The Real World is SO QUIET (and my real world is NYC)

[ChimCher-ee]

We just got back from 10 days at WDW and the first thing I noticed in the cab from the airport was... the real world doesn't have a sound track. I knew that, really I did, but we are just so lonely without Simba, Sebastian, and the rest!

Trip facts:
When: June 29 - July 9
Where: Little Mermaid room, AoA (first time there)
Who: My 11yo DD and I (DH, not a Disney fan, stayed home)
What: two days and an evening at each of our two favorite parks (MK and Epcot), one day each at DHS and AK, one day at TL, and a pool day at the resort
Why: because we like to
How: relaxed, thanks to a detailed but flexible plan, and QS DDP

1. Philosophy
I'll start with a little about our park-touring philosophy. This is our fourth trip to the World, and we wouldn't dream of missing a rope drop. Especially if the park has morning EMH. I have studied - - and respect - - the source of information that tells us to do the opposite. But. It's just not us.

We just loved being part of the tiny crowd "mosey-ing" through Frontierland. We were those guests that the CMs had to call ahead about at BTM--"Yes, we're sending the guests up, ok? [to my DD] OK, you can go right up." We love, love, LOVED staying seated once, twice, three times to just ride that train until WE were dizzy. And that man taking his morning bath while the boar and bobcat face off at the cactus - - they just cracked me up.

We walked from there right up to Splash Mountain - - and riding in the front row getting especially wet? Once, fine. Twice, not so much. But it was very funny, looking for our picture among all those shots of empty cars doing the drop!

This trip, we were also the first passengers over the Golden Gate Bridge. We had the top-designed car at Test Trac (a title held very briefly). We would have had our pick of Jedi Training times but DD changed her mind at the last minute; we veered off and hit Star Tours several times instead. She deeply regretted that decision, though, after Indiana Jones, when we watched the Jedi performances from our outdoor lunch table at Backlot Express. But hey, 11 is that tough age when you are afraid you're too old for stuff that you secretly hope you're not, and don't want your mother telling you what to do ("You know you want to wield the light saber! Just do it! We're right here!" "Mom! Stop!") And finally, on our fourth morning safari, we were lucky enough to see the cheetahs up and pacing instead of tucked away sleeping in the shadows. Very cool stuff.

So yes, we got to rope drop and saved our FPs for the wildly popular rides in the afternoon (we even did some of the same ones we hit in the morning, because you just can't get enough Soarin' or Splash Mountain). This year, I remembered how thunderstorms roll through just about every afternoon, so I selected FP times for right around 2, 3, and 4 pm. It worked, too - - the weather usually held until we were on the buses back. Oh, except for Rock n Roller Coaster, when it rained while we were FPing and stopped raining by the time we came out. So we went again, in the very-much-shortened single rider line!

So it works for us, it really does. Especially this time, because the crowds never really reached impossible numbers (even MK on the 3d).

Next time I'll write more about the frustration of morning EMH - - the buses. The famed AoA buses.

 

[ChimCher-ee]

2. Transportation, or “The Early Birds Get the Worm in Spite of the Buses They Are Forced to Take.”

Like the watched pot that doesn’t boil, we were so frustrated that the bus we waited for never came first! But more on that below.

In order to make it to rope drop, we left our room at 6:50 (for 8 o’clock RD) or 7:50 (for 9 o’clock RD). And believe me, it wasn’t easy.

We have a tradition where I go get coffee and hot chocolate to bring back to the room. Then, DD munches on cereal (bought before the trip) in bed, watching TV, while I get ready. Then I drink my coffee, review the day’s plans, and pack the park bags while she gets ready. Presumably in the bathroom. Supposedly with the TV off. Welllllll, who knew she loved Spiderman so much? Or Star Wars Rebels? Each time it was like she was being torn away from her lifetime best friend—but she’d never watch these shows at home! Or admit it to her friends afterwards…

So, when we managed to get out the door on time, and still speaking to each other but sometimes only in grunts, it was sooooo frustrating to never actually leave AoA until 7:25, or 8:25. I had to live with the looks, like I was the one driving the buses or something! I could just about hear her thinking, "I gave up Spiderman for THIS?!"

Day 1: Started the trip off heading for Epcot, morning EMH. At the buses by 7 am. Watched every other bus come, including Downtown Disney. Epcot bus trundled up after 7:20.

Day 2: Ok, maybe a better start for 9 am RD at Hollywood Studios. At the buses by 8 am. Watched every other bus come, including Downtown Disney and Epcot. Hollywood Studios bus last one to arrive, after 8:20, again.

