Tag Archives | disney dollars

February 7

We deliberately got a late start this morning because we knew we were in for a late night.  We woke up a little after 10:00 to find several animals outside our windows, as you can see below with some pictures and video:

While we were getting ready in the morning, Marie put on Full House, specifically the episode titled “Just Say No Way“  where DJ’s boyfriend Kevin is caught with alcohol at a school dance.  Why is this important you might ask?  Well Scott Curtis, the actor who played Kevin also starred in Cranium Command as Buzzy… I miss Wonders of Life.

After watching animals for a bit, we took advantage of the “free ride along” at the Richard Petty Driving Experience.  It was a 3 lap ride along, and both Marie and I really enjoyed it.  I was a bit worried about getting into the car, but other than my gigantic melon getting caught on something, I was fine.  You can see our ride along video below.  I apologize for some parts being blurry, I’m not sure what happened with my camera for those clips.

We didn’t know how long the Richard Petty Experience would take, but we were there for under an hour, so we decided to head over to Epcot for a few hours before our 5:45 dinner reservation at Jiko.  Our first stop was The Land Pavilion to get Soarin’ Fastpasses and ride Living with the Land.  We were in one of the new boats, some points of note:

• The wheelchair area is in the back, and we were in the front of the boat, which was previously occupied by the narrator.
• Not all of the boats are handicapped accessible, so it appears they will go with a combination of the old and new boats.
• Sitting in the front we noticed how clear the water was, and how dirty the pipes and boat channel are.
• The narration changed in the greenhouses, but one thing remained the same – talking about the tomato tree – except the tomato tree wasn’t there.
• The garage door that leads to the greenhouses was making quite a bit of noise when it rose up, there was a cast member standing very close to it on the right side, seemingly observing the cause of the noise.  Functionally it seemed to be in full working order, but the noise was probably a concern.

Does anyone else find it strange that The Land Pavilion houses a boat ride and a flight simulator?

We followed up Living with the Land with a stop at Club Cool where none of the dispensers had the Isreal or Mozambique drinks.  Afterwards we went to Mexico for Floutas at the leftover stand from The Food and Wine Festival.  We brought these over to Norway where we started our Kim Possible mission.  This was our first time doing the Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure.  It’s a time consuming experience, but if it gets children in and around World Showcase than it’s a success.  I don’t want to brag, but we found the Jade Monkey.

We had the fortunate experience of a ride stoppage on Maelstrom.  At the bottom of the drop into the oil field are boat just stopped, and we sat there for 9 minutes.  The ride started up again though and the conveyer belt system at the bottom of the drop was able to push us on our way.  While waiting in line I overheard a great question, “Do you think this ride would have been more popular today if the Vikings were in the Super Bowl?”  After our high seas adventure, we walked on to The Gran Fiesta Tour.  The last screen before the finale (the room with 3 screens on the left side, and balloons in front of them) was not on.  The audio was there, but no video.

Continuing along the front part of World Showcase, we went over to see O Canada for our amoosement (we can thank the Canadian host for that bad pun).

Following O Canada, we made our way over to Test Track and rode in the single rider line.  There was a trail of vomit extending from the end of the ABS zone through the environmental chambers.  Before getting on the ride we saw a cast member leaving with a bunch of sawdust, so presumably it was fresh and just hadn’t been covered up yet.  On a more positive note the on ride photo display was working.  We also noticed some temporary planters that were placed along the left side of the path between Test Track and Mouse Gear, this was blocking another path – perhaps they’re doing some replanting from the frost.  The timeline from the 25th Anniversary Gallery is still up, but the doors that led to the Gallery were locked.  No idea if the Gallery is still back there.

Our day at Epcot was complete with a trip on Soarin’ before we headed back to our hotel.

As mentioned earlier, we had a 5:45 reservation at Jiko.  I enjoyed my Filet Mignon over Mac and Cheese, and I actually liked the Filet Mignon at Jiko better than Le Cellier.  After dinner we went back to our room to watch the Saints fail to convert on 4th and Goal towards the end of the second half.  It was weird not watching the Super Bowl, but we wanted to take advantage of the light crowds during Magic Kingdom’s Evening Extra Magic hours.

