. If anyone wants the recipe, I do have it.

After dinner we went through One Man's Dream. This is the first time I had ever been through it and I don't know why. The exhibits were awesome and the 15 minute film about Walt's life is amazing. The Fall 2010 section is still closed but we didn't mind at all.


We were able to catch the Osborne Lights when they turned on at 6pm. I really enjoyed them synced with the music, however, I didn't like the Phineas & Ferb section of the show. I love this show on the Disney Channel but they turn out the lights for several minutes and you have people just standing in the dark and it just didn't flow well. I'd be interested to hear if anyone else had this same feeling. Here are a couple of highLIGHTS...





Being a HUGE fan of a Christmas Story... I was VERY happy to see this great surprise in one of the windows:

"...it's...it's a LEG!"

We also located the purple cat:


After the lights we thought we would check on the wait time for Toy Story Mania again... This time it was a 180 minute wait! Do the math folks... that's 3 hours... ONE hour before the park was scheduled to close! The CM explained that the ride was running at less than half capacity. I assume this means that one side was down for whatever reason and that some cars from the working track were not in operation for some reason??? We noticed that ToT had a wait time of 45 minutes so we decided to go ahead and leave for Downtown Disney to do some shopping. We rode on Friendship 1 and got off at the Dolphin resort. We walked through the lobby and got these shots:

For MmeLeota and kcarts:

Side note... We got Jason Werth! WHOOO HOOO!!! GO NATS... sorry...

While at DTD we got this shot of the Adventurers Club, RIP:


We got back to the Yacht Club about 10pm and we wanted to go to Jelly Rolls. When we figured that we probably wouldn't go to bed until 2am if we did this, we opted for the Captain's Crew Lounge in the resort as an alternative. Momma got strawberry margarita's and I opted for a couple of Samuel Adams brews with our Lobster rolls and chips appetizer. Yes kcarts, we were honoring you since you couldn't make the trip! I got pictures on my cell phone but they are too small to post.

After that, it was bed time... for tomorrow would be the fateful day... The MM's meet for the first time...

[MmeLeota]

WOW you guys!!! This is awesome so far!!!! Thanks for the Winter Meetings pic NaCler...I've been keeping an ear open all week! (congrats on Werth btw...now, do ya think the NATS can steal Lee?) When I saw that the meetings were going to be at Swan & Dolphin, it made me want to be there even more!!!

I'm looking forward to the rest of the trip as well as pics of the big event!

[momeja]

NaCler, still my beating heart! You started the trip at my favorite restaurant at WDW - HBD. Great food pics, and I agree with you about the Grapefruit cake. Just a meh. Next time, I recommend either their flourless chocolate cake (if they still have it) or the Banana White Chocolate Toffee Tower. Both are amazing.

Sad to see the pic of the Adventurer's Club. I loved that place.

[mindflipper]

Great trip report so far, NaCler! Looking forward to Day 3 - Dec 4! I can't wait to see what happened on that day - no wait, I was there, wasn't I?

[MmeLeota]

Oh, and NaCler....I forgot to mention an extra WOW on the room and view!!!!!

[Sleepy90]

Wow NaCler now that is a room with a view. Time waits on Toy Story Mania are always astronomical, I think you pretty much have to get there first thing in the morning for any chance to get on.
I have never really fancied the Brown Derby to eat but that grapefruit dessert does sound intriguing feel free to send the recipe and I will give it a whirl.
Well now you have given us the appetizer I think we may be ready for the main course.

[NaCler]

As a side note from Day 2... I forgot to mention that my kids asked me to get them certain vinylmations while on my trip, so I vowed that I would try and get them the ones they wanted. Well... they mainly wanted the Toy Story ones... We went to D-Street (which is basically the VM capital of WDW) while at DTD and they informed us that the Toy Story vinylmations were sold out EVERYWHERE. You can't even get them online. Well, this just challenged my Mom and I to start on off on a quest... The Great Vinylmation Search of 2010... (to be continued)

WOW you guys!!! This is awesome so far!!!! Thanks for the Winter Meetings pic NaCler...I've been keeping an ear open all week! (congrats on Werth btw...now, do ya think the NATS can steal Lee?) When I saw that the meetings were going to be at Swan & Dolphin, it made me want to be there even more!!!

