Prelude

Cast:

Andy, a.k.a. TDC magical *MAGICAL* Broom, Director of Custodial Operations, Roving Information Booth, and Hopeless Disneyland Fantasmic! Addict - Your dashing author. A 29 yo married man who was last inside the MK at the age of 15. He's a former Disneyland (as in California) CM and rather firmly straddles the fence between Disney fanatic and lunatic. He grew up just down the street from DL, spent 10 years in Colorado, and moved to the Tampa Bay Area this summer.

Jenn, a.k.a. TDC Kira, Official Animal Interpreter, Trainer of all Disney Horses, and Stuffed Animal Hugability Tester - The author's beautiful bride. She's younger and cuter than the author, and was last inside the MK in 1992. She's a former TDS CM and she puts the "tic" back into Disney Fanatic. She lived in Colorado her whole life until this spring when she moved to the Tampa Bay Area.

Background:

My only WDW experience is one week in 1990 with my high school band for Magic Music Days. Jenn spent a few days there with her family in 1992, and since has had a couple of day trips to Epcot over the years when visiting her aunt in Florida. Jenn and I have been able to visit Disneyland together nearly every year since 1997. We really wanted a WDW Honeymoon in 2000, but funds did not allow it, and we've been dreaming of a WDW vacation ever since. Since moving to Florida this year, we haven't been able to afford Annual Passes yet, but have made many many trips to the WDW Resort to have fun in the Resorts, DTD, and the Boardwalk area. As an early Christmas present to ourselves, we bought tickets for MVMCP.

 Pre-Trip

Hey Gang!

Andy here, with a belated update on my family's move from Colorado to Florida. I'm sure not many of you remember our adventure, so I'll keep it brief.

Recap: Back at the end of March of this year, my wife Jenn moved to the Tampa Bay area for a new job. At the beginning of July I finally followed her down there, bringing our 2 cats and rabbit. For more details feel free to go to groups.google.com and do a search.

Long story short... I'm still looking for an engineering job, but am gainfully employed as a telephone sales associate (please don't hate me, I promise I won't call you during dinner, I strictly handle inbound calls). Anyway, now that we've both been employed for a while, we're able to add some things back into our lives, like Internet access. So I do plan to participate in RADP again.

We still can't afford park passes right now, but we do get over to WDW at least once a month and spend some quality time touring the hotels on property and DTD.

But... we did splurge and get tickets to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party!!! We're going this Sunday, the 5th. We'll start the day with brunch at Cape May, maybe do some miniature golf, then WE'RE GOING TO THE MAGIC KINGDOM!!! WOO HOO!!!

Sorry. Got a little excited there. It's been nearly 14 years since I was last there, and over 12 for Jenn. Being so close to WDW, but not being able to walk down Main Street USA and up to Cindy's Castle has been rough on us.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for all of your notes of encouragement. It's been a rough year, not much has gone as planned, but we love living down here in Florida (today was a *cold* day according to the locals, I was comfortable in shorts) and with any luck, we'll be card carrying WDW AP holders real soon. :-)

 December 5, 2004 - Sunday

Note this trip report was originally posted to RADP in three parts. Each part is separated by the Mickeys...

°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°

Our tale really begins with the adventure of getting Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party tickets by paying with cash and without leaving the Tampa Bay area. But that's still a sore subject so lets just skip it. Okay... I will tell you that it involves some major confusion due to the fact that when the CRO CM said "Belz Outlet" we heard "Bealls Outlet". Oh, and there was a very long drive to DTD and back *after* a very long day at work. We really need to get one of those pre-paid credit cards... but that's another rec.arts.disney.parks thread. Really. Go look it up. :-)

Our plans for Sunday were originally to get from the Tampa Bay Area to WDW in time for a PS at Cape May for a character breakfast, but that didn't exactly happen. Jenn had a rough night Saturday night due to her asthma acting up, so neither of us got much sleep. So we slept in, and grabbed a filling Perkins breakfast before hitting the road to WDW. We missed seeing Goofy in his swimsuit, but saved a bunch of cash on the meal. So tell me, how is the Cape May breakfast? Did we miss much?

