Kevin & Heather - August 2006

Cast of Characters: Kevin & Heather Schiffer

Dates of trip: August 4, 5, 6, 2006

Our phone rang at 7:30, playing "It's a small world"….ugh!! We took our showers, made coffee in the room coffee pot, and sat on the porch eating our cheese Danish and chocolate twist. We decided that too was something we could only do as adults traveling without kids…ours would be trying to throw each other off the porch! We then lathered up with sunscreen for the walk over to MGM, thinking the boat would be really crowded….boy, were we wrong! We looked over at the dock, and there was nobody…nobody waiting, no boat, no CM, so we figured we would just have a nice walk, when we noticed a boat coming from the Beach club, so we waited about 2 minutes. There were (no kidding, and this was at 8:45 AM) four other people on the boat. At the Swan and Dolphin dock, the boat pretty much filled up, but it wasn't very crowded at all, nobody had to stand or sit outside.

We had a good time exploring MGM, but were very tired still. We rode the Great Movie Ride, which we liked but it wasn't what we expected…cool, but not scary or anything. We then played Who Wants to be a Millionaire…Play it! They even mentioned it was closing in two weeks. Neither of us made it onto the top 10 list, but we thought it was fun. We then walked over to One Man's Dream. This wasn't what either of us expected, either. My wife expected to be bored to death, but she was fascinated by the stories, pictures, models and artwork. We definitely want to bring the kids to see this. Nathan would love it, especially the models. We had lunch at the ABC Commissary, which was just OK, then decided to make our way back to the Boardwalk, taking the boat again. This time there were about 10 of us on the boat!

We explored the Boardwalk some, then decided to take a bit of a nap before getting ready for dinner at `Ohana. I picked `Ohana as Heather is a pretty picky eater (she even orders chicken in Italian restaurants!), and she had said she would like to eat there. We had our ADR at 7:00, but drove over to the MK parking lot at 4:30 (we were planning on 5, but it started looking like rain). We took the resort monorail to the Grand Floridian and walked around, looking at the hotel, and listening to the piano player in the lobby. We had been here before, but dressed in jeans and t-shirts and didn't feel like we fit in….this time we were a bit better dressed and didn't feel so out of place…oh, and Heather needed to use the Ladies room right outside 1900 Park Fare, and when she was walking out, Fairy Godmother was walking by and said "hello Princess" to her…she loved it!

We then rode over to the Contemporary on the monorail, where half of the main floor was under construction. We did find some things we really loved in the shops, including a lithograph we didn't find in any of the Art of Disney stores (I have a picture of it to see if it'll work in our house…we have a spot for it!). We then rode the monorail back over to the Poly, thinking we would walk around a bit before we checked in for dinner. We did, but were done about 6:30…early for dinner. We decided to check in early and just wait in the bar, so we checked in, got our pager, and just as we were sitting down at the bar, it went off….early.

Cool… Well, we were seated on the side, overlooking the marina area, with a clear view of Cinderella Castle (the table was for three…I sat on the side, and Heather sat to my right, with her back to the Castle…I asked her why there, and she said it was where she wanted to sit….so I told her to turn around, and she looked and immediatly moved over to the other side...first time I was right in a looong time!). They took our drink order (tea and coke), and started bringing the food. I was a bit afraid of the salad, but it was excellent, and the won-ton chips, dips, wings and shrimp would have actually been enough food for us for dinner! Then they brought out the potatos (which I loved), stir fried vegetables...then the meat! Dinner itself was very good. Then it was desert time. Now, Heather does not like bananas, at all…not the smell or the taste. She wasn't sure she would eat the desert at all, but we ate all of it. The bread pudding was out of this world. There was no banana in it…the banana was in the sauce (which I loved!), and the sauce is served on the side, so she had the bread pudding and ice cream. Very, very good. We decided on a Tiramisu Martini to cap off the evening, again, very, very good (I'm buying some Starbucks Coffee liquor and Stoli Vanil Vodka next weekend to try to duplicate…).

After dinner, we made our way to the Magic Kingdom using the Poly's launch, which was great fun. There were 6 of us on it…us and another couple with their kids. We walked over to the PeopleMover (or TTA…I still remember it as the PeopleMover), which was closed Friday night. We looked around more, but were getting really tired, so we got ready to watch Wishes.

We found a spot right in front of the Crystal Palace, there was nobody standing there (since the parade doesn't come near there). After the parade it started to get more crowded, so I decided to refill our water bottle now, rather than waiting. Big mistake…some guy squeezed in next to Heather (taking my place), who was trying to keep places for both of us. I didn't think it was a big deal until Wishes started…and I couldn't see the fireworks since they were behind a tree….so we left before the crowd got too big getting out. We took the boat over to the parking lot, and drove back to the Boardwalk. We got to bed about midnight…and set a wake up call for 6:30, so that we could make it to EPCOT for early EMH.

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