2001 Trip Report

dates: 9/26-10/3

cast: Jenifer (me, 28) David (my husband, 36) Jerry (my dad, 61) Lenny (my mom, 57) Tresa (my sister, 37) Joy (my sister, 26) George (Joy’s husband, 37) & Cody (my nephew, 5 going, 6 coming home)

resort: All Star Moves, rooms 5935, 5936 & 5937, Fantasia 5 building

Because of the tragedy 9/11/01, my parents decided to drive rather than fly. They

would meet us at the resort. They left 9/25 early morning and headed down,

we all left 9/26 on the 630am flight out of Horseheads, NY. We arrived in Orlando at

approximately 1130am. Happy Limo was waiting for us at the luggage claim. We were

all so excited to see our name on a placard!! Woo Hoo!! After a quick stop at the

Kash n Karry, we were on our way to Disney World!!

After about a 20 minute wait in line at the check in counter at All Star Movies, we

were able to get right into our rooms! We all unpacked and headed out! Our 1^st stop

was to the food court to pick up our refillable mugs. Best purchase we made! We

figured out that had we bought our coffee every day, plus our sodas, we probably

would have spent approximately $130 or so per person on beverages. We paid $9.99

for these mugs!!! I would highly suggest anyone even remotely considering this

purchase to just go ahead and do it! After we checked out the food court & gift

shop, everyone decided the airplane food had been enough & we headed off to Magic

Kingdom!

Because of WTC, security was particularly tight. I figured we’d experience it at the

airports, didn’t realize we’d get it at the parks too. Every time we entered a park our

bags were searched by Disney security. It didn’t hold us up too much and the security

was friendly so no one really minded. As soon as we got through, we took the WDW

Railroad around the park. By the time we got back to the train station, the afternoon

parade was just headed down Main St. USA. We pulled up a piece of curb and sat down

and enjoyed it. The new parade wasn’t supposed to “officially” start until 10/1/01 but

they were doing a “soft” opening. We got to see the snow globe parade! Just

beautiful!! After the parade was over, we took the monorail around to the resorts. I

wanted my family to check these out since it was their 1^st time seeing them. By then

we all figured maybe Mom & Dad would be in so we headed back to ASMo. Mom &

Dad had just gotten in! Yay them!! They had an enjoyable drive down. It’s now time

for Hoop De Doo Revue! We headed over to the Magic Kingdom to get the boat to

Wilderness Campground.

You can’t really describe Hoop De Doo to anyone. You have to let them experience it for themselves. My family LOVED it! Cody laughed so hard! My father too! I couldn’t tell which one of them was laughing hardest! David was sitting in the perfect spot! When 1 of the performers decided to use an audience member for her skit…she chose him! He was her “toot toot” guy. Wish we had brought the video camera! We ate at the 715pm show. The food was delicious! Our server Robert was from NY too! We ate fried chicken, ribs, corn, salad & strawberry shortcake! The sangria was delicious! When we left, the Magic Kingdom was already closed so we had to take the Boone bus. This was my family’s 1^st experience with Disney Transportation. They soon realized you can not go from point A to point B without making 100 other stops along the way! We ended up at the TTTC for a bus to Downtown Disney to catch a bus back to All Star because the TTTC didn’t have a bus running to ASMo. We got back sometime after 10pm. We were all beat! Off to bed we went!!

Thursday September 27^th…Cody’s Birthday!

Everyone wears their tie dye tshirts that I made for them. We are such a colorful family! We all head over to the Magic Kingdom. Very 1^st thing was a group picture on Main St USA. How cool are we!! We did Aladdin, Jungle Cruise, Tiki Room, Pirates, Swiss Family Robinson, Buzz Lightyear, Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Splash Mountain. Then it was time for a rest period. We headed back to the resort for lunch and a nap. Since it was Cody’s birthday we were going to go to Chef Mickey’s for dinner. We had such a good time! Cody got tons of autographs today! Dinner at Chef Mickey’s was very good. Can’t go wrong with a buffet style dinner. Something for everyone. A surprise for Cody…Uncle Jeff was there to meet us! Jeff (my brother) brought along his daughter Karyn. Cody has never met Karyn before so he was a little wary of her at first. Before long though everyone was having a great time. All the characters made an appearance at our table. 1 small problem with Goofy, he didn’t really seem to be into character that evening. When Karyn and I went to get our pictures taken with him, he barely acknowledged us. Just sat on the bench while we tried to chat with him. Since he is Karyn’s favorite character, she was disappointed. I was too since Goofy is always so…well…goofy. Since we had a late dinner, everyone was pretty tired by the time it was over with. Back to the resort for bed