Stealing Lee would be awesome, especially since our ace is down for a year with Tommy John surgery! Thanks for enjoying the pics of our view. We were pretty happy with it, although it was a long walk from the lobby. And don't worry... you were definitely there with us in spirit!

NaCler, still my beating heart! You started the trip at my favorite restaurant at WDW - HBD. Great food pics, and I agree with you about the Grapefruit cake. Just a meh. Next time, I recommend either their flourless chocolate cake (if they still have it) or the Banana White Chocolate Toffee Tower. Both are amazing.

Sad to see the pic of the Adventurer's Club. I loved that place.

This was my first time at the HBD and I really enjoyed it. Not a place I would go with my young kids (even though there were quite a few there) but I would definitely return if it's just an adult trip. There was a triple chocolate something there that Mom tried to talk me into but I told her we needed to try the dessert that HBD is famous for. Oh well...

I never tried the Adventurer's Club but after hearing stories about it and seeing how beloved it was by die-hard Disney fans, I'm sad that I never got the chance. It seems like it was a fun place.

Great trip report so far, NaCler! Looking forward to Day 3 - Dec 4! I can't wait to see what happened on that day - no wait, I was there, wasn't I?

Yeah, I THINK I remember seeing you once or twice, but I can't quite recall what you look like, so I'm not exactly sure.

Wow NaCler now that is a room with a view. Time waits on Toy Story Mania are always astronomical, I think you pretty much have to get there first thing in the morning for any chance to get on.
I have never really fancied the Brown Derby to eat but that grapefruit dessert does sound intriguing feel free to send the recipe and I will give it a whirl.
Well now you have given us the appetizer I think we may be ready for the main course.

Yeah, I really liked the fact that I could lay in bed and stare out the window at Spaceship Earth, especially when it was illuminated at night.

I had a feeling that we wouldn't get a fastpass since we got in the park around 2pm, but I just figured we would wait for 40-60 minutes in the stand-by line. I could have handled that with only mild grumpiness, but nothing prepared me for 180 minutes!

I should be able to get that recipe posted tonight.

As for the main course of the trip report... that may be a day or so as I have many pics (obviously) and even video to upload. Please "bear" with me.

[99Soulz]

Wow, great trip report and pics so far NaCler! Great view from your room, I bet that made your day waking up to that every morning huh?

Oh and I hate you...(not really but you know what I mean)....you stole my boy Jayson Werth! Well maybe he's the one that's doing the stealing but I will certainly miss him here in Philly. Most of my tshirts have his number - gonna be hard to see him wearing the "other" red in the NL East!

[theBIGyowski]

Someone mentioned that you were all (or some of you) there in MK around the time they were filming the Christmas Day Parade. If so...how was it? I'm sure it's different than what we see on TV in terms of timing and performances on stage and such. Just wondering what it was like in person...if anyone was there for it.

[Len90]

Wow I am loving every sentence of this thread. Great job starting it off Barry with the photo and mention of my surprise celebrity phone call. Are you really sure that is the story you are going to keep to? I personally would have put my camcorder in a ziploc bag and recorded the entire journey down I really would love to see a group photo from the dinner so I can put all the faces to the voices I heard. On a side note, I think mindflipper was intentionally ducking down to hide his identity

NaCler, those photos bring a tear to my eye. Your view is similar to the view we had when we were there. It's great to see photos of the Yacht Club. Did you happen to see Friendship II while you were there. I am wondering if Disney ever got around to fixing the thick black smoke coming from the engines and the dirty back end.

Awesome job everybody. I am looking forward to reading more!

[Jacca5660]

Great report!! Gotta love that view and you got to see the winter meetings!! I'm hoping the Braves can so something there!! I can't believe those wait times!! How cold did you get?