We arrived at DTD near 1:30. Had a nice stroll around the Marketplace enjoying the holiday music and decorations. It's weird, I still feel like this whole WDW thing is new and exciting, but I'm realizing that everything outside the parks is now in my comfort zone. This hit me when I found myself giving directions to strangers in DTD. There's this really stupid sign less than 100 steps from the entrance to Planet Hollywood that tells you to go to the right and go through Pleasure Island to get to the West Side (You see it when you come from the parking lot toward the sidewalk, between PH and PI. Anyway, this couple read the sign, and headed to the right, and I told them that the sign was wrong and showed them the light. It felt cool.

So after a nice spin though the Marketplace, we took a bus over to AKL. A couple of weeks ago we saw most of the Deluxe Resorts with all of their Christmas decorations up, but not AKL. So that was on our to do list. Turns out it didn't have to be. The tree is nice and all, fits the theming of the hotel wonderfully. Just didn't have any "wow" factor for us. But hey, we got to see some cool animals that I fully intend to learn the names of some day. You know, like those stripey horses, and those really tall ones with the spots.

By now we're getting some serious munchies, so we hem and haw for a while, and finally choose to head back to where we started for some food... DTD. Bad choice again. Well, more bad timing really. After a delightful wait at the bus stop that involved a tortoise that could really book it through the bushes, we boarded the WDW bus of death. Our bus driver was really something else. By that I mean that he clearly was not intended to ever be a bus driver. He barreled out of AKL and 3 of us in the back of the bus honestly thought he was going to break through the security gate because he never slowed down. On our trip from AKL to DTD, I stopped counting "curb hops" at 12. The careful reader my be saying to herself "wait, there aren't 12 turns between AKL and DTD". It does when your demolition derby driver takes you through the Coronado Springs Resort and stops at all of the stops there. Do any of you remember the Seinfeld episode where Cramer creates "luxury lanes" on the highway so that drivers could have two whole lanes to themselves? No? Well our driver sure does! Most of the way from Coronado Springs to the MGM entrance our bus was in both the left and middle lanes. I know this wasn't just some false perspective thing because a WDW delivery truck was honking at us repeatedly. More than one of us passengers white knuckling it at the back of the bus made a comment along the lines of "gee, I sure would like to get his name so I can report him, but I'm just going to run for my life as soon as we stop at DTD!" And we did!

At DTD Jenn and I strolled into the Wetzel's Pretzels/Haagen Dazs. After much debate ("I don't know, what do you want?" x100) we ended up splitting a "Rocky Road Dazzler". Pretty much death by chocolate with nuts and itsy bitsy marsh mallows. We enjoyed it, but couldn't finish it.

From there we ventured off to Fort Wilderness to check out holiday decorations at people's camp sites. But by the time we were aboard a FW bus headed for the Settlement, it was already 4:45 and we wanted to get to MK as close to 5:00 as possible. So we enjoyed the campsite decorations from the bus.

By now Jenn and I are just shaking and twitching with excitement, we're so excited to be actually going inside the MK! We practically skipped from the Settlement bus stop to the boat dock. Luckily we got a great seat in the bow of the boat over to the MK. This allowed us to really annoy the people around us with endless shouts of "There it IS! Cindy's Castle!!!" and the like.

By the time we bounced off the boat and ran up the slope to the security (sic) checkpoint, I wasn't quite sure than Jenn would actually stop for the security guards. But she did, and next thing we knew, we were stepping through the turnstiles of the Magic Kingdom.

Well, Gang... it's past my bed time. Tune-in next time for more details of our trip to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party.

°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°

Lets see... we last left our excited explorers as they passed through the turnstiles to the MK for the first time in over ten years. Jenny bounced her way through the tunnel under the train tracks, dragging me alone behind her. Now, don't get the impression that I was being reluctant or anything like that. I just prefer to savor the moment and take it all in. Jenn is more from the "let's go, Let's Go, LET'S GO!!!" school of thought. Somehow in the middle of all of that bouncing and dragging, she still managed to pick up the requisite three park maps on our way through (that would be one map for me, one for her, and one that must not get molested in any way because it's for the scrapbook).

