Friday December 10, 2004

You realize that if we played by the rules, right now we'd be in gym? - Ferris Beuller

Well, I don't have gym any more (thank the stars!), but if I weren't at WDW right now I'd be at work, which is almost as bad.

I woke up on Friday already tired; after a very long day yesterday, with no mid-day break, and having had a lot of trouble getting to sleep last night, I was seriously behind in my rest. But, what the heck, it's a vacation.

Before getting out and about this morning I tried once again to get my laptop to connect to the internet, and once again I racked up several dollars in resort phone fees without making a connection. Phooey, I'll just leave it till I get home. I did download all my digital pics from yesterday, and put fresh batteries into my camera. I also finished writing trip notes from yesterday in my notebook; when I'd get a chance to type them out, I didn't know, but I knew that I at least needed to keep them up-to-date each day.

I got on a bus to MGM at 8:45, and walked up to Rock and Roller Coaster at 9:15. I'll say this for Pop Century: it's location makes bus rides to MGM, Epcot, or Downtown Disney some of the shortest of the Disney resorts.

This morning's meet was called Stop, Drop and Roll, a repeat of one of last year's most successful Tagrel.com MouseFest events. A pretty good group showed up and we began by getting FastPasses for RnRc, before AliciaG handed out the door prizes. Last year we had a trivia game, but this year it was just a raffle; it still worked.

After the door prizes were handed out, the group moved to Tower of Terror for the Drop portion of the meet. A few folks who don't like TOT waited outside and held our stuff. We had almost enough people to fill one whole side of a car, and the picture was terrific. It was so terrific, in fact, that Tagrel and SusanL bought enough 5x7s for everybody who rode. Thanks guys!

After milling about in the TOT gift shop for a while, we returned to RnRc for the Roll portion of the meet. Again, there were several folks who waited outside for the group who rode, but this time the group didn't have to bully me on; I like RnRc a lot more than TOT.

All week we had been getting to know Stinkerbelle's boyfriend Ken. Ken was a relative newbie to WDW, and had caught not only the park bug, but the dreaded pin trading bug as well; thus, everywhere we went, Ken compared his lanyards (I think he was wearing 3 or 4) to those worn by others, particularly Cast Members. Well, today was no exception, and Ken must have made some good trades, because after we rode RnRc, he took almost ten minutes to get out of the gift shop thanks to some CMs with good pins on their lanyards. We showed patience; after all, we've all been bitten by a collecting bug of one kind or another in our many trips to WDW.

Starring Rolls has always been a favorite of mine; nestled in a little courtyard on Sunset Blvd, near the Brown Derby, this cozy little place was once the only available breakfast venue in MGM. It is still one of the best bakeries on WDW property, and although in recent years it has been discovered by more and more people and is more and more crowded, it remains one of the lesser-known jewels in the Disney crown.

I got an excellent slice of cheesecake and an overpriced bottle of apple juice, and sat with BetsyAnn, and Cshore to gab while we ate. I noticed while getting my breakfast, however, that Starring Rolls' counters have been re-organized; instead of the previous linear layout, there is now a massively confusing W-shape that was probably made to accommodate the new coffee bar. The result was utter chaos inside the bakery as we jostled around to get our food, then find an open register to pay for it.

While we ate, the skies decided to take this opportunity to spritz us, and my utility belt, hanging on the back of my chair just outside the cover of my table's umbrella, got soaked, while the rest of me stayed relatively dry. The rain only lasted 10-15 minutes, and by the time we were all finished eating and washing up, it was gone. I never even had to unstrap my Mickey Poncho.

While waiting for the group to finish, however, I got a call from MikeS, who had big news: he had heard from a Cast Member friend that Stitch Escapes was slated to be shut down in February for a more thorough revamp. The cause, of course, was too many Guest complaints, and while I didn't hate the attraction as much as I had expected to hate it, I was certainly happy about the second revamp, because it was obvious to me that it was not a kid-friendly attraction by any stretch of the imagination. Total darkness, strange smells, loud noises, and thinks grabbing or poking you; yeah, that's a recipe for success with children!

When the rain cleared up, the group broke up further, and BetsyAnn, SusanL, Jimbolini, and I all went to Who Want's to be a Millionaire: Play It! Last year was my first experience with this wonderful show, and I had done fairly well, so I was determined to do better this year. I didn't get much of a chance, however, because the first player was a leftover from the previous game, and when he went down his replacement lasted the rest of the game. This guy was good; he was a math teacher, and made it all the way to the 64,000 point question before blowing it on the question, "Which country does the Amazon flow through?" The answer was Peru, but after exhausting all his lifelines he still chose the wrong country, prompting me to lean over to Jim and whisper, "He said he was a math teacher. He's obviously not a geography teacher!"

