Disney World, Nov 8-15, 2009

[J9]

I'll post some thoughts and experiences from our trip this week! (I'll try to update every evening)

[J9]

Saturday, Nov 8

Today we arrived in Disney. We took a very early flight out of Philadelphia, and wound up getting to MCO around 9. We took the Magical Express to the Boardwalk, no problems there as usual. Got to the Boardwalk around 10:45ish, but the room wasn't ready. We signed up for the Dining Plan (our first time on it since the old Food n Fun plan was discontinued) and got our tickets (APs for parents, 8 day hoppers for me and my brother) Was very impressed that when we took our carryons to the bell services, they actually had a fridge to hold my dad's refrigerated medicine.

After dropping off our bags, we headed over to Epcot's World Showcase. I love staying at the BW because of the International Gateway Entrance. I use this whenever I can!

At Epcot, we were hungry, so we tried out the Lotus Blossom Cafe in China. I remember eating there when I was little, but not really since then. I had Crispy Orange Chicken and it was so so good.

From there we moved on to Future World. Spaceship Earth had absolutely no line so we went right on. My dad and I also wanted to try the Segways, so we did that as well (waiting in line for about 15 minutes). The CM who ran our Segway was much better than the other, since our guy let us go fast, and then to stop us would just jump out in front of us. There were definitely some "eep!" moments, but I didn't hurt anyone so I guess I did it right.

We did a few more rides in Future World. Got Fast Passes for Soarin, waited about 5 minutes in the FP line. The standby line was 90 minutes! yikes!

After we were done in FW, we headed back to Le Cellier for Dinner. Our waiter was Brendan who actually gave my mom and dad black napkins since they had black pants on so that they wouldn't get lint on them from the white cloth. I have NEVER heard of that before, and my mom was really impressed! LeCellier as always was very very good. This was also the 2nd to last day of Food and Wine, and the park was CROWDED! I love the atmosphere, but we were way too stuffed from dinner to eat at any of the booths, although the offerings at Cape Town and San Francisco looked AMAZING. (All in all, I have to say, though, that as a picky eater who has a nut allergy I did not like most of the food at the stands anyway)

After we walked around a bit, we walked back to the BW. We didn't even bother with Illuminations because we were so exhausted from the travel day.

Characters Spotted -
-Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald - Character Connection in FW
-Mulan and Mushu - China

[Diznee4Me]

My DW really wants to try the segways also. Sounds like you are off to a great start to your trip. Thanks for reporting.

[J9]

Sunday, November 9

Today is my 26th Birthday! My parents woke me up with a Happy Birthday pin they got at the front desk. I was actually really surprised because I didn't know they could get them at the hotels. (What they don't know is that the night before I got them Anniversary buttons. They'll be celebrating their 29th right after our trip is over)

We got a bit of a late start today, but headed over the Bakery to get breakfast. As usual, I opted for the chocolate croissant. (my absolute favorite thing at the Boardwalk!)

We moved on to the Magic Kingdom which is already decorated for Christmas (except without the large Christmas tree). The park seemed really crowded, but we did Philharmagic and Small World with no lines. The Magic Carpets were closed.

My dad and I wanted to go check out the fairies. I wanted to see them because I never had before, he wanted to see if they were hot. My mom and brother sat outside. (Apparently he hates parades, shows, fireworks, and face characters - and yet he loves Disney....I don't get it) The line for the Fairies said it was 90 minutes, but I begged to go anyway. The line reached just the inside of the room (didn't extend out into the store's queue area) and we actually only waited 1 hour. They let in 3 families at a time, shrunk us to pixie size, and we went on in. The fairies were so nice, and kept talking about it being my arrival day. Luckily I saw the movie before I left home, so I knew who the fairies were. But they had great interaction, and I think it was really worth it (although the line could have moved faster!)

After that we headed on over to Adventureland, rode Pirates with about a 10 minute wait, and saw Peter Pan. He's my favorite character and I never was able to catch him before last year. Now I make it a point to catch him whenever I'm in Disney. I don't know where Wendy was though!

We also did the PeopleMover, the Laugh Floor, and Buzz Lightyear before heading over to Wilderness Lodge on the Boat to eat at Whispering Canyon. I'm the only one in my family who hadn't eaten there before, but it was so good! I am recently in love with brisket and theirs was amazing. My parents also surprised me with a little vanilla cake, the whole restaurant sang happy birthday as well. I was really surprised by that!

