Belle1962
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 18, 1999
Day Seven, Nov. 23
Cast Review:
Leading roles:
Me, Trip Director, almost 40, frequent WDW visitor & new TDS CM
DH, 40, not as frequent as me WDW visitor
DS, 18, been there done that attitude but still wouldn't miss a trip to the World
Brother, almost 40, third trip to WDW (all have been with my family)
Sis-In-law, 40, third or fourth trip to WDW
Nephew, 22, frequent WDW visitor when younger (with Grandma) but this is his first trip in over five years and first ever with his mom and dad
Niece, 11, third trip to WDW, all have been with the coolest Aunt in the World (ME)
Bit parts:
Cousin, almost 40, first trip
Cousin's wife, almost 40, first trip
Oldest Son, 15, first trip
Daughter, 12, first trip
Youngest Son, 2, first trip
Cuz's wife's mother, older than the rest of us, think her first trip
Cuz's wife's brother, not sure of age (30ish)
Cuz's wife's nephew, 3
Today is designated MGM/Studios Day. The logic behind this decision was: Magic Kingdom would be packed, not everyone wanted to do EPCOT, I'm personally not wild about the Animal Kingdom and since it was a night the parks were open later we didn't want to make it a non park day. ThereforeâÂÂthe Studios.
We were up and at the Studios by 8:00 am. As soon as we entered the park we went and rented a locker. I had two bags of goodies to pass out at lunch and we needed put a change of clothes in. I eyeball the wheelchairs and ecv's but decide, yet again, I am not mentally ready to go into one. By the time we got up to the rope drop for RockNRoller Coaster & Tower of Terror it was about 8:50. At rope drop we headed directly to RNR. While everyone else got in line to ride, I got everyone's tickets and tried to get Fastpasses for this for later. The machine kept jamming and it took forever to get fastpasses. The CM finally was just handing out them out by hand. After getting the fastpasses for RNR I decided to run over to Tower of Terror and use the rest of the tickets for fp for TOT. I then met everyone just as they were getting off RNR. They said it would probably be ok for me to ride so I'm glad I got a FP for it for myself. I then passed out the other FP's (yours for RNR, yours for TOT, since XXX isn't riding here's an extra one for TOT, you don't ride TOT so I used your ticket to get XX a FP, etc.). We had some lady watching us just shaking her head. I told her I could probably organize the invasion of a small country and she laughed and said it looked like it.
It wasn't time for the return FP for RNR or TOT so we decided to see what the standby for TOT was. 40 minutes. My DH left in search of more coffee and a cigarette while the rest of us went ahead and jumped in line. It was less than 30 minutes and we were entering the library. We then boarded our elevator for the ride of a lifetime. I forget how many times we dropped, then dropped again and then dropped again. We loved it. This was the first time my niece had ridden it. Last time, she made it through the library but then decided against doing the actual ride. I had promised her a tshirt if she made it this year so it's off to the gift shop we go. Tough decision. We decide to think about it and make our way outside to go back to RNR for our fastpass. Since I will probably only ride this once, DH and I decide to wait for the front seat while the others get right on the waiting limo. This ride was great. My head bounced around a bit but I'm glad I was able to experience it at least once. After the ride we then headed over to TOT for our fastpass there. This is where my FP plan ran into a problem (other than the main problem of people not understanding--do one big ride while getting a FP for anotherâÂÂnot ride a biggie and get a fastpass for the same one). Some people had not wanted to do TOT so I did not get a fastpass for them and gave the fastpass from their ticket to someone else. HoweverâÂÂonce we headed over there they changed their mind. Too bad. Soo sad. Not much I can do about it at this point (when you spend all week saying how you can't ride it how am I to know you're going to change your mind???). Anyway, we hopped in the fastpass line for TOT and enjoyed our second thrill of the day. After this ride my niece and I spent some time in the gift shop. She decided on a shirt with Mickey in the elevator and the back reading " I suggest you take the stairs" or some such slogan.
We meet up with everyone else and decide we have spent enough time here, let's check out the rest of the park. I head over to the Little Mermaid to get a FP for it. We decide to do The Great Movie Ride while waiting for our fastpass time. The wait was 30 minutes but so what, we had the time to kill. By this point, I am for any activity that involves not standing and this is a 20 minute sit down ride. After The Great Movie Ride we head for our showing of The Little Mermaid. After the Little Mermaid we do the Backstage Tour.
Once we get off the backstage tour we get a fastpass for Muppets and then go look for Buzz & Woody at Al's Toy Barn. The line here is about 30 minutes so we decide not to get in it. While everyone else hangs around to take pictures of the Muppet fire engine and stuff, I run into the Christmas Shoppe. We meet up and then go around to the entrance to catch the Muppets. I remember to look under the mat. Everyone keeps asking me "What's under the mat?" I tell them to go look for themselves. None of them do. After Muppets it is getting close to our PS time (3:10) so we head over to Hollywood & Vine.
