Jess and Dave - October 2003

Cast of characters – Jess (me) 27, Dave (boyfriend) 28, and married friends
Cara 28, Scott 28

Day 1 – Saturday, October 18.

We spent the day today checking into our resort (Westgate Vacation Villas, we used a timeshare). We did our grocery shopping for the week at Super Wal-Mart on 192…we did pretty well for our money there. Got breakfast foods, a couple of dinners, snacks, and beer/wine for the week. We grabbed a small Styrofoam cooler to bring to the pool with us, too.

We hung out by the pool once we were settled and then went to dinner. We took the suggestion of the guy who showed us to our Villa and ate at Carrabba's (Italian) on 192. The food and service were great, though not really dollarless.

Day 2 – Sunday, October 19.

Today was Animal Kingdom day! We got to the park about 8:45 for the 9AM opening. We got a good parking spot and then hit the lines for security. Once we were through that we headed right back to the Safari. The wait was already 20 minutes so we grabbed FP's and then did the Pangani trail. Finished with that and it was time for the Safari. We saw a good amount of animals, but not nearly as many as I had seen a few years ago.

From there we went over to the Kali River Rapids…no need to FP there, it was a walk-on. In fact, they let us stay right on and go around again…the family we rode with was going around for the 5th and 6th times!! We got SOAKED. We walked through the Maharajah Jungle Trek and got some great pics.

We were starting to get hungry but we decided to head over to Dinoland before crossing back over to Pizzafari for lunch. We walked on to Dinosaur and then the Primeval Whirl. This was the BUMPIEST ride I've ever been on I think!! I'm glad I did it once, but I'm not sure I'll do it again! We were starving and needed a break so we walked over to Pizzafari…I'll do a report for it, but it was a great lunch for the money!!

After lunch we did ITTBAB. I've seen this before and I think it's really cute…once again about half the theater got up and left with their screaming kids about halfway through it!! After this it was time for the Lion King show…if you've never seen this it's a MUST DO in my book. I think it's one of the best shows in WDW. It was about 3 when this let out so we decided to head out. We had seen everything we wanted to see, and I was the only one in the group interested in the parade so I let it slide (I knew I wouldn't compromise on this at MK or MGM so I was ok with it today).

After a couple hours relaxing in the pool/hot tub we headed out to Tony Roma's for dinner. They were doing an all you can eat rib special (their ribs are fabulous) so Dave and Scott took advantage of that!!

High point: Festival of the Lion King. Low point: missing the parade.
Tomorrow: Epcot for Food and Wine Festival and dinner at Rose and Crown.

Day 3 – Monday, October 20

We did Epcot today. We got there just after opening and parked fairly close. We were able to see a few characters in the Leave a Legacy courtyard before heading in. We checked the line for Mission: Space and it was 15 minutes so we sent the guys to get FP's for Test Track and Cara and I got in line. It was barely 10 minutes before we were assigned our jobs for the mission and were waiting for the doors to open. This ride was INTENSE. I LOVE rides and have to say that this one did NOT disappoint!! It was just awesome. Dave and Cara were a little shaky after it so we did Ellen's Energy Adventure to relax for a bit. I like this ride, but the pre-show was a little longer than I remembered.

After that it was time for Test Track. Dave and I had done this before, but it was a first for Cara and Scott, we all loved it and got FP's to come back later in the day.

It was almost noon at this point so we headed for WS. We had dinner reservations at 8 so we wanted to eat and drink our way around the world with enough time to finish and be hungry again by then. We stopped at almost every country and booth and got something…shared a lot so we could just taste things. We rode El Rio del Tiempo, but then had to skip Norway because Cara and I got margaritas outside Mexico and weren't done with them. They were "Fiesta" and were a mix of lime, kiwi, strawberry and mango...YUM!!! They were $7, but they were BIG and really good.

We hit the South Africa booth just as they were opening a wine tasting so we did that. $1 per glass for pretty much the same size other booths were charging $3 for, so we each got 2 glasses, one of the red and one of the white. I'm a red wine girl but I liked the white a lot better here.

We the Sam Adams History of Beer in America seminar so we were first in line for that. Being from New England we're big Sam Adams people so this was a nice free treat.

We finished up with WS and headed back in FW. We walked on to Imagination and timed it perfectly for HISTA. We all enjoyed that!! I got outvoted on The Land pavilion so we didn't even go in there (no one listened to me when I told them what we were missing!!). None of us are big Living Seas people so we headed over to SE. It was CLOSED!! This is one of my favorites so I told them I didn't care if I had to come back alone, I was doing it before going home!!

