The Ayn Rand Man's Re-Discovers WDW and the Characters Trip Report

[Frank Bullitt]

Well, I'm back after a sweet week...I will be posting some sweet pics, reviews on places I ate and characters I met. I daresay that Disney World does have magic, if it can make an Ayn Rand Man believe in dreams, then it can make anyone...

More details to follow!

[mouseketeer mom]

Whoaaa! Bring it on!

[PrettyMinnie]

I'm excited to read about your trip!

[joanna71985]

Woohoo! Can't wait!

[dtootsie42]

Looking forward to reading your report!

[Frank Bullitt]

Okay, first the places I ate

I made reservations at:
Sci Fi Dine-In Sunday at 6:50pm Sunday 1/25
California Grille Monday 7:55pm 1/26
Akershus at 7:50pm 1/28 Wednesday

I made some last minute ressies while on vacation at:
1900 Park Fair 10:10am Saturday 1/31
Akershus 4:25pm 1/31

I did walk-ins at
Restaurant Marrakesh

and Dine-In Room Service at the Poly

Reviews and pics to come, also if any of you were working/visiting WDW last week, I was the guy in the gray suit or gray Houndstooth Sports jacket...
More Details to come!

[Frank Bullitt]

Sunday came very early, I do still do the road-warrior thing of sleeping in beds, but for whatever reason the airport hotel I was staying at had very uncomfortable beds. My flight was at 7am, I had a wake-up call at 5:45, but at 3am I was wide awake and couldn't sleep so I ended up watching POTC3 on my laptop (hey it got me in the mood
at 6am I took the airport shuttle to MCO (Kansas City international airport) and breezed through the checkpoint without issues.
My flight arrived at MCI at 10:50, waited in line about 15 minutes for the Magic Express check-in line and was on board and rolling within 30 minutes (I was in the sports jacket and grey fedora, in case any of you were there that Sunday morning)

I checked into the room and recieved the Mahalo greeting with the lei, which was a nice touch (better than the Orlando area biz hotels which are soooooo impersonal) the theming and details of the Grand Ceremonial House of the Poly are very very good. My room was in the Tahiti (sp?) building which was farther from the main building but close to the TTC.
After getting settled in I checked out the resort, and went to the Tambu Lounge to have some drinks. Normally I stick to boring cocktails like Martinis or Jack n'Cokes, but the CM Walter was very helpful in giving me pointers to some of the tropical drinks. I had a Passion Fruit Mojito which was very good, a Sunken Treasure, and a Mai Tai...they all tasted very good, although I wouldn't have `em here I figured since I was on vacation, why not?

After a quick trip to Captain Cooks for a Pork Sandwich to balance out all the booze in my system, I took a gamble and went to Blizzard Beach. I was the only one in the bus, and had a nice chat with the driver, who was from England. We talked about some parts of London that we both went to, and how expensive it is, and how magical it was to work at WDW. Blizzard beach was surprisingly good, the water was warm, I enjoyed the 'lazy creek' inner tube bit because I could wedge myself into the tube and just tune out. I did do Summit Plummet, and really liked it, except for the wedgie it gives ya
I closed the place down, then headed back to the room, at which point my check-in luggage 'magically' appeared in my room (I guess that's why they call it 'Magical Express') and I changed to go to Disney Hollywood Studios for my ADR at the Sci Fi Dine in.
There is alot of rumblings about the food and service of the Sci-Fi Dine-In being bad, and it is a worthy reputation. They did seat me fairly quickly, and I was a 'hitchhiker' with another couple at a car, the atmosphere was excellent. The cars, the starry night, and the clips with the cheesy 50's sci-fi/horror was great. My server must have been earning her ears, she was trying very hard, but was also very busy and flustered. I had the Baby-Back Ribs and baked beans, it was good but not great (I am a BBQ fan and close to Kansas City, the birthplace of barbeque so I am spoiled LOL). Overall I would rate it a 7, with the atmosphere a 9 and the food/service a 6.
I did ride the Hollywood Hotel Tower Of Terror several times, since it was an EMH night, and Rock n' Roller Coaster as well, but at 9am, my 30 year-old but feeling twice that body was telling me it was time to throw in the towel.