[She says: Actually all three of the maps will end up in the scrapbook. :-)]

We soon emerged from the tunnel and I discovered the source of her urgency. There was a delightful singing and dancing number being performed up on the train station, high above Town Square. While Jenn bounced up and down and sang along, I snuck away under the train station (which altogether is a very weird thing to do for this California native) to flirt with the cute CM behind the counter and fill out various loan application forms for a rather ugly little brass key with a horrible orange plastic knob on the end of it. I mean really, for $7 (minus $2 if you return the key) the stinkin' key should at least be Disney themed, and not remind you of every trashy bus station locker in the continental US. Anyway... after stuffing our backpack with sweatshirts and various medical items (in case Jenn's asthma acts up) into the locker, I headed back out to Town Square to join Jenn who was dancing and singing and all teary eyed, and generally looking happier than I had seen her in a very long time. :-)

After the Delightful Singing and Dancing Number finished, we had a truly magical stroll down the right side of Main Street USA (being the end of the day for the park, Guest Control had all exiting guests heading down the left/west side of the street and guests entering for MVMCP heading up the right/east side). Being DisneyLAND regulars, we thoroughly enjoyed and celebrated all of the differences in WDW's MSUSA (except, of course, the Cinema). I couldn't get over how much taller the buildings are. And I love how everything seems so much the same, yet very different, all at the same time. When we got to the hub, I was amazed at two things: The sheer size of the hub, and the barren surface of it. What the heck happened to the trees?!?! I mean, there were trees there, right? I'm sure the removal of the trees makes for better viewing of the fireworks and the shows on the castle forecourt, but for me, it just takes the hub right out of the theming of Main Street. At Disneyland, the hub always felt every bit a part of Main Street, not so at WDW, and I missed that. But that's okay, we're going to celebrate the differences, right? :-)

Soon we were taking the requisite pictures of the Partner's Statue and Cindy's flippin' HUGE castle. Then we were off to Tomorrowland. I don't know if all MVMCP guests were herded this way or not (it sure seemed like it do to the crowds in there!!!) but we were the most excited about seeing Stitch's Great Escape (Jenn) and Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin (Me). After much "Oooing" and "Ahhing" at the the wonderful futuristic theming of Tomorrowland (what a novel idea!) we needed to go on an attraction, and fast! Stitch had quite a line, so we ran into Buzz. BLSRS was literally a walk-on. We had more fun than any reasonable adults should (good thing we're not reasonable adults). What a hoot! I scored something near 270,000. I thought the back of the robot's hand was worth 100,000, but it was only giving me 10,000. I'll have to study up on those 100,000 point targets before next time. Jenn scored about 28,000. In her defense, we didn't make sure she could see her laser dot and get that all settled before we were in the room shooting evil robots, so she was very much at a disadvantage for the first half of the ride.

From Buzz we went over to Carousel of Progress. CoP and Timekeeper are my top priorities in MK because I have never seen them, and I'm afraid that they'll have a date with a Mickey Mouse shaped wrecking ball before I do get to see them. When we went into Buzz, I was excited to see across the way that CoP was spinning! But, when we got there, it was closed down for the night. :-(

Next I insisted that we go get our family picture taken. I'd read that the sooner you get that done, the better, because the lines get ugly later. We walked into the Circle Vision/Timekeeper theater to find only about 1/4 of it occupied with guests waiting in line. Before we knew it, we were back out in Tomorrowland. Hmmm... that picture should arrive any day now!

Now Tomorrowland was really starting to get filled with people. Since so much had changed since the last time either of us had been there (can you say "Delta's Dreamflight?"), we thought a trip on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority would be nice. And it was. :-) As we passed the Galaxy Palace Theater, the first showing of Mickey's "Twas the Night Before Christmas" Show was in full swing and SWMBO proclaimed that we would go see the next showing.

[She Says: I had already told him that we were going to go to the show. And he whined about not wanting to spend the night going to the stage shows.]

While on the TTA, I noticed that the hoards of party goers had yet to congest the area near Space Mountain, so I thought that would be a nice attraction to go on next. On our way over there, Jenn needed to use the little princess's room. While she took care of that, I had a nice sit on a nearby bench, and soon found myself chatting with a charming fellow from Britain. I mentioned that Jenn and I have always wanted to visit England and Scotland, especially Jenn, since she has Scottish roots that she'd love to trace. My English friend found this fascinating, and shared a story with me. It turns out that he's a descendant of William Tell, and he and his family have spent years and years tracing the family history. One of the interesting bits of trivia that they stumbled upon was that while the Tell family did not invent the sport of Ten Pin Bowling, they were some of the very first to participate. In fact, they have some evidence that they played in the very first bowling league. Having once been an avid bowler, I asked what the name of their team was. Alas, that's the one piece of the puzzle that is still missing, and to this day nobody knows for whom the Tells bowled. (with apologies to the memory of the greatest Trip Report writer ever, da Old Troll)