We then headed back over to MK to catch the bus back to the Boardwalk. The Eagles game was on and my brother and dad wanted to see it in the worst way. We got back to the room just in time, but my mom and I were still awake, so we walked the BW and then headed over to the Beach Club to check out their store.

Characters Spotted -
-Tink, Rosetta, Iridessa at the County Fair
-Peter Pan at Pirates
-Scrooge McDuck to the right of the Mad Teacups

[J9]

Monday, November 10

Today I retired the birthday button. (It was so weird yesterday to have everyone say happy birthday and know my name - and mispronounce it!) We did give our parents their anniversary buttons though, and they loved them!!! My mom was so excited!

We headed over to Animal Kingdom fairly early and grabbed Fast Passes for the Safari. We then did Tough to Be a Bug and caught the Finding Nemo show. I LOVE this show, and the rest of my family had never seen it before. My dad said it could have easily been on Broadway. (Which is true - the composor/lyricist who wrote the music also wrote the Tony award winning Avenue Q!)

We did our safari - and got stuck for about 10 minutes as a baby giraffe didn't want to leave the road. The animals were really out in full force. I had never seen so many and up so close. It was crazy.

We then got FPs for Everest, saw the Lion King show, and tried to get in line for Dinosaur, but the line was about 90 minutes. I don't like that ride (honestly I've never seen most of it since I'm always cowering in my seat with my eyes closed) so we skipped it. Did Everest, and then headed over to watch the parade.

Sadly, we misread the times guide and were about 45 minutes early for the parade. We wouldn't be able to see it and still make our dinner at Yak and Yeti, so we begrudgingly headed over there. BUT - they seated us in a corner window on the 2nd floor with a perfect birds eye view of the parade! Yay!

After dinner (which was AMAZING - try the ginger rice!), we headed back to the Boardwalk to freshen up.

We headed back on over to Epcot and walked around the countries some more. I had never really gone deep into Morocco before and it is so beautiful! We also got family photo pass photos in Italy, China, and Germany. We parked ourselves in Norway for Illuminations which was beautiful as always, and then swam against the current to make our way back to International Gateway to go back to the hotel to call it a night.

Characters spotted -

-Baloo and King Louie (Discovery Island)
-Vine Lady (I forget)
-Governor Radcliffe (front entrance)
-Safari Mickey, Minnie, Donald, and Goofy (front entrance)

[J9]

Tuesday, November 11

We got a late start today since we knew we were doing MVMCP and would need to be able to stay awake late!

First we headed off to Downtown Disney to check some stores out. I was very disappointed to see that the Scrapbook store was closed! It was always so busy! (They will be opening a Design your own tshirt store there instead) At World of Disney, we bought Minnie headbands for me and my mom to wear to the party, and my dad bought a Mickey santa hat. We're going to try to get a Christmas Card photo!

We ate at the Earl of Sandwich which is one of my favorite places to eat in all of WDW. I only ever got the Caribbean Jerk sandwich before, but my brother and I decided to get that and the original and split the halves. I think The Original is my new favorite!! Mmmm!

After lunch, we walked around DTD some more, then took the bus to the Grand Floridian to check out the Gingerbread house. The skeleton is up and they were working on it, but there's no Gingerbread on there yet. The grand opening is November 17th (and we're leaving on the 15th. We might ride over to see how far along it is by then because my mom really wants to see it in person after seeing it on the Food Network all these years).

After the GF, we took the monorail to the TTC and transferred to Epcot. We had dinner reservations for 5:30 at The Wave in the contemporary, but wanted to get to MK for the party earlier than we would if we ate there, so we switched to a 4:50 dinner at Chefs de France. We also booked the World Showcase Segway Tour for Friday! We did some more Future World stuff like Imagination and walked back towards International Gateway to catch the boat back to the BW.

We freshened up, got our red Phillies gear on (we're totally trying to get a Christmas picture) and headed back to WS for dinner. Again, I had eaten in France waaay back in 1992 when I was 10, but I didn't really remember it. I got pasta and it was amazing. We decided that this is one of our new favorite restaurants. Our waiter, Cyril from Paris, was amazing, but refilled our drinks way too much so we were in the bathroom all night! LOL!