Tomorrow, the opening ceremony at Magic Kingdom, and later, asking what would John Galt Do if he was confronted by the Disney Princesses at Disney's Toontown Fair?

[mouseketeer mom]

Getting up at 3am makes for a very long day, but you made the most of it!

[Frank Bullitt]

Monday morning came at 7am thanks to a wake-up call from Stitch, I had a morning presentation to give so I got dressed and after a stop at the Kona Island for some ‘go juice’ I decided to ride the monorail. It is very cool to ride, as cool as I remembered it, especially the spiel they say about please stepping away from the doors. Just before the Magic Kingdom stop the Blackberry rang and my contact said that my presentation was being pushed back to Wednesday. I took this as a sign to go to the Magic Kingdom, whether I was dressed for it or not.
The opening ceremony is cute and has a catchy tune that gets stuck in your head, then Mickey & co. come by on the train to open the Magic Kingdom. They select a family every morning to help with this, they ride the train from Toontown to Main Street Station. For those of you who want to know how to be selected, here’s how it goes: around 7:30-8am (about an hour before the park opens) a CM will approach a family and ask if they want to help Mickey. This is done completely at random, some families were large and Disney-fied to the max, another was just a father and young son dressed in NFL apparel, its strictly at the discretion of the CM. They don’t pick solos I guess because when they announce it they say “Smith Family from Tennessee” rather than “Mr. Smith”, plus it makes more sense. One of the CM’s at the gate filled me in on this, and when he heard it was my first time in a long time said “Well, be sure to get plenty of autographs!” and directed me to a small kiosk on the outside that sold autograph books, so I bought one.
Anyways, after the opening ceremony I made my way down Main Street, just taking in the sights. I was walking more or less in the middle and notice a Yellow-shirt CM. A CM who wears a yellow and white shirt with a red and white embroidered patch are the ‘character handlers’, sort of Blackwater Security detail for Mickey. Anyways, this yellow shirt was walking more or less to my left, then to my right I saw Alice, skipping along the streetcar tracks. She made her way over to the Fantasyland area of the Hub for the rope drop. It was surreal to say the least, but she wasn’t phased by a 30-something solo guy in a gray suit and a conference lanyard staring at her like an apparition, she did say hello to me before skipping off to the Teacups ride. I didn’t ride any of the rides, I was mostly still trying to absorb it all in, but I felt better having gone there. I got a call from my contact, and he said the morning ‘breakout session’ at the conference was a bust, but suggested a counter-service place in France for lunch. The Boulangerie Patisserie (sp) is very nicely themed, and all the CM were from France so it was a plus. I had a Quiche Lorraine and a Kronnenbourg 1664, both very good, and spent an hour in the French pavilion before returning to the conference. At 4ish I got out of the conference and headed back to the Magic Kingdom. I rode the Haunted Mansion, which according to one of the Cm’s there it has been refurbished and it shows. It was much scarier than I remember, and the graveyard sequence is better. I did the POTC ride and enjoyed the addition of Jack Sparrow. Then around 6ish in the evening I called to confirm reservations at the California Grille that evening, and decided to check out Toontown Fair, not really geared towards adults, but kids would love it. At the Judge’s Tent, there are two lines, one goes to Princess Rooms and one goes to Pixie Hollow. Interestingly enough I have heard on the boards that the wait time for the princesses is usually around an hour or more, but in this case the lines for Pixie Hollow were around 90-75 minute waits (as posted) but the lines for the princess room was around 15-30 minutes. I had a wild idea about waiting in line to see the princesses, figuring that it would take longer than 15 minutes and that I could leave on if it went longer on the grounds of “Don’t want to miss my ADR”. But it was exactly 15 minutes, and I had a nice chat with the father of a family there. Being as it was my first time to interact with the characters, I sort of invented a bull-story about ‘collecting autographs for my nieces’ but it didn’t stick. I’d like to say that I made it to the end of the line, but at the last minute when I was in the princess room, I got cold feet and asked one of the Yellowshirts if she could pass my book around, and muttering something about being late for a ressie I slinked off to one side and buried my face in my Blackberry. The autographs were nice, but I felt pretty silly being 30 years old and prepared to give a Powerpoint presentation to over a 100 total strangers but couldn’t pluck up enough pluck to ask for an autograph. I hopped on the train back to the Main Street station and made it early to my ADR at the Cali Grille. I ended up dining solo, because my contact couldn’t make it, but Rafael from Venezuela who was the host steered me into a very nice spot next to the window and said to watch for the fireworks.
I had the Sonoma Goat Cheese Ravioli with a Grey Goose Martini, the Pork Tenderloin with Polenta and Balsamic Smothered Mushrooms with a Pinot Grigio, and finished off the dinner with some Calvados. As I was polishing off the Calvados, 8pm rolled around, and Wishes started. They actually dimmed the lights and piped in the music, it was very heartwarming and spoke of wishes that everyone makes, complete with music and fireworks. It even melted the heart of this Ayn Rand Man, as I found myself dabbing away a moist eyelid, so that is saying something. Back to the Poly by 10ish, I called my contact to see what the schedule would be like tomorrow, and resolved to discover the ‘magic’ of Disney…

