Dede - November 2002

I flew to disney via pittsburgh friday Nov 8. I had requested a preferred room in all star music for $59 night and had prepaid for it. Flight down was nice, and Tiffany town car was there waiting for me at the bottom of the escalator. They stopped for a grocery stop on the way to all stars.I knew it would be crowded, as it was "jersey week", soap opera star weekend, and veterans day the following monday. I had requested a king ground floor room and they informed me they gave me a ground floor with two doubles. Well it was in the calypso building, and when I got there, found out that they had given me a room about as far away in the preferred building as they could. They had told me it was poolside, and it ended up being the last room on a corridor facing a parking lot! I called the desk, and they told me they didnt have any others to give me cuz they were sold out, but to check the next morning. So I didnt unpack, I got on the bus and rode to Magic Kingdom. It was packed. I got on the train, and rode over to Splash mt. It was the ride I hadnt ridden last January when I was there, because of refurbishment. It had a long line, and it was so crowded, after I rode it, I got back on the train, and then went back to the motel.

Sat. Nov 9- today was early entry at MGM, and also the start of the soap opera festival. I am an avid All My Children fan, and was very excited. I arrived there at 8, got my scooter, and went down to the the millionaire fastpass to get a pass to see all my children game later that day. I spent that day going to different shows with all my children and seen two stars playing Millionaire. By evening, they were going to have a street show, starring the stars, but I decided I wanted to go to Magic Kingdom and see spectromagic because it was only on the two saturdays I was there. It was beautiful as always. They also had fireworks. Sunday I went back to MGM for the second half of the soap opera festival. It was basically the same schedule as the day before with different stars in different places. I got tired mid afternoon, so went back to the motel for a swim. I dont know how people do it who watch more than one soap. Not only was it crowded, but if you wanted a particular stars autograph, you had to stand in line about 90 min before they even came out, and then they only signed like 30 minutes so they only took so many people. The disney cast did hand out autographed photos tho so I did get a few. I had reservations for primetime cafe. I had a funny guy be "dad" I ordered the fried chicken and tried hiding my green beans under the bones.. but it didnt work, and he did the airplane game with me..lol . A girl at the next table got a call on her cell phone, and the waitress took the phone away and said she is at the table and she is not talking on the phone right now.. and hung up on her call. A few minutes later her phone rang again, and she took the phone away, stood her in the corner, and then made her sing I am a little teapot. That was hilarious

Monday November 11- today is veterans day. I went to Magic Kingdom. the crowds were very light today. I guess everyone left for home today. I had reservations for chef mickeys, for 9:45 but since the park closed earlier than that, I called and got one for 5:05 instead. I called Mears for reservations to go to Islands of adventure tomorrow. It is $12 round trip and they pick you right up at your motel. You have to set a time for your return, but can stay up til 2 am. Tuesday-Mears picked me up at 8:05 am and took me to Islands of adventure. They drop you off near the parking garage. and you have to walk thru citiwalk to get to either Universal or Islands of adventure. I used my AAA card and got in for about $45. I found out if you show your AAA card in most of their restaurants or gift shops they will give you 10% off. Universal wasnt crowded at all. I went on spiderman a couple times, plutos river barges, and got totally soaked, dudley dorights ripside falls, and a few other rides. If I had to do it again, I would definitely get a cheap poncho, because it was uncomfortable walking around in wet clothes all day.It also had very loud music blaring almost all day long. I also had a scooter that day. Universal charges $40 a day for it, disney 30, ($40 but they refund 10 when you return it) I had a meatball sub for lunch and had seen everything I wanted to by noon. My bus wasnt scheduled to pick me up til 4:30, so I called mears from the guest relations and they said they would pick me up at 2:30. and they did. I decided to do my laundry. The weather had been great all week, 80s and high 70s. I had a turkey dinner from the food court.

Wed Nov 13,

today was early entry day at Epcot, so I took advantage of it. First thing I did was go to test track. I went thru the new imagination, seen honey I shrunk the audience, went to the land, and got a fastpass for the boat ride, and went to food rocks, had bbq at the food court, and rode the boat, then went over to energy adventure, seen buzzy in the health pavillon. I got another fastpass earlier for testtrack and went on again. I had my scooter waiting for me when I got off. Then I went over to the world showcase, I seen a bit of the off kilter show in scotland, and then went next door to watch british invasion. They were great like usual. I planned to go to see the living statues in france, but when I got there, they were having a guy there that balanced on chairs. It was really funny. When I got down to Italy, they had moved the living statues there. That was really fun too. I seen a sign that chubby checker was going to be there at 5,. It was also the food and wine festival. So I went into the american adventure, and then went to see chubby checker. He put on a great show and it was hilarious to watch the old ladies twisting with him..LOL I had a fairly decent seat in the wheelchair section. After the show was over, I decided I wanted to leave as it was dark, so I went into spaceship earth , then picked up the bus for all stars. Tomorrow is supposed to be my "rest day"