Anyway, we next headed over to MK on the monorail and felt like fish swimming upstream trying to get past the dump of people leaving the park. One thing we were bummed about was we were waiting in front of the train station for the photo pass photographer to take our picture, waited 20 minutes in the line, and he told us and all the people behind us that he was shutting down his station when we were next in line!!! Ugh! Not fair!!!

We jumped on most of the rides with no wait at all and stopped in Toontown to see the Princesses. We had no wait whatsoever, while the Fairies STILL had the hour wait from earlier in the week! Yikes!

The CMs kept throwing cookies and apple slices at us. The hot chocolate was delicious (much better than at the Boardwalk), but the apple juice was sickening sweet. I couldn't stomach it. I also only had one cookie because I was still stuffed from dinner, but I felt like I had to eat at least one.

We saw the fireworks, moved up to the Castle Forecourt for the show, and then had some prime real estate in the Hub for the second parade. The parade was sooooo cute! I loved it! There were 2 floats that had a Gingerbread scent to them, and even though I was in a food coma, I could have eaten some Gingerbread right then and there! We had the castle in the background of all our parade pictures too so they looked really nice!

By the time all that was done it was 11:30, so we shopped a bit on Main Street (didn't buy anything though. The MVMCP hoodie I liked was $78 and I couldn't justify it) and then headed back to the BW to crash for the night.

Characters spotted -

Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy (Character Connection)
Belle, blue dress, and Beast (France)
Marie (France)
Santa (MK Flagpole)
Xmas Piglet and Tigger (next to City Hall)
Belle, xmas dress, and Beast (Skyway Station)
Snow White and Prince (Skyway Station)
Aurora and Prince (County Fair)
Cinderella and Prince (County Fair)
Xmas Minnie (Her house)
Scrooge McDuck (to the right of the Teacups)
Cinderella's Family (Ariel's grotto)

[yjgirl32]

Great reports. Our next trip is in Sept, but I so want to see Disney around Christmas time. I have read that it is so nice and Christmas is one of my favorite holidays. Thanks for sharing.

[DizNee143]

sounds like a great trip so far!!
and yay!! its christmas in disney already!! cant get any better than that..cant wait to hear more about your trip!! hope you guys are still having a blast there!! :mickey:

[pdrlkr]

Thanks for the Report! :smickey:

[J9]

Wednesday, November 12

We got another late start today. We got to MGM (excuse me, Hollywood Studios....) around 12 pm. All of the Super Soap stage stuff was up, so our family photo in front of the hat is of course blocked by a big Super Soap banner. Lovely. First thing we did after the photo was go grab Fast Passes to Toy Story Mania. Even at 12, our fast passes were for 6:30 - yikes!

We next did the Studio Backlot Tour (walked right on), Beauty and the Beast, Star Tours, and the Great Movie Ride. We ate lunch at the Commissary. This was surprisingly pleasant since we haven't eaten there since they had the asian menu (we HATED it back then. The new menu is much much MUCH better!!!) At this point it was about 3 and it began to rain. We were over by Muppet Vision, so we hopped in there hoping the storm would blow over by the time we got out. - It did!

It was time for the Block Party Bash (which we never saw), but we realized we had ADRs at 7:00 over at Boma, so waiting to use our Toy Story FPs might not be a good idea. We figured the line would be shortest during the parade, so we did Standby for Toy Story. The wait time was 85 minutes, but we only waited about an hour. I LOVED this ride. I didn't think I would, but it was really really fun - and LONG! I actually beat my brother, the King of Video Games, which was an added bonus! The only thing I was disappointed with was Mr. Potato Head. Yes, the AA was AMAZING and he was so lifelike. But all the time we were in the line, he only sang once and I never saw him pull his ear out of his head like he did in all the promotional videos I saw. Oh well, maybe next time.

By the time we got out of Toy Story, the sky was starting to get really really black. I begged my parents to let me go see Prince Caspian (because I love the movie and I figured he would be hot), and there was no disappointment. We walked right in, and he really looked like Ben Barnes! Accent and all! I just wish he didn't pose me in such a weird pose because I think I look like a cow. My mom said I don't, but I'm weird with myself when it comes to photos. LOL. Hopefully the PhotoPass picture will come out better than the one on my camera. Even still, meow.