[yourmagicalguide]

Wow...What a wonderful trip report! So descriptive and a joy to read. Thank you also for the review on Sci-Fi Dine-In Theatre. I was pondering making reservations there, but I kept reading mixed reviews and couldn't decide. Thanks for sharing

[mouseketeer mom]

Funny autograph story! Thanks for reporting!

[Frank Bullitt]

Tuesday morning, another 7:30 wake-up call with Stitch shouting in your ear: “GOOOOOD MORNING! NO SLEEPIE! WAKE UP!” followed by the Mouse apologizing for Stitches’ behavior.
The conference started at 9:00am but I decided to be fashionably late and watched the opening ceremony at the Magic Kingdom. To be honest I was more afraid that someone from the conference saw me at the parks than being late. The morning conference was interesting but full of geekese…so at the lunchtime break I popped over to the World Showcase and did a walk-up to Restaurant Marrakesh.
The restaurant is top notch-decor wise. I had a nice conversation with Azizza in French and she recommended that Lamb Couscous with an Algerian red wine. It was very good, halfway through the meal two CM’s came to the center stage and began playing authentic Moroccan music… They even played a version of “Happy Birthday” to some guests at an adjacent table, which was funny. Then the belly dancer came out, and I spent a good portion of the time trying to finish my lunch and keep my eyeballs properly screwed back into my head. She was very talented, and I will leave it at that. Overall I would give the restaurant a 8, with 8.5 for the food and 9 for the atmosphere and service, I enjoyed it and the CM’s there were very friendly and helpful.

I then walked back through France and saw the serveur amusant show in front of the Chefs des France restaurant, which is basically a acrobatic act meets Laurel and Hardy, but silent. There are two men, a short, wiry fellow in a waiter’s getup and a larger heavyset guy in a chef’s outfit, the chef has a whistle and communicates with it, whereas the waiter merely pantomimes. The chef has the server place four bottles of champagne on a table, then balances a chair on it, then instructs the waiter to stand on it. As the waiter does acrobatics on the chair, the chef keeps having the waiter stack chairs one on top of the other, until it is like 10 chairs up…it was very funny the comical expressions on both the chef and the waiter was priceless.
A Character observation, there is a Belle from beauty and the beast meet and greet in France close to the restaurant, and on one occasion Belle left her meet and greet area to watch the show, it was pretty cute, actually.

In the afternoon I went back to the conference, went out with some of the guys to the cocktail bar at the Contemporary Resort, my contact and I decided to call it a night and go over the presentation tomorrow, over some home-made Jack and Cokes. The coke wasn’t a problem, but the booze was. At Trader Jack’s on the upper level of the Grand Ceremonial House there is a section that sells booze…imagine my surprise when I found out a pint of Jack Daniels costs almost $16!! Even at a Le Meridien in Paris it wasn’t that much…]
Anyways, long story short, I edited the PowerPoint presentation to my liking, practiced it one last time then went to bed.