I went to check in for our Thanksgiving lunch and told them party of 15 PS for 3:10. The CM informed me that I couldn't possibly have a 3:10 PS as the restaurant does not take PS between 3:00 - 4:00. They use this time to let the lunch guests finish and to prep for dinner. Luckily I had my blue PS form from the hotel and I showed it to her. She went inside to check with a manager and then returned and told me they would honor my PS but they were running about an hour behind in seating. I asked if we would still have lunch and the characters or if we would be having dinner and therefore reserved seating for Fantasmic. She wasn't sure so she went back inside to check and came out and said we should be seated within 30 minutes. I informed everyone of this development and we prepared to wait it out. The younger kids had their parents take them to watch the Mulan Parade and the rest of us just sat around talking. There were a lot of upset people at Hollywood & Vine that day. People trying to do walk up were told that nothing was available until later and people with PS were being given the "we're about an hour behind" routine. Some of them got very upset. They thought a PS was a reservation and did not understand "the next available seating for your party size". We heard many gripes and grumblings around us but heyâÂÂit's Thanksgiving peopleâÂÂdidn't you expect them to be busy??? After the parade, I passed out some little gifts I had for the kids (coloring books, puzzles, little Golden Books). This kept all of the children (from 2 - 22) busy until it was time to eat. At 3:40 a manager came out and told me they had our section ready but there was one family still sitting there. They had finished eating about ten minutes before but were just sitting there chatting with each other (a family of four) and she couldn't make them get up. I fully understood this and asked when the characters were leaving. The characters leave at 4:00. I asked if I could just send our kids in to get pictures with the characters since there was no guarantee that they would come around to the table once we were seated. She said this fine so I left to round up the little ones and their parents. A little later, another CM came out and said she could seat us now. We went in and discovered that they had seated us all around this other family. Those poor peopleâÂÂthey were trying to relax and kill time after their meal (which by now has been about 20 minutes since they finished eating) and all of us descend around them. There's that typical who is sitting where, what tables did she say we had?, can I just go eat or do I have to wait for the waitress, where's the bathroom, he's in my seat, am not, am too, that comes with trying to seat 15 very hungry people at the same time. The other family just kinda looked shell shocked for a minute (they had been sitting there with all those empty tables around them and enjoying the peace and fairly quiet) and then we descended and they left packed up and left. After their table was cleaned, part of our group moved over to it.
The food here was delicious and our waitress very attentive. She was willing to split the check into each family's group and was on top of refilling our drinks. As lunch/dinner wound down, I passed out the gifts I had bought for everyone (ornaments) and we made our plans for Fantasmic. I told everyone that plan A was to have a few us go right over (it was about 4:45 by now) and hold seats while everyone else did more of the park but everyone had to be there by 5:30. Or Plan BâÂÂif they charged us for dinner instead of lunch then we would get Fantasmic tickets and everyone could go enjoy the park. I am happy to report that they charged us for lunch (as was our original PS). It ends up that only 3 (yes THREE) of us go to Fantasmic to try to hold spots for everyone. I'm not sure we can do this but we will try. We get to Fantasmic and no one is sitting in the front rows. I ask the CM in the aisle if we can save seats and she directs us to a mostly empty row, center of the theatre and says it's ok to spread out and save the seats. I tell her everyone else is joining us in about half an hour and she says she hopes that at 5:30 they are still letting people in. We start worrying about everyone being able to get in and get to us. But my son and DH show up almost right after we get situated (they had done Star Tours and then discovered no more fp's for RNR or TOT) so they came on in. Next to show was my brother, niece and nephew. Just a few more people and we'll all be here and accounted for. About 5:30 everyone else shows up and we sit down to wait for the show (at 6:30). We do the wave several times, fast, slow, super fast, super slow. We wait for the plumbers but they never show up. The wave was IT for pre-show entertainment. But it was worth the wait. EVERYONE loved this show and thought it really neat how they used water screens. I had warned everyone that we were sitting close enough that we could get wetâÂÂa light mist during the whole show. However, the wind was blowing away from us and we got "misted" only very lightly.
After Fantasmic I told everyone to just sit tight and wait for everyone else to get out of the stadium. We were heading back to the Osborne lights and if we waited until these people got ahead of us leaving the stadium then they would be ahead of us at the lights and we wouldn't be packed in with them trying to see everything. This plan worked great. We were able to enjoy a leisurely stroll through the lights and enjoy all of the wonderful sights and sounds.
What a great ending to a great day.
Tomorrow: Tigers, Tiggers and the wheelchair wins.