At this point, it was really starting to pour, so we opted to go over to Animal King Lodge an hour early to get out of the rain. We tried to give our Toy Story Fast Passes to about 4 families (all in Phillies gear, because we figured we'd be good neighbors), but none of them wanted them! They had all either gone on the ride already (so go again!!) or had 6:00 ADRs. Finally, I gave up and just gave them to a CM in my old store (Mickey's of Hollywood) and told her to give them to the next family of 4 who wanted them. She promised she would, so hopefully she followed through.

We got over to DAK Lodge and Boma actually seated us 40 minutes early. The normal embarrassment of having the chef come out and give me a tour of the buffet because of my peanut allergy was annoying as usual, but the chef was really nice about it and made suggestions about what his favorite items were. (My favorites were the coconut rice and the rice with the gold raisins in it). I also learned that servers with one dot by their eyes were single and two dots were taken. (Which was a shame because our waiter from South Africa was soo cute with a hot accent, but he had 2 dots.)

Once we were done it was about 8:00 and time to get back to the Boardwalk. We hopped on a bus that said Magic Kingdom thinking that it would take us back to MK so we could transfer to the Boardwalk Bus. About halfway to MK, the bus driver announced that MK closed at 8 (which we knew) and that he could not drop off guests there after 8 so he was taking us to the TTC instead (which we did not know) and that we would have to make our connections there. So our options were only DTD (but we'd have to walk to the Poly to get a DTD bus) or we could go to Epcot and walk through to International Gateway. We opted for Epcot. Even though we were tired, we made it through pretty quickly just as a boat was getting to the dock. We ran for it, but were told that the boats had to remain docked during Illuminations and that the boats would resume service in 40 minutes. So...we walked to the Boardwalk (normally not a problem, but we were full and tired). That was the only bad luck we've had with transportation so far. If only the bus at DAK Lodge said TTC instead of MK we would not have hopped on and would have done the connection at DTD as well....oh well, at least now we know!!!

Characters Spotted -

-Bolt and his black cat friend (Animation)
-JoJo and Goliath (next to Playhouse)
-Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl (Animation)
-Sorcerer Mickey (Animation)
-Minnie and Daisy (Sorcerer Hat)
-Prince Caspian (Narnia)
-Woody and Buzz (Pixar Studios)
-Mike and Sully (Streets of America)
-Lightning McQueen and Mater (old Al's Toy Barn)

[mouseketeer mom]

I really, really enjoyed reading your reports this morning! Thank you!

[whistlewhileyouwork]

Your updates are great!!! I feel like im there with you!!! Enjoy your last few days!!:mickey:

[faline]

Big sigh! I love Disney at Christmas time! What a wonderful time you and your family are having!

[J9]

Thursday, November 13

Another late day today. (I swear, we are usually the first ones in the parks!!!) We wanted to get an early start, but we had phone calls, and burnt out light bulbs, etc etc, that just hindered our start time.

We got over to Downtown Disney around 12. We really had no reason to go there except that I wanted a poster for my new office (I start work on Monday!) It's a really cool poster with a faded Cinderella Castle and Walt Disney on the cleared out Florida swampland with the caption "Vision: It's kind of fun to do the impossible." We ate at Wolfgang Puck Express (it was ok - not as great to me as my family apparently thought it was)

From there, my dad decided that he wanted to see Saratoga. We bought into the DVC awhile ago, but I signed all the paperwork when I was here with my friends as a CM. The rest of my family had never set foot at our home resort and wanted to see it. We took the boat over and made our way to the DVC preview center. It turned out that apparently there was no longer a model of Saratoga available, but would we like to see the models for Bay Lake and Animal Kingdom? Yes, please!!! Both of the models were so so nice, but I absolutely fell in love with Bay Lake. My parents are thinking about buying into it so that we might actually be able to stay there (I doubt that we would get any spots there if its not our home resort), but we have 300 points at Saratoga which is more than we need. We have trouble using the 300 we already have!!! (Of course, I have been to WDW several times since buying into DVC but my dad wouldn't let me "waste" our points.) I'm actually debating on buying 160 points myself since I'll actually have a job starting monday, but who knows. Chris said Bay Lake is already 30% sold out after a month, so I think we'll have to make a decision quickly!