Coming Up: Room Service in the Poly, more Magic Kingdom Madness, and Fear & Loathing at Akershus…
(speaking of which, how do you upload photos into a thread?)

[mouseketeer mom]

The show in France sounds great..we've never seen it!

[Frank Bullitt]

The tweaking of the presentation went well into the night, and before I went to bed I had the idea of ordering room service for breakfast, so I took the little card and filled out the appropriate sections and left it on the doorknob. Honestly at the time I didn’t remember what I wrote down (a fair amount of that pint of bourbon had been consumed) so at 7am I was a bit shocked by a knocking on my door. I felt bad for the CM, but he is probably used to seeing a bedraggled & pie-eyed man in his pj’s answer the door, I imagine he’s seen worse.
I found out that I ordered the steak & eggs, over easy, with fried potatoes and muffins with orange juice. The juice was a welcome bit of rehydration after the previous night’s tippling, and the steak & eggs were great. I don’t know if they were worth the 20 odd dollars plus delivery and 20% gratuity, but it was a pleasant surprise. I called my contact and they said that the presentation would be in the afternoon, so rather than sit in my room and stew about it, I changed into ‘vacation clothes’ and checked out the Magic Kingdom again. I caught the tail end of the opening ceremony, and made a beeline to Tomorrowland for Space Mountain, it was good, although some of the effects were a bit dated. I rode the Haunted Mansion again, and Splash Mountain, and didn’t even get that wet.
I did catch the castle stage show Dream Along with Mickey, it was also very well-made and cute. I especially like that Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy all blinked their eyes and their mouths moved. Donald’s expressions were priceless. I checked in with the conference, and still had some time, so I hopped a monorail back to the hotel, changed into conference clothes and then hoofed it to the TTC for the Epcot monorail.
At Epcot I still have over an hour and a half before my presentation, so I checked out Futureworld. There was a lot of neat stuff, I’m glad that Innovations was refurbished, and managed to squeeze in a ride at Test Track. The bit at the end where you go 60 mph was very cool. By that time it was time to get back to the conference, so I zipped through the World Showcase and to the conference.
The presentation could have gone better, I also had an ADR for Akershus at 7:50pm, which would have been plenty of time for me to finish the hour long presentation and have an hour for a ‘breakout session’ and another half hour or so for Q&A. Unfortunately the presentation was pushed back to late afternoon instead of morning, and with the setup issues and delays I didn’t get finished with it until almost 7pm.
By that time, I was exhausted and more than a little peeved (I was hoping to have enough time to go back to the hotel, change and get into the ‘mood’ for character dining), so I walked straight from the conference to the Norwegian pavilion in my conference suit. Wednesday evening I would have been easy to spot, just look for the guy in the gray suit with a black cloud over his head When it came time to check in, I was still in ‘work mode’ and was actually giving serious consideration to cancelling dinner in favor of going to one of the bars at the Boardwalk and get blitzed with the other conference-ites. Fortunately I resisted the temptation and co confirmed my reservation. Inside, I was still in '&$^#@ Exec mode’ versus ‘Guest at WDW’ mode, so I tried to resist getting my picture taken with Belle, the Yellowshirt was insistent, so I did. Belle was very sweet and complimented me on being such a ‘well-dressed prince’, and very patient with a grumbling ‘suit’. The pic didn’t turn out that well, although that was my fault for grimacing at the camera instead of smiling...not the fault of the Photopass CM or Belle. Veronica was my server and she was very nice and professional, and the Yellowshirt did approach me and asked if I wanted to see the Princesses. I had the Traditional Kjottkake, which is a sort of beef and pork meatloaf, and loaded up on the peppered mackerel and smoked salmon. The princesses were Aurora, Jasmine, Ariel and Cinderella, all of which were very sweet and were able to make me smile and forget the troubles at the conference. Aurora was in love with my pink Hermes tie, saying it matched her dress, both Jasmine and Ariel spent extra time insisting that I go and ‘have some fun in the parks’, Cinderella asked if my conference was a ‘royal conference’. All signed the autograph book, it was very neat to see some of the variations and flourishes in how they sign (Ariel writing ‘hugs and fishes’ and so forth). So, after 4 princess characters and 2 Carlsburg beers I was feeling much better, I chatted up Tony the executive Chef for Akershus (he was from Long Island, NY) and left just as Illuminations was starting. Back at the hotel room, I resolved to see more characters and have more fun with them, versus just trying to do the ‘jerk executive working’.