I actually got on the board with that question, in 4th place, but it was the last one of the game, so no new player was chosen.

In a little aside, I just want to strongly urge all those who go to WDW, summer or winter, warm or cold, to please, PLEASE, remember to bathe while you're on vacation. The guy in the seat next to me obviously didn't follow that advice, because his odor was so strong it actually threatened to make me ill. Now, this was not the odor of today's sweat, which can sometimes overwhelm even the strongest deodorants; it was the aroma of a human body which had not been washed for at least 3 days. The guy stunk.

So please, when you take a vacation, don't make it a vacation from personal hygiene.

On the way to Star Tours, however, I got sidetracked by a shopping mission. I passed a small cart loaded with Binford Tools paraphernalia, and saw a monster coffee cup with the dictum "Real Men Don't Need Instructions." I loved this cup and wanted to get it for my friend Rick, who was watching my apartment and bringing in the mail for me while I was away. There was only one problem; the cart was out of the necessary forms to have the mug delivered to my resort, so the CM instead directed me to the AFI shop at the exit of the Backlot Tour. It was there that I bought the mug and had it shipped to my resort.

Then I was off to Star Tours, but made another stop in the Writers Stop (formerly Ellen's Book Nook, until her TV show got canceled) for a bottle of apple juice. I had been drinking water, but I needed a little infusion of sugar to re-energize myself. Inside I ran into Cheri and Cathy, and into yet another CM who wanted to know, "What's MouseFest?" when she saw my MF buttons. I explained it to her, as I had to many CMs both last year and this year. I have yet to meet a Disney CM who has ever heard of any of the web sites or guidebooks that make up MouseFest; in fact, it seems that most CMs are totally oblivious to the massive online Disney community, even if they are internet-savvy. I wonder if it's part of their training.

When my apple juice was gone, I rode Star Tours, lucking into a front-row seat where you can see more details of Captain Rex and the cockpit.

And when I got off Star Tours, I fought the temptation to ride it again, and caught a bus back to Pop Century. One thing I noted all through the trip: at most of the bus depots, Pop Century is the very last bus stop, farthest from the park gates and the Downtown Disney shops. This makes sense, since Pop is the latest resort, but it's a pain when you have to walk an extra 400 yards to get on a bus.

I took a few minutes to write out some trip notes, before changing for cooler weather and heading out for Epcot at about 4pm. I was mulling over the many and varied dinner options at Epcot as the bus careened its way into the parking lot and pulled up to the depot, and I decided to try for a nice sit-down dinner tonight. Upon entering the park, I made a beeline for World Showcase, and by the time I got there I was settled on Restaurant Akershaus, in Norway, as my dinner destination.

But when I got there, I found that the Candlelight Processional diner package Guests had the place booked up till 6:10. Since I was hungry NOW, I changed my plans. I reasoned that all the sit-down restaurants were probably booked with CP packages, so I wound up picking up a chicken and lamb schwarma platter at Morocco's Tangerine Cafe, and siting at an outside table while I ate, listening to the soothing sounds of Mo' Rockin, a Moroccan-American band that played on the stage next to World Showcase Lagoon.

The food was excellent.

When I was finished, I wandered into France, pausing to watch the mime who performs there periodically. Actually, I don't know if the word mime is exactly correct; he's a prop comic who uses balloons and balloon animals, and audience interaction with children, all while saying not a word. He's hilarious.

My destination in France was the bakery; I wanted desert. I went in and found a lovely cheesecake (I prefer the French style cheesecake to the New York style), and staked out a table inside to eat. As I left, I snapped a pic of the French Santa Claus; I figured I might as well get pics of as many of the jolly guys as I could.

The Living Seas, know to many over the last few years as the Dead Seas because of it's increasing yawn-factor, had undergone a a rehab since the last time I saw it, and I wanted to get a look at the new features. I skipped the pre-show film, the Deluge, and went right to the Hydrolators; I did have to wait 7 minutes just to get into the Hydrolator room, however; perhaps this attraction would not have come within inches of its demise had there been an easy way for people to get into it quickly.

The Living Seas' makeover was not a complete one; rather, new exhibits had been added in various rooms around the central core of SeaBase Alpha without disturbing the core itself. Almost all of the new stuff was Nemo-centric, starting with the abundance of Nemo merchandise available at the gift shop. Another room had been converted into a kids play area featuring an open-mouth photo set of Bruce the shark, which the kids would enter from behind to have their pics taken posing inside Bruces mouth. Another had been converted into a theater for the newest addition, Turtle Talk Featuring Crush.