Friday September 28^th

Today we head to MGM. The Sorcerer’s hat is so cool! Disney certainly goes all out for their celebrations don’t they? I mistakenly thought it was early entry day at MGM so we got there VERY early. Actually, this turned out ok. Gave us time to wander the shops and see the park be opened. All the other times David & I have been there, we’ve never been for the actual opening of the park. This trip we were there for all 4 park openings! Joy, George and I all headed over to Tower of Terror and Rock N Roller Coaster. These were great! We met up with the rest of the family and did the Great Movie Ride, Muppet 3D, Backlot Tour. About noon or so we all split up. David & I headed over to see the Walt Disney: One Man’s Dream display. They have a bunch of Walt’s stuff there – his desk, plans, etc… It was so neat to see! If you saw the ABC special on him a few weeks back, you see the same thing at the end only in a condensed version. It was very cool to see. We decided to head back to the resort for some lunch. After lunch & relax time, we headed off to Epcot. We had PS for Le Cellier at 5pm so we had to hustle to get there in time. Mom and Dad walked a bit slower than the rest of us so we all went on ahead and they met us there. Dinner was very good. The pretzel bread is delicious! When making the PS arrangements I let them know that Cody was celebrating his birthday this week. Toward the end of our meal, the chef came out, put a little chef hat on Cody & a chef jacket on him and then they prepared his dessert. It was cute to watch & yummy to eat! Definitely try the chocolate mousse! After dinner we had some time to kill before Reflections so we wandered around the World Showcase. We watched the Tapestry of Dreams parade at 630pm. After the parade we sent the guys on ahead to stake out our place on the International Gateway for Reflections. Tresa, Joy, Cody & I went over to Ice Station Cool – love that Beverly! We also stopped in at Mouse Gears. What a great store! By then it was time for us to meet up with the guys so we headed to the bridge. David & George had gotten us a good spot on the bridge to watch Reflections from. George couldn’t believe the show. This was his 1^st experience with a Disney fireworks program. It’s not something you can describe to someone who has never experienced it. For the 2 years it took me to plan this family vacation, George never understood why I was going through so much trouble. Finally, this night was when he started to understand it all. If someone’s never been to the World, you just can’t explain it to them. They have to experience it for themselves. After the great show we walked to the Beach Club. This has become a tradition with David and I. We watch the show, then go to Beaches & Cream to have ice cream. This way we aren’t fighting the Epcot crowds to get back to our resort. We all sat at the counter & ordered sundaes. They were delicious! This is the nicest little place to visit. They have a full menu but we’ve only ever eaten the ice cream. Definitely worth it! Once we were finished we went through the Beach Club lobby to their bus stop. Grabbed a bus to Downtown Disney Westside and then from there went back to All Star. What a nice night!