Day 3: Only day at Animal Kingdom, morning EMH. At the buses by 7 am. Watched every other bus come, including Downtown Disney, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios. I was finally laughing about it, but DD doesn’t appreciate irony yet.

Day 4: Finally, our first day at Magic Kingdom, morning EMH. Yep—every other bus, DD, Epcot, HS, AK etc etc…at least when a bus came, it was a double. Which was good, because by then the line snaked out of the queue area.

The funny thing is, though, that even after arriving at each park less than ½ hour before rope drop, we still somehow managed to find ourselves only 2 or 3 groups back. We always went to the left line, and usually the CMs opened up the breakfast lines to the rest of us before RD, so we ended up moving over to new, empty lines from our spot on the left. And that’s how we got all the rewards of being the early birds after all! After the first days at each park, we stopped watching buses arrive—we got into the zen of AoA transportation.

But I will add this. Everything I read here on Disboards about AoA and buses was true; I was warned and ignored it at my own risk! So this is all on me: Pickups are very far away from the gates. And that makes a difference when your dogs are barking and all you can think about is that mug of coffee and the first jump in the pool that waits you back “home.” Having dedicated buses doesn’t quite make up for longer walks to get to them—I’ll have to think about that when I plan the next trip.

And speaking of the planning, did I mention how helpful Disboards has been? How I found some gems that I decided to try out on this trip? Well, let me tell you—next up, “Tips We Tried, and Other Works in Progress.”

 

[chunkymonkey]

Hi!! We stayed at AoA too...and yes the buses can be wretched. My beef is with the MK buses...they were never there when you needed them and their lines were always so crowded. Other parks were not that bad. Oh and Gate 34 at MK?!?!? It was so far away...

Other than that, it sounds like you had a great vacation!
We live in NJ, but I was raised in NYC...lived there for many years. I do love the soundtrack of the city. But it doesn't beat the Epcot loop...love it!

 

[ChimCher-ee]

My beef is with the MK buses...they were never there when you needed them and their lines were always so crowded. Other parks were not that bad. Oh and Gate 34 at MK?!?!? It was so far away...

Hi, neighbor! We just couldn't believe our "luck"! #34...I actually took a picture of the MK board that lists the resorts and their gates, so I can check and recheck which has which, before I reserve our next trip! I mean, someone has to be last but maybe not us, next time.

 

[ChimCher-ee]

3. Tips We Tried, and Other Works in Progress

I used to think I was a pretty efficient traveler. That was before I joined Disboards! These are my favorite new tips that I used this trip, in no particular order.

Tip 1: Take-out drink cup lids. To catch the tastiest part of your ice cream bar—the part that slides off the stick! DD was all over this one, collecting a couple lids every time we were at a Subway for months before our trip. We tried them with our first Mickey Premium Ice Cream Bars ever (see Tip 7, below). We were at Epcot, and it was blistering hot. The chocolate started melting before we even got the paper off. DD mastered the art of the lids right off the bat, and was so happy to be saving all those slabs of chocolate. I, on the other hand, found out that a lid is only as good as the angle you hold it at! Lost a few bites that way before I leveled mine out.

Tip 2: Pre-loaded gift cards. This was awesome, especially since this year I wanted to give DD more control over her souvenir shopping. She knew exactly how much she had to spend to begin with, kept track of how much was left by checking her receipts, and didn’t have to deal with loose change or damp, sticky bills. It worked beautifully, especially thanks to…

Tip 3: Take photos of souvenirs you think you want and their price tags. Decide later which ones you really want, and add up the list to see which purchases you need to drop to meet your budget. In the end, DD decided to put most of her $$ into one large purchase (big Stitch, which she’s wanted since she was 8) but she kept saying, “Oh, I remember that doll! I remember that pin!” as she scrolled through her pictures. She even laughed at some of the things she had thought she wanted. It really helped keep down the impulse buying.

Tip 4: MemoryMaker. Of course I had heard about it but dismissed it as a silly luxury. But this year I wanted to break myself of the “Wait! Let me get a picture! Hold it…hold it…ok!” habit. I mean, I was out of control at WDW last year. So I read, and read, and read. And decided to go for it based on what many people advised, and based on all the ways people said they used it. Three advantages made it a great success for us: (1) I’m in every picture, (2) we have all the rides in stills and some in video—and we NEVER buy ride pictures so it’s a treat, and (3) the only time I took out my camera was to get shots of AoA. The magic shots are cute, too.