Cast Review:
Leading roles:
Me, Trip Director, almost 40, frequent WDW visitor & new TDS CM
DH, 40, not as frequent as me WDW visitor
DS, 18, been there done that attitude but still wouldn't miss a trip to the World
Brother, almost 40, third trip to WDW (all have been with my family)
Sis-In-law, 40, third or fourth trip to WDW
Nephew, 22, frequent WDW visitor when younger (with Grandma) but this is his first trip in over five years and first ever with his mom and dad
Niece, 11, third trip to WDW, all have been with the coolest Aunt in the World (ME)
Bit parts:
Cousin, almost 40, first trip
Cousin's wife, almost 40, first trip
Oldest Son, 15, first trip
Daughter, 12, first trip
Youngest Son, 2, first trip
Cuz's wife's mother, older than the rest of us, think her first trip
Cuz's wife's brother, not sure of age (30ish)
Cuz's wife's nephew, 3
Today is designated MGM/Studios Day. The logic behind this decision was: Magic Kingdom would be packed, not everyone wanted to do EPCOT, I'm personally not wild about the Animal Kingdom and since it was a night the parks were open later we didn't want to make it a non park day. ThereforeâÂÂthe Studios.
We were up and at the Studios by 8:00 am. As soon as we entered the park we went and rented a locker. I had two bags of goodies to pass out at lunch and we needed put a change of clothes in. I eyeball the wheelchairs and ecv's but decide, yet again, I am not mentally ready to go into one. By the time we got up to the rope drop for RockNRoller Coaster & Tower of Terror it was about 8:50. At rope drop we headed directly to RNR. While everyone else got in line to ride, I got everyone's tickets and tried to get Fastpasses for this for later. The machine kept jamming and it took forever to get fastpasses. The CM finally was just handing out them out by hand. After getting the fastpasses for RNR I decided to run over to Tower of Terror and use the rest of the tickets for fp for TOT. I then met everyone just as they were getting off RNR. They said it would probably be ok for me to ride so I'm glad I got a FP for it for myself. I then passed out the other FP's (yours for RNR, yours for TOT, since XXX isn't riding here's an extra one for TOT, you don't ride TOT so I used your ticket to get XX a FP, etc.). We had some lady watching us just shaking her head. I told her I could probably organize the invasion of a small country and she laughed and said it looked like it.
It wasn't time for the return FP for RNR or TOT so we decided to see what the standby for TOT was. 40 minutes. My DH left in search of more coffee and a cigarette while the rest of us went ahead and jumped in line. It was less than 30 minutes and we were entering the library. We then boarded our elevator for the ride of a lifetime. I forget how many times we dropped, then dropped again and then dropped again. We loved it. This was the first time my niece had ridden it. Last time, she made it through the library but then decided against doing the actual ride. I had promised her a tshirt if she made it this year so it's off to the gift shop we go. Tough decision. We decide to think about it and make our way outside to go back to RNR for our fastpass. Since I will probably only ride this once, DH and I decide to wait for the front seat while the others get right on the waiting limo. This ride was great. My head bounced around a bit but I'm glad I was able to experience it at least once. After the ride we then headed over to TOT for our fastpass there. This is where my FP plan ran into a problem (other than the main problem of people not understanding--do one big ride while getting a FP for anotherâÂÂnot ride a biggie and get a fastpass for the same one). Some people had not wanted to do TOT so I did not get a fastpass for them and gave the fastpass from their ticket to someone else. HoweverâÂÂonce we headed over there they changed their mind. Too bad. Soo sad. Not much I can do about it at this point (when you spend all week saying how you can't ride it how am I to know you're going to change your mind???). Anyway, we hopped in the fastpass line for TOT and enjoyed our second thrill of the day. After this ride my niece and I spent some time in the gift shop. She decided on a shirt with Mickey in the elevator and the back reading " I suggest you take the stairs" or some such slogan.
We meet up with everyone else and decide we have spent enough time here, let's check out the rest of the park. I head over to the Little Mermaid to get a FP for it. We decide to do The Great Movie Ride while waiting for our fastpass time. The wait was 30 minutes but so what, we had the time to kill. By this point, I am for any activity that involves not standing and this is a 20 minute sit down ride. After The Great Movie Ride we head for our showing of The Little Mermaid. After the Little Mermaid we do the Backstage Tour.
Once we get off the backstage tour we get a fastpass for Muppets and then go look for Buzz & Woody at Al's Toy Barn. The line here is about 30 minutes so we decide not to get in it. While everyone else hangs around to take pictures of the Muppet fire engine and stuff, I run into the Christmas Shoppe. We meet up and then go around to the entrance to catch the Muppets. I remember to look under the mat. Everyone keeps asking me "What's under the mat?" I tell them to go look for themselves. None of them do. After Muppets it is getting close to our PS time (3:10) so we head over to Hollywood & Vine.