[She Says: I think da Old Troll would be proud. :-)]

As we entered the queue for Space Mountain, there was not another guest within sight, yet the sign said it was 15 minutes from this point. You WDW regulars can stop laughing at us rookies now! It never occurred to us that any attraction could be both a walk-on AND a 15 minute wait at the same time! Does that bloody queue *ever* end??? Half way through I started singing Dory's lines from Nemo, "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming..." 'til Jenn smacked me. One of these days I'll have to count paces and see which queue is longer, Space Mountain in WDW, or Indy at DL. So anyway... SM was a walk-on, and Jenn was starting to freak out. She is a certified Ride Chicken (tm). She'd heard somewhere that the Space Mountain in Paris has a loop in it, but managed to forget the Paris part. As we're about to board she won't stop asking me if this one has the loop in it. I finally convince her that it's the crazy French people who added the loop, not the nice friendly Florida people. Still, I thought she was going to have a complete breakdown as our car went through the launch tunnel. I don't think she relaxed until nearly half way through the ride. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I love Space Mountain. The best part is the darkness and not knowing what's going to happen next. In California, I've ridden SM countless times in over 20 years, so I know every dip, bump, and turn like the back of my hand. So riding a SM with a track layout that is new to me was a blast! :-)

Now Jenny started to make some noises about being hungry. So we ambled on over to Cosmic Ray's to see what they had to offer. I'm happy with burgers and fries, so the menu looked good to me. Besides, I'd never seen Sonny Eclipse, and I wanted to catch his show. Jenn wanted pasta. So we popped into the dining room and took some pics of Sonny doing his thing. Next time we'll have to sit and catch his whole act, it looks like fun.

Rather than head out of Tomorrowland to find pasta, SWMBO declared that we'd go over to the Galaxy Palace Theater and wait for the 7:15 show. Can you believe how much we've already done (and how much I've typed!) and MVMCP hasn't even officially started yet??? So we arrived at about 6:55 and got okay seats near the back corner. Jenny really enjoyed the show, especially the ballet dancing bears (Baloo, and two from Country Bear Jamboree). I enjoyed the show, and got it on video. Hopefully it turned out.

Next we headed toward Stitch's Great Escape, but the line still looked quite long, so we chose #3 on our list of latest and greatest attractions, Mickey's Philharmagic. The hub was packed with guests waiting for the first parade, so we snuck through the Rose Garden (very nice!) and up the path on the side of the castle to Fantasyland. Right behind the castle was Cinderella AND Sleeping Beauty, both with their princes. But the lines to wait and have pictures with them were very long, and I told Jenn that they would be shorter later. Oops. So we popped into Mickey's Phil. There appeared to be no wait, and we were quickly shown into the inner waiting area. There we waited, and waited, and waited. Soon a sheepish CM appeared and announced that due to technical difficulties, the show had been canceled. Grumble grumble grumble.

So off we went in search of food. Not just any food, but pasta for Jenn. In California, the Village Haus restaurant served spaghetti and lasagna at some point, so I thought we might try the Village Haus here, and maybe even sit at Julie's Monstro table. But it was not to be, the restaurant was closed, perhaps in conjunction with the year-long IASW rehab.

And so into Liberty Square we wandered, in search of food. The only open restaurant that we found was the Liberty Tree Tavern. Now, we'd love to eat dinner here some day, but without a PS, we had budgeted neither the time, nor the money for such a dinner tonight. At this point, I whipped out my MVMCP map, saw that Tony's Town Square was one of the restaurants open during the party.

It is amazing how different, yet similar Disneyland and WDW's Magic Kingdom are. Despite the throngs of people crowding Main Street waiting for the parade that was only minutes away from starting, and despite being a WDW rookie, I was able to expertly navigate a path from the porch of the Liberty Tree Tavern, past the Chrystal Palace, through the shops on the west side of the street, around Town Square to our locker to grab our sweatshirts, and finally arrive at Tony's with no trouble at all. But... Tony's was closed. It was now 8:10 and they stopped serving at 8:00. Excuse me!!! This party runs officially from 7:00 to 12:00, and to quote the MVMCP map "For full service dining, try Tony's Town Square Restaurant in Town Square or Liberty Tree Tavern in Liberty Square." Not a happy camper.