We arrived at the Magic Kingdom just at the end of Wishes (8:15-8:20) and stopped at City Hall to get 2010 Disney Dollars for my father, however we were told they didn’t have any available.  Not sure if they have been discontinued or they just haven’t printed this years.  By 8:25 we had made our way through the departing crowd from Wishes and the crowd that had started lining up for Spectromagic.  Over at the Jungle Cruise we had a very good Skipper from Argentina named Elisa.  I was most impressed by her ability to pick up on English sarcasm, which is one of the hardest things to develop when not speaking in your native tongue.  Our tour around the park consisted of 10 different attractions, part of Spectromagic and an additional trip on Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin) in less than 3 1/2 hours.  The order went Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, First few minutes of Spectromagic, Hall of Presidents, Haunted Mansion, it’s a small world, Mickey’s PhilharMagic, Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, Monster’s Inc Laugh Floor, Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin again.  Some observations from the evening:

• Hall of Presidents: The closing song “Glory Glory Hallelujah” was added at the end of January.
• Hall of Presidents: I can only assume that the inventors of the sex/human robot had Martin Van Buren’s animatronic in mind
• Hall of Presidents: It’s time we bring back presidential beards.  in the 1800s there were some great beards that in this generation are rivaled only by Zach Galifianakis and the caddy from Happy Gillmore.
• Haunted Mansion: There has been an effect in the seance room for quite some time.  It’s a black screen with a green graphic moving around it, almost like a screen saver.  Does anyone know what this is supposed to be?
• It’s a Small World: Did I miss a minor refurbishment on this?  I noticed a few things like different graphics for the suns that appeared in multiple scenes as well as a giant basket of fruit.
• Mickey’s PhilharMagic: Why does Donald need pixie dust to fly?  He’s a duck.
• Space Mountain: There is only one sign that indicates how many seconds to launch, and it’s at 20 seconds.  The sign is also in the new graphics scheme, the old one seems to still be there but they don’t light them up for the other time intervals.
• Space Mountain: The audio in the Alpha re-entry tunnel seems to be timed a bit better than the audio in the Omega re-entry tunnel.  I think Omega is a bit late.
• Space Mountain: The green screen effects are pretty bland.  The backgrounds that they use have little movement, they could probably do more with this.

Buzz Lightyear Scores

• Trip 1: Tim 834,500, Marie 537,800
• Trip 2: Tim 479,900, Marie 999,999

Wait times throughout the day:
12:41 Spaceship Earth: Standby 10 minutes
12:48 Soarin’ : Standby 55 minutes, Fastpass 4:18-5:18
12:48 Living with the Land: Standby 20 minutes
2:20 Maelstrom: Standby 20 minutes, Fastpass 3:00-4:00, Actual Standby 12 minutes
2:46 Maelstrom: Standby 10 minutes, Fastpass 3:25-4:25
2:50 Gran Fiesta Tour: Standby No Wait
3:49 Test Track: Standby 5 minutes, Fastpass 5:10-6:10, Single Ride 5 minutes
4:18 Soarin’: Standby 55 minutes, Fastpass 7:09-8:09
4:52 Spaceship Earth: Standby 5 minutes
8:25 Jungle Cruise: Standby 5 minutes, Fastpass 9:00-10:00
8:42 Pirates of the Caribbean: Standby 5 minutes
8:55 Big Thunder Mountain Railroad:  Standby 30 minutes, No Fastpass, Actual Standby 9 minutes
9:55 Haunted Mansion: Standby 5 minutes
10:10 It’s a Small World: Standby 5 minutes
10:25 Peter Pan’s Flight: Standby 20 minutes, Fastpass 11:05-12:05
10:28 Mickey’s PhilharMagic: Standby 10 minutes
10:51 The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: Standby 10 minutes, Fastpass 11:30-12:30
10:52 Tomorrowland Speedway: Standby 20 minutes
10:57 Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin: Standby 10 minutes, Fastpass 11:35-12:35, Actual Standby 1 minute
11:24 Space Mountain: Standby 20 minutes, Fastpass 12:00-12:30, Actual Standby 13 minutes
11:45 Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin: Standby 10 minutes, Fastpass 12:25-1:00, Actual Standby 1 minute

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