Thurs Nov 14- My rest day.. ha ha

Well I slept a bit later this morning, then decided to check out downtown disney. I hadnt been there in years. It was pretty big. I went to studio M and had my picture taken with mickey. It is a private room. $16.95 for an 8 by 10 or a package of two sheets for 29.95. I got the package as it included a 5 x 7 and several wallets too. It turned out great and I loved it!! I went to disney quest which was way on the other side of downtown disney and had never seen such a place!! if you have teenagers it would be great! It is a 5 story building. I will try to explain it if you have never been there. It costs around $30 to get in, but thanks to the TheMouseForLess list, I had won a coupon for 20% off. I think there is also a discount if you have an annual pass. or disney club but they said the 20% off was the best discount. You go in and each floor has some really neat games. One floor has all vintage games, like pacman, qbert, donkey kong etc. I enjoyed that. There were also floors with virtual reality games, like where you could be part of a giant pinball machine. One floor had a ride based on pirates of the carribean.. One person was the driver (me) and another person had to be the gunner. It played a movie in front of you, and you had to steer the boat so the other person could fire cannons at them, and try to get their treasure. There was a ride where you put on this virtual reality helmet. and sat on a seat and it was like you were on alladins flying carpet and was steering it past villians, and into caves, etc. Another one had vehicles you could get in, one person was driver and the other one the gunner. It was based on buzz lightyear, and there were balls (asteroids) all over the floor and you had to drive your vehicle over the asteroids and then the other person in your car, could shoot them at targets on the other vehicles. If someone else hit you, it would make your vehicle spin around for about 10 seconds. There was another floor that had a jungle cruise ride, where you got into an inflatable boat with oars, and you steered it thru a movie of the jungle cruise. By that point I was getting tired, s I didnt do that.

They had a floor that had several computer terminals set up and you could practice making Mickey mouse or other characters drawing them, and also alot of little terminals where you could take pictures of your face and add moustaches, etc to it. They had these booths where you could go in and pick a song type, and add your own words and then hear it sung. You could buy the cd if you wanted to. All the games were just credits, you didnt have to pay anything extra to play them. I know I have gone into quite the detail about disneyquest, but I had no idea what it was, so I thought maybe someone else would be interested. I left about 5 or so and took the bus back to all stars.

Friday- the week is winding down, I went back to MGM today to see all the things I missed during the soap opera festival the weekend before. I went on the backstage tour, the great movie ride, sounds dangerous, and at night seen fantasmic. I had never seen that show, even as many times as I had been to MGM. I rode tower of terror too. they dropped us 5 times!! Saturday Nov 16. this is my last full day and I had reservations both for the keys to the kingdom tour and also chef mickeys. I got up and it was pouring and it rained all day long! Magic kingdom was still crowded. My tour was at 9:30. I had the scooter, because this old body just can't take all the walking anymore, plus I have a herniated disk in my back.I had taken this tour a few years ago, with my mom, and truthfully I was kind of disappointed this time. We had a nice person taking us around, but because of the rain, I think she kept taking us into covered areas just to talk. It was $49 with my annual pass discount for about 5 hours including lunch. She started in by taking us to main street, the group rode pirates, and the jungle cruise. she did the spiel without any of the usual wisecracks so it was kind of dull. Then we went to frontierland, and she took us to the back where they store the parade floats, and then we went over to harbour house where our lunch was waiting at noon. They gave us a keys to the kingdom pin for a gift and I had a chicken finger and fries lunch. then we went over to the haunted mansion, and rode that. and then they took us to a gift shop on main st.and we went back stage from there. I was kind of disappointed in the utilidor part of the tour, cuz all she showed us was the tubes they take the garbage out of the park with. The last time I had taken the tour years ago, they took us to the costuming dept and wig dept, and to look in the computer room, but she told me because of security and also it bothered the employees too much, they didnt do that part of the tour anymore. So I wasnt as impressed as I could have been. The snowglobe parade was cancelled because of the rain. I went over to chef mickeys again for those parmesan potatoes .. all I can say is mmmmmmm yummy!! I love that place! I was going to go back for the fireworks and spectromagic, but decided they probably wouldnt hold them because it was still rainy, and got on the bus to go back and woudlnt you know, seen the fireworks from the bus going back! Oh well!

Sunday, I had late check out, and tiffany picked me up at 1 pm for my trip back. Because of the storm front, the plane rides were very bumpy.. worse than space mt.