Tired of running hither and fro looking for food, and now quite hungry myself, HWMBO made a very rare appearance and declared that we would dine at Pecos Bill's, taking full advantage of the fabulous fixin's bar, and we would enjoy it, or else! So we retraced our steps around Town Square and up Main street and shot through Adventureland. It was nice to see the Robinson's Tree House again, but even though I knew it would be closed, I was disappointed to not hear the Swiss-ka-polka playing. That corner of Adventureland at DL just isn't the same since Tarzan evicted the Robinson's. On the north side of the flying carpets (watch out for the camels, they spit!) we paused to watch a couple of Country Bears dance to the music, then Jenn took my picture with them.

Next thing we knew, we were standing in line at Pecos Bill's. I opted for the double bacon cheeseburger with fries, Jenn got the single with fries, and we split a large coke. $20 poorer, we took our food over to the much praised fixin's bar. Holy Cow! What a fixin's bar!!! I grabbed lettuce, onions, catchup, mustard and relish (yes, I relish my burgers). Jenn partook of the sauteed fungus and onions, lettuce, tomato, catchup, mustard, and mayo. That electronic condiment thing takes some getting used to. I'm glad I went first. Jenn is a minimalist when it comes to condiments, and the phrase "too much catchup" is foreign to me. I shoved my bun top under the machine, and held down the catchup button. Next thing I knew, my bun was covered with enough catchup to choke a small horse. Being gun shy, I then spent the next 2 minutes adding mustard one drop at a time out of fear of flooding the whole building with yellow goo should I accidentally hold the button down too long. Jenn seemed impressed with my single drop technique, as she requested that I prepare her bun top for her. It only took about 30 seconds for me to provide her with three drops each of catchup, mustard, and mayo.

Anyway, flooding condiments not withstanding, the burgers were fabulous! Hands down the best counter service meal I've ever had at a Disney park. Yum, yum, yum.

[She Says: He forgot about the YUMMY nacho cheese sauce for the fries!!!]

Well, I suppose that's enough for now. Stay tuned for the next installment where our dashing hero is fondled by a princess, and our darling heroine screams like a little girl on Pirates!

°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°

Okay... we last left our happy park goers in Pecos Bill's munching on wonderful burgers and yummy cheese fries. When dinner was over, the first parade was still going (it should have been long over, but it was significantly delayed due to a medical emergency on Town Square. The only reason we know this is because in our travels to and from Town Square we saw at least two teams of EMTs heading into the parade route.) so we pretty much were stuck in Adventureland. Let's see... Tiki Room was closed, Tree House was closed, Jungle Cruise was closed, that left the carpets and... PIRATES!!! :-)

I love PotC. It embodies everything that is a Disney park to me. Growing up in Southern California and visiting Disneyland quite often, PotC was always a family must do. And it still is. Only, there's one small problem. Jenn is a ride chicken. She hates loops and drops. No, she doesn't really hate them, she's just simply terrified by them. She absolutely loves everything about PotC, except the drop(s). Now I realize that many of you reading this have never been on the original version in California. That's the one that Jenn and I are familiar with, and it has two drops in it, and both of them are many times larger than the puny little token of a drop that is here in Florida.

So anyway, PotC was a walk-on, and the whole way through the queue, I'm trying to convince Jenn that in this version, there's only one drop, and it's teeny tiny. Long story short, she wasn't buying it. On top of things, the CM didn't load our boat properly. He put three adults each in rows 1 and 2, and then Jenn and I in row 3, and then two adults in row 6. We were a little bow heavy, and this had Jenn even more freaked out. Maybe she thought that would make the boat completely submerge at the bottom of the GIANT DROP OF DEATH. I don't know. Anyway, way cool queue theming aside, I so way missed the cool bayou scene and drifting past the Bleu Bayou restaurant. And right away we're hearing "Dead men tell no tales!" and there's the drop! No kidding or exaggerating here, Jenn's scream lasted at least 2 times if not 3 times as long as the drop did. I don't think the drop was even one whole boat length long. So the conclusion of Jenn's scream was met with odd looks from our boat mates, and a host of "I told you so's" from me. :-) Next thing I knew, we were in the big room with the pirate ship and the canon battle. Good god, did Jenn scream through all of the cool cavern scenes too, and we missed them? What's that you say? WDW doesn't *have* the cool cavern scenes? Pity.