Our FP time was ready for TT so we did that again, went back to a VERY CROWDED WS and hit Norway, and then it was time for our PS at the Rose & Crown. (I couldn't believe how much the crowd picked up after about 6 or so!!) I'll do a review later this week, but it was really good. We got a table outside as requested and watched Illuminations from there. We hung out a bit after to let the crowds go ahead of us and strolled out to the car. All in all a good day. (It didn't seem like we drank as much as we did!!)

High point: Mission:Space, dinner. Low point: missing the Land
Tomorrow: DD in the morning and then relaxing by the pool.

Day 4 – DD and pool at resort.

Cara and I headed out to DD about 10AM, stopped at Ghiardelli for latte's, YUM, and then shopped for a couple hours. It was great going at that time. The stores were EMPTY and we were able to really look around without tripping over people. We spent the most time in the Christmas store and the World of Disney. She didn't buy much, I mostly bought gifts for family and my unborn God-son. The only thing I really bought for myself were some stickers and a kit in the scrapbook store.

We stopped at a little (and unfortunately expensive) grocery store on 192 to stock back up on a few things we were running low on. We couldn't bring ourselves to go all the way back to Wal-mart, but that would have been a LOT more dollarless!!

We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing by the pool back at the resort. We decided to cook dinner in that night so we made some pasta and just relaxed. We hit the Boardwalk for a few hours later. We walked through a very crowded ESPN Zone (there was a World Series game on), got some ice cream, watched the Illuminations fireworks, and shopped a little. The Atlantic Dance Hall didn't have a cover, so we went there for a drink, but we were literally the only 4 people in the place so we didn't stay long. We went to JellyRolls and had a BLAST! It was well worth the $7 cover. It was CM night so the bartender said that that's pretty much their busiest night. The singers were great!

High points: relaxing, empty DD, JellyRolls. Low point: empty dance club
Tomorrow: MK for Spectro and Wishes

Day 5 – MK

We got to the TTC a little later than planned and I could tell right from there that this was going to be a crowded day at MK. This was the first day that we had to take a tram from the parking lot!! We hit it right and were able to get right on a monorail and then we were on our way!

The security line was long…the entrance line was long…it took a while to get in. Once inside, there were a bunch of characters in the courtyard, but we didn't want to wait in line. We headed down Main St. and right for Tomorrowland. We got FPs for Buzz and walked right only Space Mountain. Next we did the TTA and the COP (one of my favorites). We were ready for Buzz after that…Scott and Dave really killed Cara and I, but that was expected. We were getting hungry so we stopped for a bite to eat…Dave and I split a chicken sandwich and Scott and Cara split chicken fingers. This was pretty dollarless and enough to hold us for a while.

We headed for Fantasyland, but it was PACKED, so we walked right through. We pretty much walked onto HM, so that was cool. We went over and got FPs for Splash Mountain and then had some time to kill. We did Tom Sawyer's Island which I hadn't done since I was little. It was cute, but I don't need to go back anytime soon. Also, Aunt Polly's was closed which was too bad because a drink would have been nice. We went back to land and took a complete run around the park on the train. It was time for Splash so we walked past the 90 minute line with our FPs! We were lucky because as we were getting off the ride it shut down…lots of unhappy line dwellers!!!

I staked out a spot for the parade and the others waited for me in the shade as they weren't really into it. I really liked the parade a lot! We then headed into Adventureland and walked onto PoC and then waited about 20 minutes (our longest wait) for the Jungle Cruise. I wanted a Dole Whip so I grabbed one of those and an egg roll while the others did the Treehouse.

Scott and Cara had gotten more FP's for Splash so Dave and I sat outside in Frontierland next to the Country Bears and ate our snacks (split another turkey leg) and waited for them. When they got back we decided it was time to try Fantasyland again so we walked over there. It was still PACKED but we were able to get right onto Small World. Next we did Mickey's Philharmagic. This was SPECTACULAR. I actually got teary…it was unbelievable!!

All the other rides had really long lines (at least an hour) so we skipped everything else and went over to Toontown. We went through the houses and looked around, but the meet and greets had long lines so we decided to see if we could still get a spot for Spectro (about 45 minutes away). We had a spot where we could have seen from (bridge back into the hub), but then decided we didn't want to wait.

We did Buzz again, Dave got over 500,000 points so we beat us all bad!! We did Space Mountain again and then headed over to the path in the rose garden for the end of Spectro and to wait for Wishes. Wishes was AWESOME. It was SOOO much better than Fantasy was!! We hung back a bit to avoid the crowd, but it still took us an HOUR to get on the monorail and back to the TTC. We had planned on hitting PI that night, but we were all exhausted so we didn't!