Saturday September 29^th

Today it’s off to Animal Kingdom! Since there is no early entry day at Animal Kingdom, we wanted to get there as close to opening as possible. We got there before any of the security tables were set up. While we were standing in line, Wes Palm came up to us and started a conversation with us. If you’ve never met Wes Palm, you’ve gotta see what you can do about that! Wes is a remote control palm tree that comes out to talk to people that are waiting to get in line. The whole thing was so funny! He talked to me, my mom, David & George. Once he realized that we were all together, he wanted to get a picture taken with us. Thankfully there were some nice people standing near us that took our pictures using our cameras. The pictures turned out really nice. I looked around to see who was the “real” Wes and couldn’t find him. Mom had to point him out to me. Unless someone pointed him out you never would have known him! He blended into the crowd perfectly & you couldn’t even tell his mouth was moving! The only reason Mom knew was because she could hear him the same time she could hear Wes. This was definitely a funny experience for us all and it certainly passed the time! Security finally came out & inspected our bags. We still couldn’t get into the park, but we were able to move toward the turnstiles. As we were standing there a Cast Member walked by & waved at Cody. A few minutes later she came by to talk to him. Come to find out she wanted to take him inside the park and have him help open the park. How cool is this?!?!? At first Cody was timid but we convinced him we all would be right there and that it was a chance of a lifetime. They let the 8 of us in and then took Cody to the Guest Relations area. During this time a bunch of other Cast Members had come out, all of them carrying some sort of insect. Yuck! 1 had a tarantula, 1 had a scorpion…there were probably 5 of them or so. The CM took Cody over and he was able to look at all these things in their clear boxes. She let him touch the scorpion! They gave Cody a safari vest to wear. Pretty soon you heard music and the CM’s started to parade toward us. We had them coming at us from both sides! Each CM (& Cody) were carrying a clear box with some sort of critter in it. Then we noticed coming out of the Oasis – characters! Rafiki, Mickey, Goofy, Daisy, King Louie…how cool! We were snapping pictures like crazy. The staff photographer came over to us and told us we could get a complimentary picture taken with the characters. So we got a great picture out of this & Cody got a great experience! After the picture we went over & got an electric scooter for Dad (his hip was pretty bad by this time from all the walking) & a stroller for Cody (his little legs were ready to give out from the day before) and then we headed to Kilimanjaro Safari. Dad was able to take his scooter right up to the pick up point. We waited a bit – they loaded about 5 vehicles – before we got into ours. This was by far the best safari David & I have been on yet! It was probably about 830 or so by the time we got out on to the trail. We saw the most animals we’ve ever seen! The family just thought this was great. Our driver was wonderful! We’ve had drivers before that just go through the motions. She actually went slow, explained the animals, stopped if someone saw something she didn’t – she was great. Jumbo (sp) everyone! Maybe she went slower than others because it was still so early in the morning – whatever the reason…she was great! After the Safari was over with we decided we didn’t have enough time to get to the 1^st show of Lion King, so we went to the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. Cody isn’t crazy about gorillas but he did a good job while on the trail. This was a nice walk for everyone. Once through here we shopped a little bit, then headed off to the It’s Tough to be a Bug show. This is always a great show, but it’s even better if you are with people who don’t know what’s coming! Without spoiling anything for you, George nearly jumped out of his seat! His reaction to the show was probably funnier than the show! Definitely a good time! Now we are off to the Lion King show. The last time David & I saw the show they had a trapeze artist dressed in a bird costume. While she was very good, we weren’t crazy about that part of the show. Maybe because it was so slow. This time though, that part wasn’t in the show. I don’t know if they’ve taken it out or she just wasn’t there that day – but we liked this version better. This has got to be the best live show in all of Disney World! By this time everyone was getting hungry & tired. We decided to head back to the resort & come back for Asia & Dinoland later. This evenings dinner was going to be at the Sci Fi Dine In Theater in MGM. Because we are such a large party, they had to place us in separate cars. The people David & I sat with were a friendly family, on their 1^st trip down. They were having a good time. We gave them some pointers on what not to miss. Tonight was the only night they were going to hold the Spectromagic and Fantasy in the Sky Fireworks at Magic Kingdom, so once dinner was over with, we hopped a bus over there. Mom & Dad stayed near the park entrance to watch and the rest of us went further in. To watch the parade we stood in Frontierland near the Liberty Belle Riverboat landing. We stood with some nice English families and had a good time visiting with them while we were waiting. The parade was wonderful of course. All the lights are so beautiful! After the parade we had some time before the fireworks show so we headed toward Main Street. We stopped at the hub and found some curb to sit on while we waited for that show. It was ok. Because of the wind speed that night, they couldn’t get the fireworks very high. I don’t know how people further down Main St even saw them since they weren’t getting them over the castle. But you’ve got to expect that sometimes. What we did see was very nice. The park is closing now. We wait a bit before we move – I don’t enjoy crowds. About 15-20 minutes later we headed down Main Street toward our bus stop. We didn’t see Mom & Dad anywhere so we figured they got on the bus already. There were tons of people waiting to get on to the All Star busses! It was crazy! It took us an hour to get on to a bus. We ended up finding Mom & Dad…they were sitting on a bench just watching people go by. We told them to get in line with us and we all ended up on a bus together. The cool part of this story is that there was a CM manager there calling in other busses – Disney Cruise Line busses! We were fortunate enough to get one of these! They fit a lot more people on these busses than they do the regular Disney transportation busses! Comfy seats, movie to watch – we didn’t want to get off! We watched the movie Spy Kids on our way back to the resort. It was very nice. Everyone was tired so it’s time for bed.