The rest of the ride was just as we remembered. Jenn and I together earned strange looks from our boat mates when we hollered out "We wants the REDHEAD!!!" in time with the pirates. And we generally had a great time singing along with the show. :-) I found the final scene rather odd. You know, the one with the pirates holding the military types captive. Why wasn't that room burning down, and why didn't the pirates help their buddies out of the jail cell? It's just across the way. Maybe it has something to do with the Pirate Code. [shrug]

From PotC we scurried through Adventureland (watch out for the camels, they spit!)(yeah, I looked up at a camel just in time to get hit right in the eye)(a terrific achievment considering that I wear glasses) to Main Street to take in the special Christmas Wishes fireworks show. We arrived and procured a magnificent spot right in the middle of the street, under the last overhead garland on the hub end of the street. And we were just in time for the nice lady on the PA to announce that because the first parade was delayed, the fireworks were going to be delayed. Harumph! So, off into the stores to browse. Jenn and I had a great time looking at all of the neat women's clothes in the Disney Clothiers. I tried to convince her that she'd look hot in the cheerleader outfits in there, but she didn't exactly agree.

Next thing we knew, the nice lady on the PA was giving us the five minute warning for the fireworks. So we ambled on out to the middle of the street again, I fired up the ol' video camera again, and we enjoyed the wonderful fireworks show. It's a darned good show. I think we both like the Believe show in California better, but this is still a heck of a fireworks show. :-)

After the fireworks we wandered into The Plaza Pavilion for some free hot chocolate and cookies. We each got a cup of hot hot hot cocoa and two super yummy snickerdoodles. A nearby table found us, so we sat down to enjoy our snack, rest a bit, and plan out the rest of the night. Soon Jenn found herself needing to use the little princesses room again, so I stayed put while she did that. While waiting, I struck up a conversation with the fellow saving the next table for his family. I know, I know, I shouldn't associate with the sort of people who save tables, but there were plenty of available tables, and besides, it's not like he was breast feeding in public or anything. ;-) Anyway, he asked me if I'd tried any of the golf courses on property, because he'd just played the most amazing round earlier today. I admitted that the only time I've played golf on a course that didn't have a windmill or a volcano was one time in California. But I did tell him that I am quite familiar with the game since my grandfather is an avid golfer. So he goes on to tell me about this amazing round of his, and he shared his favorite golf tip. You see, he keeps a small bag of pennies in his golf bag. When he's faced with a tough putt, he takes out a penny, makes a wish (naturally, to sink the putt) and tosses the penny into the nearest water hazard. Well, today he had an approach shot that left his ball on the green, but about 25 feet from the hole, across a rolling green. Now making a 25 foot putt on a flat green is hard enough, and he really needed this putt to go in so he could make par for the hole. So he takes out a penny, makes a wish, but there's no water around. The nearest water is back down the fairway a good ways. So this guy makes his wish again, takes a running start, and throws the penny toward the pond with all his might. He and his golfing partners are all amazed to see the splash as the penny lands in the water. "Wow, that's amazing!" I said, "So did you make the putt?" He replied "Of course! Everybody knows that when you wish upon a par, your greens run true!"

From here we set off to Tomorrowland to help Stitch escape from the evil Federation. This proved to be problematic for the resident ride chicken. You see, Jenn loves Stitch. He's her favorite Disney character (and I bet Lilo is in second place), but she has issues with dark rides. I tried my best to assure her that while this attraction wasn't exactly kid friendly and mother approved, still, she would be okay. We were lucky, and didn't have much of a wait. The pre-pre-show on the video monitors was very entertaining, two thumbs up. The pre-show was alright. I didn't find myself laughing out loud, but it wasn't disjointed like I'd heard it described on RADP.

Now, is this pre-show what's commonly referred to as the "Skippy Scene"? I never had a chance to see Alien Encounter, so could someone clue me in to what the "Skippy Scene" was? I imagine that the main show was similar to the Stitch version, only less laughing and more screaming, right.