Keep those reports coming!!

[NaCler]

Someone mentioned that you were all (or some of you) there in MK around the time they were filming the Christmas Day Parade. If so...how was it? I'm sure it's different than what we see on TV in terms of timing and performances on stage and such. Just wondering what it was like in person...if anyone was there for it.

I didn't go to the MK on the first 2 days of filming (Thursday and Friday I believe), so I missed the floats going up and down Main Street. I believe all they did on Saturday was film in front of the Castle as they had everything blocked off over there. Didn't notice anything special except for extremely larger crowds than we expected and Mariah Carey singing as we crossed by Casey's Corner to head to Adventureland. I think the Mouskecouple was there on Friday and may have seen more of the parade but we will have to wait for that report. Sorry bud.

[mindflipper]

Wow I am loving every sentence of this thread. Great job starting it off Barry with the photo and mention of my surprise celebrity phone call. Are you really sure that is the story you are going to keep to? I personally would have put my camcorder in a ziploc bag and recorded the entire journey down I really would love to see a group photo from the dinner so I can put all the faces to the voices I heard. On a side note, I think mindflipper was intentionally ducking down to hide his identity

NaCler, those photos bring a tear to my eye. Your view is similar to the view we had when we were there. It's great to see photos of the Yacht Club. Did you happen to see Friendship II while you were there. I am wondering if Disney ever got around to fixing the thick black smoke coming from the engines and the dirty back end.

Awesome job everybody. I am looking forward to reading more!

I tried the ziploc bag idea before but the bags are not completely transparent and the folds in the plastic ruin the picture. Nice idea, Len90, but it just doesn't work. So you think I ducked in order to maintain some kind of anonymity, eh? (Methinks the boy is cleverer than I thought!)

In addition to NaCler staying at the Yacht Club, so were the double-boilers. We all rode the bus back to our resorts together. They were going to be transferring to the Polynesian the next day, so you should get more about the Yacht Club in boilerbabe's trip report.

My greatest disappointment was the Polynesian. They were still playing the regular music loops, not the instrumental "Polynesian Christmas" music loop. If they had, I would have got some great video of Boilerdude doing his karoake of ad-libbed lyrics to the Polynesian Christmas music; but, alas - and probably much to the great relief of boilerbabe - it was not meant to be.

[mindflipper]

Someone mentioned that you were all (or some of you) there in MK around the time they were filming the Christmas Day Parade. If so...how was it? I'm sure it's different than what we see on TV in terms of timing and performances on stage and such. Just wondering what it was like in person...if anyone was there for it.

I didn't go to the MK on the first 2 days of filming (Thursday and Friday I believe), so I missed the floats going up and down Main Street. I believe all they did on Saturday was film in front of the Castle as they had everything blocked off over there. Didn't notice anything special except for extremely larger crowds than we expected and Mariah Carey singing as we crossed by Casey's Corner to head to Adventureland. I think the Mouskecouple was there on Friday and may have seen more of the parade but we will have to wait for that report. Sorry bud.

NaCler is right - Saturday when we all were at the MK they only were taping the performances on stage in front of the castle, and that was done before 4 PM. Once the taping had concluded, the crowds dispersed and the lines for attractions became even longer! I was glad when we eventually went to the Polynesian, because by the time we got back for MSEP at 11 PM the people were already departing en masse from the park, which made it easier to watch MSEP and ride the rides afterwards.

[Len90]

Yes I do recall asking all of the Yacht Club people what rooms they were staying in. It would have been really funny if one of them had a room that I was in.

Mindflipper: I am very keen to noticing small nitty gritty details. There has not been one picture posted on this board with your face in it... yet. I think this attribute of mine has really helped me enjoy every experience at WDW more and more since I am so attuned to the little details that 99% of the people pass by without even noticing. It is good to see that the winter crowds are very similar to the summer crowds. The later MSEP is always easier to catch and you don't have to wait long for it either.