Sunday September 29^th

It’s a shopping day! Yay us! We all headed to Downtown Disney! The guys went off on their own for a bit to check out the Wide World of Sports Complex. I figured it would be something that interested George since he’s such a sports fanatic. Well…I guess it’s a big nothing if there isn’t an event planned. But hey…how were we to know? It gave them something to do anyway! They met us while we were shopping. We did a lot to help the nations economy that day! I know I did! Everyone sorta did their own thing & did their own wandering. When it was time for lunch we all met at the McDonalds & ate there. Prices were not too much more expensive than they are at home. Probably only about $1 more. Today was the day that we were getting the Mickey N You photo taken too. We each got a Flex Feature as part of the package I bought. I decided to use this photo as my feature. That way we got a family picture with Mickey Mouse. It turned out very nice! Time to go back to the resort for a bit. Dinner tonight is at Crystal Palace. We decide to do a few rides at Magic Kingdom before dinner. Cody has yet to see Mickey’s Toontown Fair so we make sure we do that for him. Did the Tea Cups, Dumbo & the Haunted Mansion too. Time to meet at the Crystal Palace for dinner. This is a nice character dinner if you’ve never done one. It’s still early yet after dinner so we decide to send Cody back to the resort with Nana & Papa and the rest of us headed to Pleasure Island. We were early for the 1^st showing at the Comedy Warehouse so we wandered around for a bit. Pretty soon it was time to go into the show. It was a pretty good show. They kept us laughing. Definitely a must do when you go to Pleasure Island. After the show we headed toward Westside. The guys stopped & bought some cigars, then we all decided to go into Disneyquest. We had a pretty good time in here. David & I have been in here before but never really enjoyed ourselves. Guess you have to go in with a group to enjoy it. George had a good time doing the virtual reality games, we all played video games & wanted to do the bumper cars but the line was always long. I was dying to try the pin ball game but didn’t want to do it by myself. Next time maybe. After we spent quite a bit of time in here, we decided it was time to go. Back to the resort!