Tip 5: Over-the-door shoe holders, for toiletries. I confess I didn’t use this, this trip, because it was just two of us. But I will definitely buy one for our road trip with friends later this summer.

Tip 6: Packing cubes. I hadn’t heard of packing cubes, and they do sound great for organizing your things. But what took this tip over the top was the suggestion of putting one cube from each traveler in a suitcase, in case some luggage gets lost. That way, everybody has something. Well, I’ll use this one on the upcoming road trip as well, but so we have to unload only one suitcase from the car each night instead of many.

Tip 7: But I’m getting off topic, sort of. This last tip is really a collection of tips from the Snack Bucket List and similar threads. See, in the old days, we had randomly tried different snacks we came across in our time at the parks; my planning had never taken it to the level where snack breaks and specific items were actually embedded in the lineup. This time, I designed our trip with waffles, Sunshine Seasons desserts, Edy’s (hard) ice cream, and frozen lemonade in mind. I spent many lunch hours reading about them, and other snacks. Gradually, my list grew. And grew. Until I had a bucket list of my own: Mickey’s Premium Ice Cream Bars (“But why do they call them premium, Mom?” “Because Mickey’s Nothing-to-Write-Home-About Ice Cream Bars is a downer, DD.”), school bread, milk-chocolate-covered sea salt caramels, Dole whips, carrot cake cookie sandwich, and some raspberry meringue thing (but paid OOP, it is snack-sized but not on the plan). I didn’t get to try Gaston’s cinnamon roll, caramel apple tarts, or zebra domes. A work in progress!

So, that bucket list is a work in progress! Same is true for the experiences we wanted to try this trip—but that list got out of control, too. Next up: “We Think We’ve Done It All, So We’ll Just Wrap up a Few Loose Ends, Like People Mover, and Astro Orbiter, and Tom Sawyer’s Island, and Rock n Roller Coaster…”

 

[ChimCher-ee]

4. We Thought We’d Done it All.

Riiiiight. We thought we’d had most of the rides covered, with just a couple that had been closed for refurbishment last year. So of course this year we wanted to try People Mover and Astro Orbiter. But then, I came across a reference to Tom Sawyer Island as a place to go and relax when you’re needing a break. And maybe, now that I’m really starting to love Disney roller coasters, I thought we could go on Rock N Roller Coaster…

…and so our list grew. (It’s still growing—that’s the beauty of Disney, that as many times as you go, there’s always another level of experiences to discover!)

New Ride #1: People Mover. I had read that there was hardly ever a line for this ride, so I was surprised when the wait time was posted at 20 minutes!? We were going to try it no matter what, though, so we joined a line that seemed to be headed in the direction of the moving sidewalk. We were riding the sidewalk, heading up, in a matter of minutes. And what a nice surprise when we got to the platform! We had a car to ourselves and settled in to look at the crowds. It actually felt like we were going through secret places, peering down at Buzz Lightyear players who didn’t know we were there (we had never noticed the People Mover when we went on that ride!). And it got a little creepy going through Space Mountain, in the complete darkness, hearing the screams of riders somewhere nearby, not knowing how long we would be in there or where we would come out! It was also pretty funny watching the Speedway drivers—some of them are so serious! But mostly, we loved just gliding around the rides we love so much, Stitch and COP among them.

New Ride #2: Astro Orbiter. This had a pretty long wait—40 minutes for something I thought would be just another Dumbo/Triceratops Spin/Aladdin type ride. But again, we were going to try it no matter what, so we stuck it out. Boy was I wrong! No sedate carpet flying here! I took my seat (“rockets may be smaller than they appear from the ground”) and seconds into the ride ended up clinging to the outside of the rocket, praying I didn’t fall out! I did try to enjoy the view, but it was hard when all I could think about was “Why are these metal tubes trying to dump me on the ground?” We didn’t go on it again, but only because the lines were too long every time we went past. I think I’ll give it another try next trip—because I’ll know what to expect.

New Ride #3: Rock N Roller Coaster. Now, my approach to any rollercoaster I haven’t been on is to just close my eyes and try to concentrate on the sensations. I especially like deep curves and speeds that press you into your seat. I don’t especially like falling forward, but give me a good fast ride and I’m happy. I don’t need to see the scenery! So, there I was, listening to a band that became popular when I was in junior high school, waiting to … well, I wasn’t sure what I was waiting to do but I was strapped in and couldn’t get out if I wanted to. I survived—I even laughed and whooped a bit on the way. So we went again (we had FPs but went again because the wait time was relatively low due to a rainshower), and my DD expressed her love for what had just that moment become her favorite band! She doesn’t really believe that I listened to those songs when I was just a couple years older than her…This time I kept my eyes open and got into the theme of going to a concert. And DD went a third time…single rider line. I mean, I have my limits!