Anyway, I loved the main part of the attraction. I thought it was well done. I was laughing my head off. They really captured the essence of Stitch, I think. I can't wait to go on it again. And if anyone knows where they got that chili-dog-breath smell, DON'T EVER TELL ME! That's one secret I *don't* want to know! :-)

We did have a couple of screaming kids that had to be extricated. That spoiled the mood quite a bit. I think that Disney did drop the ball here. I knew that there were signs for parents warning that this attraction has periods of total darkness and therefor isn't suitable for all children (thanks to RADP), and I was looking for these signs, and I totally missed them. Jenn told me that she saw an A-frame sign standing near the queue entrance. I must have missed it because my eyes were focused up toward the Fastpass clocks, and not down at the ground. Pretty sad if I'm looking for the signs and I miss them. If I were an imagineer (hint, hint, hint... c'mon Casting Department, I know you're reading) I'd add a warning into the pre-pre-show video and provide and easy way for parents and little ones to easily exit before anyone wets their pants. I'd also add some red rotating emergency lights during the total darkness parts. This would eliminate the total darkness, and I don't think it would spoil the show/effect at all. Or maybe just add a six foot tall flashing neon sign that says "Look Parents, if your kid can't handle Space Mountain, then they can't handle this attraction. Turn around now, leave quietly, and go ride Buzz again." Thoughts?

Once we left Stitch ("Bouncy, bouncy!" LOL) it was time for the second parade. I'd read online that for the second run you could just walk up and get great seats at the last minute. Not so. The parade was already heading down Main Street, and the hub was packed tight with waiting guests. So we scooted around behind the castle to grab a spot in Liberty Square. Nope, also packed. So we kept bobbing along downstream until we found a nice spot in Frontierland, right across from the entrance to the Country Bears. Not a bad spot for watching, but really bad for photography. You see, it's a night parade, and there were no flood lights behind us. There was a big back of floods across the way, so everything was pretty much back lit. The naked eye can mostly compensate, but I'm afraid to look at the video I shot, it can't be too good. The parade was a lot of fun. I was amazed at the precision of the Toy Soldiers, they were excellent. Jenn loves the dancing reindeer with their tongues hanging out.

Following the parade, we made our way back to Fantasyland to get some pics with the princesses and princes. Sadly only Aurora and Phillip were still out greeting the masses. After a rather long wait in a short line (Aurora was doing an exceptional job of interacting with all of the children) it was soon our turn. Jenn sidled up to Prince Phillip, and I stood next to Princess Aurora. Next thing I knew, she had her arm around my waist and pulled me in good and close. Can you believe it, right there in front of her own prince and everybody, she blatantly fondled my well, er... I guess the best way to put it is "love handle". Oh, please, you can stop booing now. I promised you some royal fondling to get you to read this third installment, so I had to deliver *something*! ;-) Okay, seriously, I was impressed with the princess. The whole time we were posing and waiting for the Zoo Crew CM to take our picture Aurora was chatting away with me making small talk just like the perfect princess that she is.

From the photo-op we walked the 20 steps over to Mikey's Phil to give it a second chance. We were soon rewarded with not only a working theater, but also an incredible movie! Definitely four thumbs up! (that would be 2 from me and 2 from Jenn, for those keeping count at home) I was blown away by the quality of the animation, the fun fun fun story, and especially the wrap-around screen segment. Another attraction that I can't wait to go on again.

As we left Mickey's Phil, the clock was starting to strike 12. Jenn was desperate to see the "Celebrate the Season" show on the castle forecourt. So we sprinted around the side of the castle to the hub and caught all but the very beginning of this song and dance show. This show didn't really do much for me. I don't know, maybe my feet were just too tired at this point.

By this point, Jenn and I were just plain pooped. I think we were both a little under the weather that day, on top of Jenn's asthma flaring up that weekend. Thankfully she didn't have an attack at all while we were at WDW. That was a blessing. I hope we're both feeling better on Christmas day when we plan to be at Epcot from open to close. Anyway, we slowly strolled down Main Street, stopping here and there to browse and purchase the requisite souvineir, a MVMCP tree ornament. Soon we were collecting our backpack from the locker and returning our ugly orange key for the $2 deposit.

It was 1:30 by the time we got in our car, and thankfully there was no traffic on the way home, so we were home by 3:00. And somehow we both made it to work on time the next morning. :-)

Overall, I had a great day at WDW, and a blast at MVMCP. I'm actually glad that Jenn made me stop and watch a few of the holiday shows. That's really what MVMCP is all about. At the time, I would have much rather spent the time going on attractions that I've wanted to see for years and years, like Splash Mountain and the Haunted Mansion... sure they have those attractions in California, but they're slightly different. And those attractions will be there the next time we go, while the Christmas Party only happens once a year.

°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°o°

Well, there you have it. Hope you enjoyed the show.