Monday October 1^st

Today is a sleep in a bit day. We were going to go to Blizzard Beach. Since that park doesn’t open until 10am, there wasn’t a need to rush around. Mom & Dad decided to sit this one out, so the rest of us put on our suits & headed over. Karyn & Krissy (our nieces) were going to meet us there. We had to stand in line about a ½ hour or so before the gates opened. Joy, Tresa, Cody & David stayed behind to wait for the girls & George & I headed over to find some chairs. We found a good spot in the shade but then George found a better spot right on the “shoreline” of the wave pool. Some seats in the shade, some in the sun – perfect for all of us! George & I were like the ONLY people out there for a few minutes. It was nice. Finally the rest of the came but without Karyn & Krissy. They’d be along in a little bit. We played in the wave pool for a few minutes, then George & Joy decided to go try Summit Plummet. They loved it! We were able to snap their picture when they went down. The girls still hadn’t arrived so we all decided to do the Cross Country Creek. What a relaxing ride! We all got separated from each other for a bit but then caught up with each other again. David had a hold of my inner tube & “conveniently” shoved me under a waterfall! I got stuck under that freezing water for what seemed like an eternity as he floated by! He thought that was too funny! Just as we were getting out of our tubes, Tresa spots Krissy. They had arrived! We haven’t seen our nieces in probably 6 years or so! This was going to be a good day! Cody had no problem getting friendly with Karyn because he remembered her from the dinner. It took him a few minutes to get used to Krissy though. But he did it. Pretty soon the 3 of them were building a sand castle together. We all hung out talking, catching up on things, playing in the water, drinking (Jay the bartender is WAY cool!) We did the Teamboat Springs together. Took us awhile to find them though. Joy lead us on an excursion around the park before we finally checked out a map! Back around the park to the Chair Lift & up to the Teamboat Springs. This was fun! We all ate at the Lodge – delicious! We didn’t get to spend as much time with the girls as we wanted, we all had to leave around 2 in order to go back to the resort, shower & get ready for dinner. Seems like your life is run by your dinner times when you are in Disney. We had such a good time! Goodbye to the girls & back to the resort we go. We got to MGM early so we could watch the parade. Joy, George & I wanted to go back on the Tower of Terror & Rock N Roller Coaster. We left everyone on Hollywood Blvd & went off to the rides. Cody decided that it was time he try Tower of Terror so he came with us. I figured that once we got through I’d be the one that would have to take him out the “chicken exit”. Boy was I wrong! He loved it! He’s never done any sort of thrill rides before so this was definitely a first for him. As soon as we got off he wanted to go on it again. So around we went! After the 2^nd trip, he decided that if he could do that, he could do the Rock N Roller Coaster too! So we all went on that. Again, I figured he might chicken out. He didn’t! He was a real trooper. Thought it was very cool & guess what? He wanted to ride this one again too! By now the parade is probably over & the rest of the family is waiting for us, but we couldn’t pass up this opportunity. So we went on it again! Once the ride was over though, we told Cody we had to meet the rest of the family so we headed over to meet them. We still had some time to kill so we sent George, David & Cody off to Star Tours while Tresa & Joy stopped in some shops. Mom Dad & I waited outside for everyone to return. The guys liked Star Tours. It was time to eat! The last time David & I went to the 50’s Prime Time Café we had a great waitress who really got into the act. Too bad we didn’t get her this time. The dinner was good but the service left a lot to be desired. Our waitress just wasn’t in to her role I guess. Tonight we were going to watch Fantasmic! which starts at 8pm. Dinner was at 620pm. By the time we got served & were ready to leave, it was getting very close to 8pm. David & I sent the rest of the family on ahead & we waited (& waited!) for the check. We finally took care of that & headed off to the see Fantasmic! It was standing room only but a CM told us we could sit in the handicap area. That was nice. The show was great! The family really enjoyed it. The original plan was to wait until all 9000 people left the area before we left. The seats the CM had given us were right next to the exit. We figured we could make it out before the crowd hit us. We headed out right at the end of the show. The exit was MUCH further away from the park entrance than what I remember. There is a door from that area that actually takes you right to the stroller rental place inside the park, but they wouldn’t let us use it. So by the time you were out of there, you were back down to Sunset Blvd – still FAR away from the exit! This saved us NO time whatsoever! We would have been better off waiting for the crowd to leave. Dad was practically dying from the walk we made him take. It was definitely not a slow paced walk! We finally got out to our bus stop & on to the bus. Back to the resort we go! What a night!