New Experience #4: Tom Sawyer’s Island. It is a great place to explore, and some of the spots are kind of creepy. We actually started to get a little disoriented in the mines (but had to do them twice because they were so fun). Injun Joe’s cave really had us nervous—as we twisted and turned through the echoing winds and the odd-colored lighting, I almost started to think we were actually lost! But just as I started to say, “Should we go back?” my DD said, “Oh HERE’S the way out, thank goodness!” I liked the feeling that maybe, just maybe, we were lost! But our time there was cut short because DD realized she had lost her hat, her favorite hat, a non-Disney hat, and we just had to go back to retrace our steps right then and find it. We tracked it all the way to the Enchanted Tiki Room (I have a last picture of the hat, underneath Fritz), but there the trail went cold. Good-bye, beloved Man U hat!

As I mentioned, our list of things to do, and try, has grown. Next, my last post will be “A Backstory about Man Landing on the Moon and Disneyland, and Future Plans for the World.”

 

[ChimCher-ee]

5. A Backstory, Man Lands on Moon and Disneyland, and Future Plans for World. My final post.

When I was young, we didn’t go on vacations. Period. Oh, we’d visit family one or two states away when we had to. I also remember staying with friends of the family while my mother and father took a long weekend at Expo ’67—the World’s Fair in Montreal—but that weekend stands out simply because it was the only for-fun trip I’d ever witnessed. In fact, I still have the miniature toy canoe they brought back for me.

So when my mother’s aunt and uncle suggested we drive across the country with them and another couple, and my parents actually said yes, I didn’t really understand what was happening. The only thing—and I do mean the only thing—that got my attention was that we’d spend one full day at … Disneyland. Disneyland! A dream beyond dreams for a kid living on the East Coast. We left in early July, and from the ferry across Lake Michigan (overnight), across the Badlands, through Jackson Hole, to a babysitting pen in Reno—everything was a blur, and not very important because we were going to … Disneyland.

Oh, sure, there was that one evening we were sitting watching TV in a hotel room, someplace very, very hot. July 21. The reason I remember it? What was going on was surely something I was going to have to write about in “the trip diary” the next day. This little pink book with a lock on it and a short pencil with no eraser, to match. Boy did I hate writing trip reports!

Anyway, scratching his way across the snowy screen was a big white figure that didn’t really look like a man. In fact, to me the whole thing didn’t look like much, except my mother kept asking me, didn’t I know that guy was on the moon?! Didn't I think this was incredible?

No; no, I didn't. As a matter of fact, the only thing this kid was going to find incredible was Tinkerbell actually coming down from the castle, for real. I loved watching the Disney show on Sunday nights—that, with popcorn, was the highlight of my week, and I just had to see a piece of it in real life.

Finally the day came. We were staying with some friends of my great-uncle’s. They had a miniature collie and a pool. The collie was fine--instantly became my best friend, in fact--but the pool would become my arch enemy. On Disneyland Morning, we were getting ready to head out as a group. My uncle had been swimming and said, “Just one more dive, and I’ll get ready to go!” You can see where this is headed—all of us piling into the station wagon, emergency room, precious hours of the day draining away.

Finally, my father and I were released—no major damage to Uncle, some time remained for a quick trip to the park, the friends could come and pick everyone up at the hospital. Dad and I dashed over to Disneyland, where I remember the Matterhorn, IASM, but … not Tinkerbell. For that I had to wait 45 years.

And that was my only experience with Disney until my DD turned 4—but we didn’t do MK at night, so no Tink. And then when she was 8—again, daytime only. I didn’t realize what fan lurked inside me until last year, when we spent what was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime and I found myself planning the next trip before we even got home. And we finally stayed for the MK fireworks. I almost cried!

Today, it’s been less than a week since we left the World, and that little voice is whispering, “Maybe you can sneak in a few days next summer while DD is at sleep-away camp!” I can’t, for sure, but DH has ok’d a WDW middle-school-graduation present for DD in two years. This time, I’m going to add YES, a Keys to the Kingdom tour, and maybe a Wishes dessert party for front-row seats for you-know-who…