Disney Trip 4

My brother had to leave on this day because the Air Force decided to do some special training or something on this particular week. Unfortunately they didn’t tell him before he booked for the whole week… AND they ended up canceling the training once he got back to base. Frustrating.

We went to Epcot. This is a theme park that I have really come to appreciate the more I’ve been in it. It’s a beautiful park: Jumping fountains, beautiful flowers, lots of great architecture and landscaping. I started the day off by getting FastPasses for Soarin’… an outstanding ride. I think this was my dad’s favorite attraction at Disney. (Grade: A)

Then we went over to Test Track, another very fun ride (Grade: A). We actually got Emily to ride on it… and we actually got her to raise her hands during the really fast part of the ride. It was very cool to see her actually enjoy a ‘thrill’ ride! I think Test Track was my mom’s favorite ride at Disney.


I got to experience the new Finding Nemo ‘dark ride’ portion at the Living Seas pavilion. It was different than I expected… but pretty neat. Most of the story was told by video… and they made it actually seem like Nemo and his friends were in the tank with the real fish through video technology… cool stuff. (Grade: B)

We went to lunch at a place I’ve heard a lot about called Le Cellier steakhouse in the Canada pavilion. Our group of reservations actually opened the restaurant up… so we watched as the employees sang a stirring rendition of ‘O Canada!’ I had Canadian Cheddar Cheese soup… which was just ok; Steak… which was very good; and had S’mores for dessert… which were just average.


Dad and I stayed behind in the afternoon… while the ladies and the kiddos went back to the hotel for the afternoon. We did something that both of us had wanted to do for a long time… take a closer look at the different country pavilions in the World Showcase. We saw the neat mountain waterfall at Canada, went pearl hunting at Japan, saw the miniature train set at Germany, went on a mini-flume ride at Norway, and drank several different sodas from around the world at Club Cool. I also saw a Dr. Munson Honeydew and Beaker contraption that interacted with guests and did all sorts of crazy things. (The Muppets rock!)

We did dinner at a place called the Coral Reef… which was a restaurant situated next to the Living Seas aquarium. During our meal, we watched all different types of fish swim by… along with divers who would hold up signs like: ‘Happy Birthday.’ I had the Creamy Lobster Soup… which was hands down the best soup I’ve had in a while and the best appetizer I got at Disney. I made a mistake by getting the shrimp pasta for my entrée… I should have gotten the steak… which Melissa and Dad said were they best they had all week. Cheesecake was for dessert.



We experienced Illuminations, which continues to be a visually stunning show around the World Showcase Lagoon… then we went home.

Disney Trip 3

On our second full day at Disney… we went to the MGM Studios… soon to be changed to the Disney Hollywood Studios. We got there right at opening… and while Emily went to get some character autographs… I ran and got Fastpasses for Melissa’s favorite ride on Disney property: Rock N Roller coaster.


Then we went on the Great Movie Ride (which STILL needs to be updated in a major way… for a C- grade) and Voyage of the Little Mermaid (an A- grade)… which Emily loved! Going back to the Great Movie Ride… they really, really need to get some people for this ride that are actually good actors. Both our ‘hosts’ were terrible. I would recommend taking the live bit out all together… but oh well.

The only attraction that I took in for the first time was the Lights, Motors, Action Stunt Show. This was a very fun… and very LOUD! show. It was nicely done and had some great effects and stunts. I still didn’t like it as much as the Indiana Jones Show… but that’s just me being sentimental. I would give the show a B+.

A few of us saw the Muppet Show 3D. This is still my favorite 3D show at Disney. It’s witty, funny and entertaining. This earns a strong A in my book. We also took in the Back Lot Tour… with Catastrophe Canyon. That was pretty cool, but the rest of the ride is fairly lame now. And our tour guide was terrible… and she breathed very heavy into the microphone between sentences. It sounded like she was dying. This gets a C.


We went back to the hotel in the afternoon. Emily, Melissa and mom went to the ‘baseball pool’ while the rest of us hung out. I think we watched a Cardinal game on the computer, if I remember right. I can’t remember if they won or not… not that it matters. They stink. It was nice to get a little break from the heat. It was low 90’s all week… but the humidity was what would drain on you.

For supper, we ate at a place called the Sci Fi Dine In, which was actually pretty cool. We all sat in a car that had little tables in front of us. All the cars in the restaurant were pointed towards a large screen that was showing clips of commercials and films from the 1950’s. Some of the commercials were hilarious, like the one that promoted a full body containment suit that everyone would eventually wear in the coming Nuclear Age. We actually saw a lot of really hilarious bad ideas that, thankfully, never panned out. I had a tomato based soup for an appetizer and a steak with a weird marinade. The food wasn’t spectacular… but the ambiance was cool. I also had my favorite dessert of the trip at this restaurant: A hot fudge Sundae that was oh so good.


After dinner, Jeff, Melissa and I rode both the Rock ‘N Roller coaster and the Tower of Terror and used fastpasses for both. There’s nothing like riding two of the most popular rides at Disney back to back in under a half an hour. We finished the night by going to Fantasmic! This was Emily’s first chance to see the show and I think she really liked it. Especially when the Princesses come out on the boats. It is a very cool show… lots of fire effects… characters… and stunts. (A grade)

Disney Trip 2

Allow me to say up front that I have never been a huge fan of the Animal Kingdom… however, this was the most I have ever enjoyed this particular theme park. We got there right at opening… in fact, I bet we were seven of the first hundred people in the park. Jeff and I ran and immediately got fastpasses for Expedition Everest… while everyone else went and rode a nice spinning Dino ride that loads very slowly and would be killer to try and get on later in the day.