After we took the tour of the model, we met our DVC rep Chris. I had actually met him before in person when I signed the paperwork, but my parents only ever talked to him on the phone. I think it was nice for them to put a face to the name. Once we were done at Saratoga (maybe after about an hour), the DVC Secret Van drove us back to MGM.

Our first order of business was again to try and grab fast passes for Midway Mania. Again, we were pretty late but this time the fast passes were actually all used up. Instead we saw The Little Mermaid and found a place to see Block Party Bash.

Now - I had never seen Block Party Bash before, but I had heard good things about it. I am not going to mince words - I HATED it. First of all, there are only like 3 floats. Second, I don't understand why WDW doesn't seem to realize that there are more Pixar movies than just Toy Story. (The brief appearance by Mr. Incredible and the Bug's Life bugs in the parade didn't make up for the complete domination by Toy Story.) Third, the parade features absolutely NO disney music! NONE! And finally, the whole show stop idea is soooo stupid if not done properly. The Disneyland parade does it right in that you still have a legitimately enjoyable parade if you miss the show stop positions. This is not the case with Block Party Bash. If you miss the show stop, you're basically waiting 20 minutes for the parade to get to you and then the three floats whiz by you in about 2 minutes. In case you can't tell, we were in between show stops. The little girl in front of me kept asking her mom why the parade didn't stop for them. I get that Stars and Motorcars was getting old, but at least you could see all the different characters!!! That's just my opinion, but I can honestly say I don't think I'll be seeing this parade again.

After the Block Party, we rode Rock n Roller Coaster. I asked to sit in the front row because I never had before. My dad and brother had a conniption over that, but I think they secretly enjoyed it. It was way scarier (and more fun) with nothing in front of me!

At this point we realized that MGM did not have late Extra Magic Hours tonight. When I originally looked at the calendar back in May, they did, but I never looked since then. All of our EMRs were off! As a result, our ADRs at Mama Melrose's were at a bad time for us to catch Fantasmic, so instead we opted to go back to Epcot and eat dinner in China, but come back to MGM tomorrow to see Fantasmic. Before heading over to Epcot, we decided to try Toy Story again. The line said 60 minutes, but we only waited about 40. Score! I again beat my brother the video-game king, and I actually had one of the high scores for the day! (223,000!) Yeah, I have no idea how that happened. It had to be a fluke. I stink at games!

At about 7 we headed over to Epcot, rode the Gran Fiesta in Mexico and Maelstrom in Norway. I also noticed that the Christmas tree is now up and lit in American Adventure and the huge Christmas tree in between Future World and World Showcase is up as well. (The big tree isn't finished being decorated though and was not lit.) Either way, there are many many more Holiday decorations up this evening than there were when we were in Epcot earlier in the week!

After the two rides, we headed over to Nine Dragons for dinner. (Try the Honey Sesame chicken!!! Mmmmm!) Dinner was over about 15 minutes before the end of Illuminations. I would have been happy to stay and watch the end of it, but we decided to just walk over to the boat dock and be first in line since we need to wake up early to get to Epcot for tomorrow's Segway World Showcase tour.


Characters Spotted -

-Woody and Buzz (Pixar Studios)

[J9]

I'm glad you guys are enjoying the reports. I had never written a trip report before, but this was fun!!!

Also, I just realized that the subject line has 2009 as the year. Oops! I meant 2008 obviously!!!

[DizNee143]

im really loving reading these reports..another nice couple or days!! thanx again for sharing your trip with us!! :mickey:

[tinkerbell04]

I am really enjoying reading your day by day reports! Thanks for sharing.:mickey:

[faline]

Another fun day for you and your family!

[dtootsie42]

I really love reading your report. Thanks so very much for sharing!

[MississippiDisneyFreak]

Sounds like a really good trip. Thanks for the reports

[Mousefever]

Your trip reports are great! I'll be waiting impatiently for the next day.

Amy

:dory:

[laward32]

You're doing great with your trip reports. Can't wait to read more.:mickey:

[J9]

Friday, November 14, 2008

Finally! An early morning! We woke up bright and early this morning to walk over to Epcot for our Segway tour. Since we’re staying at the BWV, we had to use the International Gateway and got to walk around parts of World Showcase with no one else in sight. I got some great shots of UK and Canada without any people in them. The Segway tour was pretty amazing. I picked it up really fast (as did my dad and brother) and in no time we were completing the obstacle courses with flying colors. Motoring around World Showcase before it opened was pretty neat. I had never really ventured into the back parts of China and Morocco before. I loved Morocco! It’s so authentic!! We got some great photos of us on the Segways around Italy and then headed back to Innoventions to become regular guests once again. (The funniest thing was that after the park opened some kid pointed at us on our Segways and shouted “Look! Millionaires!” HA!!) I would definitely do this tour again, and really would like to try the Fort Wilderness Segway tour next time I get down here.