I went to check in for our Thanksgiving lunch and told them party of 15 PS for 3:10. The CM informed me that I couldn't possibly have a 3:10 PS as the restaurant does not take PS between 3:00 - 4:00. They use this time to let the lunch guests finish and to prep for dinner. Luckily I had my blue PS form from the hotel and I showed it to her. She went inside to check with a manager and then returned and told me they would honor my PS but they were running about an hour behind in seating. I asked if we would still have lunch and the characters or if we would be having dinner and therefore reserved seating for Fantasmic. She wasn't sure so she went back inside to check and came out and said we should be seated within 30 minutes. I informed everyone of this development and we prepared to wait it out. The younger kids had their parents take them to watch the Mulan Parade and the rest of us just sat around talking. There were a lot of upset people at Hollywood & Vine that day. People trying to do walk up were told that nothing was available until later and people with PS were being given the "we're about an hour behind" routine. Some of them got very upset. They thought a PS was a reservation and did not understand "the next available seating for your party size". We heard many gripes and grumblings around us but heyâÂÂit's Thanksgiving peopleâÂÂdidn't you expect them to be busy??? After the parade, I passed out some little gifts I had for the kids (coloring books, puzzles, little Golden Books). This kept all of the children (from 2 - 22) busy until it was time to eat. At 3:40 a manager came out and told me they had our section ready but there was one family still sitting there. They had finished eating about ten minutes before but were just sitting there chatting with each other (a family of four) and she couldn't make them get up. I fully understood this and asked when the characters were leaving. The characters leave at 4:00. I asked if I could just send our kids in to get pictures with the characters since there was no guarantee that they would come around to the table once we were seated. She said this fine so I left to round up the little ones and their parents. A little later, another CM came out and said she could seat us now. We went in and discovered that they had seated us all around this other family. Those poor peopleâÂÂthey were trying to relax and kill time after their meal (which by now has been about 20 minutes since they finished eating) and all of us descend around them. There's that typical who is sitting where, what tables did she say we had?, can I just go eat or do I have to wait for the waitress, where's the bathroom, he's in my seat, am not, am too, that comes with trying to seat 15 very hungry people at the same time. The other family just kinda looked shell shocked for a minute (they had been sitting there with all those empty tables around them and enjoying the peace and fairly quiet) and then we descended and they left packed up and left. After their table was cleaned, part of our group moved over to it.
The food here was delicious and our waitress very attentive. She was willing to split the check into each family's group and was on top of refilling our drinks. As lunch/dinner wound down, I passed out the gifts I had bought for everyone (ornaments) and we made our plans for Fantasmic. I told everyone that plan A was to have a few us go right over (it was about 4:45 by now) and hold seats while everyone else did more of the park but everyone had to be there by 5:30. Or Plan BâÂÂif they charged us for dinner instead of lunch then we would get Fantasmic tickets and everyone could go enjoy the park. I am happy to report that they charged us for lunch (as was our original PS). It ends up that only 3 (yes THREE) of us go to Fantasmic to try to hold spots for everyone. I'm not sure we can do this but we will try. We get to Fantasmic and no one is sitting in the front rows. I ask the CM in the aisle if we can save seats and she directs us to a mostly empty row, center of the theatre and says it's ok to spread out and save the seats. I tell her everyone else is joining us in about half an hour and she says she hopes that at 5:30 they are still letting people in. We start worrying about everyone being able to get in and get to us. But my son and DH show up almost right after we get situated (they had done Star Tours and then discovered no more fp's for RNR or TOT) so they came on in. Next to show was my brother, niece and nephew. Just a few more people and we'll all be here and accounted for. About 5:30 everyone else shows up and we sit down to wait for the show (at 6:30). We do the wave several times, fast, slow, super fast, super slow. We wait for the plumbers but they never show up. The wave was IT for pre-show entertainment. But it was worth the wait. EVERYONE loved this show and thought it really neat how they used water screens. I had warned everyone that we were sitting close enough that we could get wetâÂÂa light mist during the whole show. However, the wind was blowing away from us and we got "misted" only very lightly.
After Fantasmic I told everyone to just sit tight and wait for everyone else to get out of the stadium. We were heading back to the Osborne lights and if we waited until these people got ahead of us leaving the stadium then they would be ahead of us at the lights and we wouldn't be packed in with them trying to see everything. This plan worked great. We were able to enjoy a leisurely stroll through the lights and enjoy all of the wonderful sights and sounds.
What a great ending to a great day.
Tomorrow: Tigers, Tiggers and the wheelchair wins.