Tuesday October 2^nd

Today is a special day. We have a surprise for George. He has NO clue as to what’s going to happen. We decide to go over to Epcot since it’s early entry. We got right on to Spaceship Earth, then head over to the Test Track. This was the 1^st time for everyone to ride this. We’d always experienced a 75 minute wait whenever we had been there before. It was pretty cool. This was something even David rode! After that it was time for Honey I shrunk the Audience to open up so we went over there & enjoyed that show. George was cautious about this show because the last 3D show we put him in had freaked him out so badly! J After the show we decided to call Mom & Dad to see where they were. They were right across the way from us! They had already done the Living Seas, which was where we were going, so they did the HISTA show & we went to the Living Seas. We all met up after we were done. Now it’s time for George’s surprise. Joy has been planning this for months! She can barely contain herself anymore! We couldn’t believe that she was able to keep quiet about it this long! We have to leave Epcot, go to the Transportation Ticket Center & then catch a shuttle over to the Richard Petty Driving Experience. Joy was getting George a 3 lap ride around the track. George is driving us crazy by now because no one will tell him where we are going. Everyone keeps saying Jen won’t tell us. Boy is he frustrated! FINALLY we get there & Joy can tell him what we are doing there. He’s just like a kid in a candy store! He had such a good time! After this, all rides paled in comparison to the one he took around this track! They did approx 140mph. He was so happy! After we got back to the TTTC, we hopped the monorail back to Epcot to finish off the day. We ate at the Land pavilion and then Cody wanted Nana to ride the Test Track with him so we headed over there. After that, Dad & Mom had to go back to the room, so the rest of us wandered World Showcase for a bit. We wanted to see the Living Statues over in France so we headed over there to wait for that show. While we were waiting, some people told David about the tapping of the keg that goes on in Germany. That was much more interesting to him & George than the Living Statues, so they headed over there. The Living Statue finally came out. Boy was I disappointed. This one was a guy & he just wasn’t into it as much as the girl that usually does it. She is fabulous! This guy just did more posing than playing. After a few minutes I got bored so I convinced them we could keep walking. We got in front of Japan and saw the character bus had stopped there & all the characters were greeting people. Cody & I jumped in lines & got autographs and pictures galore! It was really neat! After they got loaded into the bus & pulled out, we continued our walk towards the guys at Germany. Once we met up with them we found out that George had been named honorary Bergermeister & had been appointed to tap the keg in that day’s celebration! Neither one of the guys had a camera on him either so we missed out on this! He did get an official certificate & was able to drink the 1^st cup of beer from the keg. He was in all his glory today! Cody stopped here to make himself a mask at the Kidcot station so we hung out a bit. One good thing for me that happened…we were walking by the Art of Disney store & saw that Ray Day was signing pieces. David & I went in and bought a castle from him and had him sign it for us. We were so excited we got to meet Mr & Mrs Day – what a nice couple! We even got our picture taken with them! Ok…Almost time for dinner so we need to head out. Dinner tonight is supposed to be at Artist Point at the Ft Wilderness Lodge so we had to go the Magic Kingdom & catch a boat over to the Lodge. We were early so we tried to do the Hidden Mickey game they have there – not as easy as I thought. Mom called & said they wouldn’t be making it to dinner so we told them to go ahead & seat us. Well…this restaurant was mom’s pick. We got a look at the menu & decided it was definitely not for us. The girls couldn’t find anything that we thought we could eat. David had no problem trying the ostrich or elk but the prices were so expensive! After a few minutes I said I just can’t eat here & the rest said ok. Back on the boat! We decided we would just eat at our resort. It had been a long, hot day and we were leaving the next day so it was probably best to just go back there. We ended up having the best meal of our trip there! Prime Rib for $9.99 – cut at least an inch thick! Delicious! This was definitely a better choice for us than the other meal. Time to go back & pack up some of our stuff.

Wednesday October 3^rd

Today we leave. L But first, we want to catch up on a few things. George, Cody, Joy & I head back over to Magic Kingdom for early entry to do the Mountains. 1^st up is Big Thunder (Splash is down for a little while), Cody thought this was a little lame compared to RNRC (me too!) Splash is still down so we head over to Space. This was a good one! This was Cody’s first “alone” ride – you can’t sit next to eachother in Space Mountain. But he did fine! Let’s see if Splash is back up & running? Yup! So we go get on that. Very fun! Gotta do Buzz Lightyear at least once more before we go & George & Joy haven’t done the Alien Encounter. We all did Buzz, then George & Joy head over to Alien while Cody & I do Buzz again. They really enjoyed it but both agreed that Cody was too young to see it right now. By now it’s almost 11am so we’ve gotta head back to the room. I got late check out for our room so everyone was going to put their stuff in there while we decided what to do next. It’s lunchtime! We wander down to the food court & have our last meal together there. Mom & Dad are going to head off to Daytona for a week by themselves. We say goodbye & the rest of us head to Animal Kingdom. We still haven’t done Asia. We got there just after they closed Tarzan Rocks! – full house. Bummer. That’s a good show. So we head over to Asia & walk through Maharajah Jungle Trek. Boy those bats are gross! The tigers were so cuddly looking! George & Joy figured they’d give Kali River Rapids a try. They didn’t though. They got a little closer & saw people coming off that were SOAKED – they couldn’t do that a few hours before we were supposed to fly – so we wandered over to Africa to look in the gift shops, then headed toward the entrance. We wanted to see the parade before we left so we grabbed a seat near the Island Mercantile & waited for the parade. Definitely worth watching! Very well done! We were happy to end our day at this point. Now we have to head back to the resort & wait for the limo. Say our goodbyes now! How sad!! But we’ll be back. I know David & I will be back at the end of October 2002 and I’m pretty sure the rest of the family will be planning trips in the future. All in all it was a very good trip! It’s so nice taking people who have NO CLUE! Even with the amount of people we had with us & the close quarters we kept, there was very little conflict. We had a very good time! Now it’s time to get back to the real world. Too bad the real world isn’t as friendly as Disney World!