Turtle Talk was a wonderful interactive show. A large screen at the front of the theater has CGI images of a underseascape, forming the impression of a window into Nemo's world. There were semi-circular benches through the room, and a large open area in front where kids can sit on the floor. When the show starts, Crush the sea turtle swims up to the window and begins asking questions about the Human world. Using terms like shell and fins, he picks kids out of the audience ("the little dude in the striped shell, waving his right fin") to answer his questions, and allows them to ask questions of tier own. The trick, of course, is that a Disney CM is backstage somewhere watching the room on video and providing the voice of Crush. Crush doesn't float in exactly the same place the whole time, but he doesn't move terribly specific to each person he's talking to, either, so his movements are either completely pre-recorded, or come from a set of pre-determined moves that the performer can choose to match his performance. The mouth, however, moves in time with the dialogue, so it must be triggered by the performer's voice.

I found the entire show to be a great edition to the Living Seas, and the whole of the pavilion to be much more fun than it had been last year. However, I also found it to be completely kid-oriented, with little to keep the attention of adults. This is a marked departure for Epcot, which has always tried to have attractions that appealed to both adults and kids.

Despite my earlier nap, I was exhausted once again. I was fighting to keep my eyes open, and decided to go back to Pop for another rest. The bus, luckily, moved pretty quickly, and I was soon napping again. I got another hour of sleep and woke up just in time to get to Wilderness Lodge for the fireplace meet.

For the first part of my resort-to-resort journey, I caught a bus to Magic Kingdom. The bus driver turned out to be from Baltimore, so we spent the whole trip talking about various neighborhoods and their accents and peculiarities. As we pulled into MK, Wishes was going off; much of the traffic on outlying roads was stopped, either by choice or by Disney security, to prevent accidents from Wishes distracting drivers.

I got off the bus and walked toward the resort launch docks, watching Wishes the whole time, and wound up stopping just under the monorail track to watch the finale. This was yet another new perspective on the show, my 4th so far, and it was every bit as impressive as all the others.

When the fireworks were over, I went to the dock and waited about 10 minutes for the Wilderness Lodge boat to arrive, while the crowd around me built steadily. By the time I got onto the boat, it was packed. It wound up being standing room only, with people crammed into that little launch as tightly as they had been on the Pop Century busses for most of my trip. While it's dangerous on a bus, it can be absolutely deadly on a boat, as we found out in Baltimore last year when an overloaded water taxi overturned in the Inner Harbor, killing 6 people.

We had one waitress, a young woman named Giselle who did a bang-up job of keeping us all supplied with liquid refreshment, despite our boisterous nature.

Cinderella (Claire) was handing out gifts, as usual (does this wonderful lady ever go anywhere without a bag of goodies to hand out?) She also presented a wonderful award to Ronski, who had gone above and beyond the call of duty during the 4 hurricanes that went through Florida in the month of December by boarding up Figgy and Dick's house for them and bringing them supplies and dry ice. Dick had been recovering from surgery, making it impossible for them to evacuate, and Ronski had appointed himself Guardian Angel over them; without his tireless assistance, they would not have been able to make it through the storms. Claire's award, a lovely framed certificate, was presented to Ronski by Figgy with much hugging and tears.

A little later, a CM brought out a big cake which Lady had ordered for Tramp's birthday, and we all sang Happy Birthday before Giselle and the other Cm handed out cake to all.

I met several Taginators for the first time that night, including MissPig, KelliT and Bart, and RhinoDad (Bill) and his ladies: wife Wendy, and daughters Morgan and Kerrigan. I think the kids were up way past their normal bed times, even vacation bed times, and it became a bit too much for Kerrigan, who fell asleep half standing, half lying in a chair. Morgan, however, got into a game of Pooh Uno with Photographer and Scamp that lasted most of the night.

Disney busses are great, but since they don't run from resort to resort, my options for getting back to Pop Century from Wilderness Lodge were to either take a launch to MK and then a bus to Pop, or take a bus to Downtown Disney and then another bus to Pop. Either way would have taken close to an hour, and I was not the only one in that situation, so a few folks with rental cars gave lifts to those without. I got a lift from SusanL, who was also staying at Pop, at about 12. She first took Jimbolini, BetsyAnn, and Cshore to POFQ, then dropped me at the Pop bus stops before heading off to park her car in the 60s parking lot. Thanks to her generosity, instead of taking an hour to get back to my room, I was in bed and drifting off by 12:30.