Next, Thursday at Disney Hollywood Studios and a Character Encounter at the English Pavilion…

[yourmagicalguide]

All signed the autograph book, it was very neat to see some of the variations and flourishes in how they sign (Ariel writing ‘hugs and fishes’ and so forth).

How fun! I never got into the autograph books, so it's fun to hear that some of the characters sign more than just their names

Can't wait to read more! Thanks for sharing

[tinkerbell04]

Sounds like a great trip so far, thanks for sharing!

[mouseketeer mom]

Glad you followed thru on your reservation at Askerhus. Sounds like a good time!

[Frank Bullitt]

Thursday morning came, and I was in a great mood because I wasn’t doing the conference today! So off to the parks I went, I did Hollywood Studios, and rode the Tower of Terror and RocknRollercoaster, Star Tours, and Muppets 3D. I didn’t do the Toy Story Mania, because the stand-by line was no less than 40 minutes, and FastPass was over 4 hours away. I ate a bean burger and potato salad at one of the counter service places on Hollywood Blvd (don’t remember the name but it was close to the Toluca Lake Turkey Leg stand), then took the water taxi to the International Gateway, where I had a surprising but very good character encounter.
The guide books say that at the toy shop there is a meet and greet for Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, but at a Kodak photo spot opposite the fish and chips counter service place is a Meet and Greet for Alice in Wonderland and Mary Poppins, and not any line to speak of, naturally I pulled out my autograph book and trusty Mont Blanc pen and made a beeline for it.
Both characters were very nice and spent almost 5 minutes interacting with me. Mary was remarking that it might rain and that I shouldn’t be caught out in the rain, Alice was in the middle of talking to the flowers when I approached and became very friendly and in character; chatting away about where I was from, saying that it must have been a long ride down the rabbit hole and whatnot.
The only thing that really ruined the ‘magic’ was after I said goodbye to the characters as I left there was some redneck off to the side in the street who asked me if I got her number but anyways it was good. True to the lady’s prediction the clouds rolled around and I bought a souvenir umbrella before going back to Hollywood Studios to catch Fantasmic! Now, I have heard that they will cancel it due to ‘inclement weather’ and as the rain started to come down at 6:30 (showing at 7pm) I was really dreading them to say it was cancelled. Then one of the CM’s said that no umbrellas were allowed in the amphitheater, and being that I didn’t want to get soaked to the skin I went to a cart and bought an $8 poncho. Ironically enough, as soon as he said the amount, the rain came pouring down. That is a great sales pitch, who’s gonna balk at a price when he’s getting soaked?
Anyways, the poncho on, I found a seat, squeegee’d as much water off the bench as possible so my butt wouldn’t be soaked, and took a seat. Due to my schedule it would be the only time I could see it, and I heard it was quite good. A shout out to the CM’s who made it possible, they did do the show even though there was a bit of rain sprinkling down still. The show was magnificent, lights and lasers, dancing water, the fight sequences from Pocahontas, all was top notch. And I know that it must have been a pain to do it in the rain, so kudos to all the CM’s who worked that night. The show wrapped up around 8ish, and I stopped by a kiosk selling beer and had a couple waiting for the stampeding herd to thin out. Then a bus back to the Poly, and off to sleep!

Next: Friday, an Encounter with a Duck, the Heavenly Dogs of Casey’s and more Magical Madness

[mouseketeer mom]

Glad Fantasmic played on! A great day!

[NicksNitro]

Dude, excellent report thus far!!!! I love your style