While we were on the Segways, my mom took our park tickets and got 9:30 FPs for both Soarin and Test Track. Score! We did both of those rides. By that time it was the lunching hour, so we decided to try to counter service in Mexico for the first time ever. We liked it, but there are certainly better counter services in Epcot, so we probably won’t be doing that one again. We did Maelstrom next, and they stopped the ride in the troll room to yell at me over the loudspeaker because I forgot to turn off my flash. Oops! I didn’t mean it, I swear! It was an accident!!!

Once we were done Maelstrom, we decided there really wasn’t much else for us to do in Epcot, so we walked over to Italy and took the boat back to Future World. My mom surprised us with a second set of Soarin FPs (she really must have gotten around quickly this morning to get all those FPs!) so we did that one more time, then hopped the monorail to the Magic Kingdom to tie up some loose ends there.

In Magic Kingdom, we spotted a few choice characters right away and made our way over to Fantasyland to do Philharmagic one more time. (It was 88 degrees today and we were in serious need of a cool sit down ride. Unfortunately Hall of Presidents is in refurb!) After that, we caught the end of the parade in Frontierland (I absolutely love the “Disney Dreams Come True” music!) and made our way over to Adventureland and the Jungle Cruise. We walked right on. Our skipper, for the first time I can remember, was actually hilarious. After every single joke he would say “Skipper Adam” because he wanted us to remember his name and insisted that saying “Skipper Adam” after a bad joke made it somewhat tolerable. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. (My brother and dad were also pretty much rolling on the floor of the boat). Sadly, though, our cruise came to an end and we had to leave Skipper Adam to do Pirates again. Another walk-on ride. Score! Finally, we took the Railroad from Frontierland back through Toontown to Main Street where we exited the park to go back for a mid-day breather at the Boardwalk. (I was able to see the elusive “teardrop” from the train. I can’t believe I never noticed that area before!!! I will definitely check that out in the future, although there weren’t any characters there at the moment.)

After a quick respite, we headed over the MGM to see Fantasmic. Even though we got there fairly late in the game, we still found seats in the first row, right in the center of the theatre! We win! After the show, we did a mad dash for the boats and luckily made the boat right before it started to pour (it was literally bone dry before the downpour started.) We ate a late dinner at Spoodles and then came back to the room. I’m literally falling asleep as I write this, and I’m going to go to bed now because I am planning on waking up early tomorrow to get to at least some of Super Soap Weekend. I don’t watch soaps, but I remember working SSW 4 years ago, and the spectacle of it is ridiculous!

I don't want to go home tomorrow!!! (But I do miss my dog terribly!!!)


Characters spotted –

-Mary Poppins – outside Norway
-Dopey - Germany
-Donald, Minnie, and Goofy – Character Connection
-Peter Pan and Wendy – outside Pirates
-Pinocchio and Daisy – around the flag pole
-Snow White – next to the Exposition Hall

[J9]

Saturday, November 15, 2008

This was our last morning in Disney (so sad…) and we cleaned out our room and then called bell services to hold our bags for the day. Once that was squared away, we headed out to MGM to see the spectacle of Super Soap Weekend.

Me and Super Soap Weekend go way way back. (Ok, only 4 years, but it seems like forever ago.) When I was a CP in 2004, I worked in MGM and my store sold all the Super Soap Stuff. To get into the stock room, you need to walk past the VIP Suite in Guest Relations. In 04, I accidentally literally ran into Susan Lucci’s assistant because I wasn’t watching where I was going. I apologized and then noticed there was a room full of people, including Ms. Lucci was staring at me like 2 heads. I apologized, and then wished Ms. Lucci a magical day – she gave me a dirty look and then I decided I didn’t like her all that much. So anyway, that’s my background with Super Soap.