High points: Philharmagic, Wishes, Dole Whip (yum!!). Low points: crowds
Tomorrow: MGM

Day 6 – MGM

Once again we were a little later than planned, but we could tell the park wasn't as crowded as MK the day before. We went right over the TOT and RNRC. The line at TOT was already 40 minutes and the park had only been open for 15 minutes!! We got FPs and then walked right onto RNRC. I LOVE this ride!! Even ride-chicken Dave tried it and loved it!

We still had a lot of time before our FPs so we did the Great Movie Ride (one of my favs) and the Muppets. (You'll notice we did a lot of criss-crossing in this park today…good thing it's not very big!!). We got FPs for RNRC on our way to TOT and the return time was only a half hour away. We waited about 10 minutes for TOT and then finally got on! It was AWESOME! I hadn't been on it since they made the ride sequence random and it was soooooooo good! After we were done with that we got some popcorn and waited for our FP time for RNRC so we could get another TOT one on the way. Did that and had our 2nd RNRC ride…it was better than the first!

We decided we were hungry at this point and went over to the ABC Commissary for lunch. We saw the Indiana Jones show after lunch…I'm not a big fan of this one, but the rest of the group had never seen it so I went. We timed it perfectly and were able to get into Millionaire right before it started. We had a great time there, I made the leader board a couple times and Cara was #1 when the game ended!! Oh well!!

We went over to the Backlot Tour and before I knew what happened, Scott had volunteered us to be the "ship crew" in the first scene!! YIKES! I was the mechanic who got to sit in the little room and get 50,000 gallons of water dumped on me! It was fun, but you don't get to see the replay of yourselves so that was disappointing. The tour is pretty boring now because you really only see office type building and construction fences. I'm looking forward to seeing it when the stunt show part is done.

It was parade time so once again I found a great place to sit and the others went on Star Tours. This parade was one of the best I've ever seen. I LOVED it!!

We had PS at Mama Melrose at 4:50 so we ran back over to TOT for one more ride before dinner. Dave sat this one out, but the rest of us thought it was even better than the first time!! We were a little late for our PS, but we were seated right away. I'll do a review, but we really liked the food and atmosphere here. We did the Fantasmic dinner package and after really looking at the menu compared with what we paid it was a good deal.

We decided to head right over to the gate after a leisurely dinner and I'm glad we did. Fantasmic was PACKED. We were there at 7:20 with the dinner package and were still seated in the last section. I LOVE this show. I've seen it before and it gets better every time.

We didn't see a lot in the park because we just ran out of time. I really wanted to get to One Man's Dream, time just didn't allow it!

High points: TOT, RNRC, Fantasmic. Low points: not enough time.
Weird point: being in the show
Tomorrow: last day, sleep in and spend a couple hours at Epcot

Day 7 – Epcot again

We slept in and then headed out for Epcot at about 11:30. We parked at the Boardwalk this time because we were only going for a couple of hours. I wouldn't let them do that the rest of the week.

We went straight back on Imagination and then to SE because it was closed the other day. I love this! Scott and I considered doing Mission again, but I had come down with a cold and wasn't sure my sinuses could take it, and his stomach was upset so we skipped it.

Back to WS to eat and drink some more!!! We pretty much followed the same pattern as the other day, but I tried to get different foods and we did more shopping this time. We had stopped in the UK as soon as we got there and signed up for the Beers of the World seminar. We took our time getting there and got in line about 2:45. We were the first ones in so we got a table for 4 in the shade which was nice. This was a really cool free seminar. The beers were all pretty good.

We got some fish and chips from the stand and ate them sitting on the curb across the street and then headed out. We all took naps, hit the pool, and ordered some pizza and wings from the Pizza Hut at our resort for dinner.

Then it was Pleasure Island time! We hit 8Traxx, Motion, Rock & Roll Beach Club and Mannequins. We had SOOOO much fun here. We stayed pretty much until close and then got a cab back to the resort.

Checked out the next morning at 10 and headed to breakfast, the airport, and home! =(

Final thoughts:
This was a really fun trip. I'm used to doing the parks commando so this was a different experience for me. I wish the crowds had been a little lighter so we could have seen a few more things, but that just means I'll have to go back!! The place we stayed was really nice and very convenient to everything. I loved being really close to the pool, too!!
Let me know if you have any other questions and I'll get the restaurant reviews done soon!