Emily’s first character greeting of the day was Pooh… the first of many such greetings. We bought her an autograph book again this year. This particular book comes with a blank page for the autograph… and then next to it is a sleeve that is meant to hold the picture that was taken of the character and Emily together. We got this done very quickly after we got home and it turned out very cute.


Since I do these trip reports about once a year… to once every two years… I try to concentrate on newer attractions… or attractions that I haven’t reviewed yet. Animal Kingdom did a great thing by closing down the really terrible Tarzan show and replacing it with a ‘Finding Nemo’ musical. I can’t begin to describe how great this show was… creatively done. Special effects and staging were tremendous… and they used a concept of acting that I had never seen before where the actor ‘works’ the characters… but is standing right next to the character acting the part as well. Sometimes I didn’t know what to watch… the puppet or the actor. It’s hard to explain here… but it was very well done. The vocal talent in this show was outstanding. A+.


I had the experience of riding Expedition Everest in a Florida downpour… it hurt, and it hurt bad. I had to cover my eyes the whole time… and I almost lost a contact. Wish I would have waited to use my fastpass for a little later (drier time) in the day. Four of us rode Kali River Rapids. It’s fun… but it’s so short and sort of disappointing. They could have done some really amazing things with this ride. There’s one huge drop at the end. A three minute ride where two minutes are spent getting up a hill. (I give the ride a C+.) We learned a lesson in cause and effect. Cause: we were on the wrong side of the raft; Effect: we got absolutely soaked. Geesh.

We had lunch at Rainforest Café… but I think Melissa and I decided that we would utilize the Rainforest Cafe that we have about a half an hour away from us now… here in the Chicago-land area… and experience other restaurants in the Animal Kingdom. Yes, it’s been a tradition… but some traditions need to be broken in order to create new and better ones. There’s a sermon in there somewhere, I think.


That night, we went out to Downtown Disney. It was packed! Wow. There was no elbow room in any of the stores… especially with me pushing a gigantic stroller holding Aaron around. I don’t think people liked that very much. Downtown Disney is cool… but it’s much better without massive crowds. They have many different shops that concentrate on specific items… and then the big store called: World of Disney… which pretty much has anything Disney that you could possibly imagine. Emily would have bought the whole store if possible…

Disney Trip 1

Our trip had an inauspicious start: Aaron got a head cold. My brother got a kidney stone. It took us an hour and ten minutes to travel the 23 miles to our chosen airport parking lot. Our flight was to take off at 9:30AM. We didn’t get to our parking lot until 8:30AM… right about the time we wanted to be at the airport.


Somehow, we made it from the parking lot… to the baggage check in line… through security… and to our gate IN TIME FOR THE PRE-BOARD. Once we got to the parking garage… everything shifted in our favor. The flight was terrible. Because of Aaron’s head cold… the pressure in the plane really messed with his ears. So, he screamed his head off for the first and last 30 minutes of the flight. We felt bad for him. The on-flight snack was terrible too… some kind of oatmeal raisin bar. Blah. Hehe. Actually… I was the only one in my family that didn’t like them… so I shouldn’t complain.

We made it to Orlando and took the cool monorail type shuttle from our gate terminal to the main terminal. While we were in the monorail shuttle… Emily got very excited and shouted near the top of her lungs: ‘We’re going to DisneyWorld!’ Which got many smiles and chuckles from the other people in the car with us. Very funny, stuff.

We met up with my parents and brother and got in line for Disney’s Magical Express. It was the first time I had utilized this service from Disney. It’s pretty cool. They sent us baggage claim slips that identified where the bags should be sent… we put them on each of our check in bags… so that when we got to Orlando… we didn’t need to worry about going to baggage claim. We didn’t need to worry about lugging all our heavy luggage through the airport. Disney took care of that for us… and several hours later… our bags found their way to our hotel room. Also included in Magical Express is a round trip bus ride from airport to hotel to airport again.

There are pros and cons to this service… and perhaps I’ll get into them later in a future episode of this trip report. We stayed at the All Star Sports resort. It’s one of the cheapies at Disney… but still nice. The rooms were small, but adequate for what we needed. Themes around the resort were cool… especially the baseball pool with the goofy squirting stuff at you… and the football theme. We were in the surf’s up portion of the resort. The icon was a huge Shark fin…


We took advantage of Disney’s Free Dining Promo… and we made reservations for a restaurant called Ohana’s. It’s located within the Polynesian Resort… right across from the Magic Kingdom. This was the first time I’d been to this resort. It was very well themed and the landscaping and architecture was just gorgeous.


I don’t think Melissa liked this restaurant as much… but I enjoyed it very much. The meat (Pork, Steak, Chicken and Italian sausage) came out on shish kabobs. The pork, chicken and steak were all nicely marinated and delicious. We also had cheese potatoes that were excellent… along with some tasty honey barbeque chicken wings. We went to bed on a full stomach to say the least.

My Little Jedi