I also think the ladies are crazy. I have never seen anything so ridiculous, but I guess I’m kind of the same way with Disney itself, so I suppose I really shouldn’t judge. So anyway, Super Soap. First thing we did when we got into the park was hop on over to Midway Mania and pick up a Fast Pass. 10:20….score!!! We wandered around a bit, my mom and I bought Super Soap shirts just to say we were there while my dad surprisingly went around trying to get photos of whatever soap stars he could…except that none of us knew who they were. We spotted Sherri Shepherd from the View over by the Backlot Tour and I was able to grab a really awesome photo of her without anyone blocking the way. (She isn’t as heavy as she looks on tv!!!!) My brother kept yelling at her that the world was flat, and when it seemed like she heard him, that was our cue to leave.

We also saw one of the motorcades (I think an All My Children one?) and got caught on NY Street with a bunch of crazy women screaming for a star. Turned out his name was Cameron (who plays someone named Ryan…or maybe it was Ryan who plays Cameron?) Whoever he was, I took a photo of him. I also took a photo of another guy who kinda looked like Colin Farrel, but I have no idea who he was. Some guy from some soap, I guess.

We ate lunch at the Backlot and then went to use our Midway fast passes. Lucky us got sent up the ramp to the handicapped line (for absolutely no reason) and they let us stay on the ride for 4 cycles…..FOUR CYCLES!!! I didn’t get a high score this time for the daily leader board, but I did discover a secret to mega points in the Bo_Peep Room. I’ll cue you all in – if you hit all the balloons on the clouds, the screen will fill up with Rainbow Balloons worth 2000 points each! Woooo!

After that my dad walked up to the Fantasmic Ampitheatre to see the relocated-for-Super_Soap High School Musical 3 show. It was cute and the music was catchy, but I haven’t seen the movie yet, so it didn’t mean much to me. Next we went over to Sweet Spells to use our 6 remaining DDP snacks on some fudge. The CM there said she would only charge us 4 snacks. Score again!!!

At this point, we went back to the Boardwalk to catch the Magical Express. Here’s where things get a little surreal. I bumped into Susan Lucci herself in the hallway….literally. I apologized and moved to the side, and then said…”You’re Susan Lucci!” She didn’t actually give me a dirty look this time. I probably should have asked for a photo with her, but I was afraid her Guest Relations escort would yell at me. I guess she was staying at the Boardwalk too. How ironic! It’s so funny that my first Super Soap entailed a run in with Susan Lucci and so did my last Super Soap (because there won’t ever be any more – this year is the last Super Soap Weekend ever.)

And then we got on the Magical Express on our way to Orlando’s airport. Adios, Disney World. I hope to be back to see you again sometime soon!

Characters spotted –

-Minnie, Pluto, Goofy (Hollywood Blvd as part of Super Soap motorcade)
-JoJo and Goliath (Animation Courtyard)
-5 Power Rangers (Streets of America)

[J9]

Well, folks, that's the end of my trip report!

I hope you guys all enjoyed it as much as I did!

If you have any questions about anything, let me know! :-D

[January-2007]

Thanks for the awesome trip reports, I really enjoyed them all!!! :mickey:

[J9]

I forgot to mention on my Saturday trip report that I'm pretty sure I met the Disney tattoo guy in Epcot during Food and Wine. The man even had a tattoo on the back of his head!!! (And I have an unhealthy fear of tattoos, but I was able to hold myself together pretty well)

LOL!

[laward32]

Thanks for sharing you wonderful week of Disney with us. Sounded like you had a wonderful time. I am a little jealous since it will be two years by the time I get back to WDW since my last trip.:mickey:

[faline]

Very nice end to your trip! Thanks for your reports!

[disneydrmr]

Sounds like a great trip! I was at the Christmas party Tuesday night also! Thanks for sharing your report!

[Mackflava99]

excellent report- thanks!!

h and how did your mom get 2 different ride fast passes at the same time??

[Mousefever]

Your trip reports were wonderful! Thank you for sharing with us!

Amy

[J9]

and how did your mom get 2 different ride fast passes at the same time??

Well the Segway tour was before the park opened and my mom didn't want to hang in the room all alone so she came with us and hung out in guest relations while we were segwaying. Once the park opened, she was first to get in line at Soarin, so another FP was available to her almost immediately. She went over to Test Track for another, and had a very early time for that too. Since she was bored, she got another one at Soarin as well. It pays to be fast!!! :-D