idratherbeinwdw
02-03-2006, 05:59 PM
As planned I got up early to make it to the MK before it opened. I was at the busstop about 7:45, the MK was due to open at 9. I was taking my time, as I knew I had plenty of extra time to get there. Amazingly as I approached the busstop an MK bus pulled up at that exact second. Don't you love it when your timing is perfect? There were a number of folks already at the stop, so I waited for them to get up to board the bus. To my surprise, no one budged. I was the only one on the way to the MK from BWV at that time. So I boarded, and expected the bus to stop at Swan and Dolphin, as it usually does the resorts in that order. But again I was surprised, they had stopped there already, and we were off to the MK! I got there super early, about 8:15. There were about 20 people lined up at the right hand turnstyles, but none on the left. So I walked over to the left one, and for the first time EVER I was first on line for the MK. I got to talking to a really friendly CM, and among other things she told me how they keep the cm's from fainting on hot days when they are in a character costume. She said they wrap cold towels around them, and that they are only allowed to be out there for 15 minutes maximum. Then they take them to an area where they remove the costume and spray them with cold water immediately.
I was about to ask her to take my pic so I could have a "first in line at the MK shot", but then someone walked over to her and said "We are going to open early, get the turnstyle ready". So by 8:30 we were let in to the waiting area just outside the MK entrance. At 8:45 they cm's appeared on the railroad station singing the "Good Morning" song, and were soon joined by Mickey, Minnie, Mad Hatter, Alice, and Pluto. http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a221/idratherbeinwdw/Img_0621.jpgThe family of the day were introduced, and soon we were counting backwards from 10 to "open" the MK. BTW weather was great, 70's, low humidity, blue skies.
I was right up front and I really like taking shots of the MK when it's empty, so I took a bunch of pics of the castle with no one there to "spoil" the view. http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a221/idratherbeinwdw/castle.jpgThen I went to the ride that I knew would have the longest lines later that I liked best, Peter Pan's flight. Rode 3 times in succession, the cm let me stay on without getting off and going around. I am not a coaster person, so I didn't worry about lines at BTMM or Space mtn (splash mtn was being rehabbed, but i don't do that one either).
Once I was done with Peter, none of the other attractions I liked have long lines, so I took my time after that. The park had emh the day before, and I find that usually the emh park is the least crowded the following day, and this was no exception. Even after riding peter 3 times when I walked over to the HM and looked at the Frontierland area, there was virtually no one there. http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a221/idratherbeinwdw/Frontier.jpgSnapped a few photos and then went on HM. It was so empty it was just me and one other couple in the stretch room. So of course I had to do that 3 times too.
Next I did POTC, Philharmagic, IASM, COP (buzz was being rehabbed, darn it!) There were no lines anywhere, and the park was very uncrowded. Finished going on what I wanted to, time to do some browsing at the Emporium! They were doing "right in the middle of main street" as I walked into the emporium, stopped to watch that for a bit.http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a221/idratherbeinwdw/main.jpg I didn't buy anything yet, but kept a few things in mind for later in the trip.
Now it was about noon, time for my midday break. I really had phenomenal luck with transportation this trip, and this was no exception. I waited about 2 minutes and up pulled the BW bus. I assumed we'd stop at Swan/Dolphin since normally the route back is the reverse of the route in, but luck was with me! Right to BWV we went! First I stopped at the pool bar (leapin libations) and picked up their extremely tasty version of a pina colada. It's called a Roller Coaster Meltdown and is made with pina colada mix, ice, and coconut rum, all blended and then topped with dark rum. I am not much of a drinker, but mmmm those are SOOOOOOOOOOO good!
I took my drink back to the villa with me and made myself some lunch to go with it. Took everything out to the balcony and sat and ate lunch and drank the RCM.
Then I went back inside for some a/c and watched the new channel for a bit, the vacation secrets one (not anything I didn't already know, more geared towards newbies), and also watched the one with top ten attractions. I HATE the perky phony (to me) girl on that top 10 channel, ughhhh! So, although I do enjoy watching the scenes of the rides I couldn't watch that too long. Also I find that "top 10" often means the things WDW wants you to go to. NO ONE can tell me stitch is top ten and I have seen that there on past trips. I am not sure if all the resorts have channel 96, but that's the one I watch most often. It has a loop of old classic Disney cartoons, my favorite being Lambert the Sheepish Lion. OK, sing with me now: "Lambert. the sheepish lion, Lambert is always tryin to be a wild and wooly sheep, Lambert the sheepish lion".
2:10 PM time to walk back for the 2:30 Off Kilter performance! And YAY as promised, Jamie was back. http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a221/idratherbeinwdw/Jamie.jpgThey did a great show as usual. http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a221/idratherbeinwdw/jm.jpgI had on my "off kilter rocks" babydoll shirt, and figured they'd have to honor my request since I was doing free advertising for them! In actuality they'd do it anyway, but it's fun to get all the comments about how much they like me wearing "their" shirt. They have a new cd, and I was dying to hear them play one of the tunes, called Green Fields of France. It's a fairly well known Irish Ballad, some of you may have heard of it. MUCH to my chagrin they said they hadn't rehearsed it enough, and wouldn't be able to play it!! I was like "It;s on your new cd and you don't know how to play it??" They said if I was going to be around for a week or so they'd practice it, but they were not prepared to play it that week.Totally shocked me, as they had never turned down a request of mine before. I recovered nicely and asked for my second favorite from that cd, one more of you may know, as it's quite famous, Loch Lomand (The bonnie bonnie shores of Loch Lomand). They cheerily agreed to play it at the next show.
I walked over to future world and did SE, wandered about mousegear and stopped at Imageworks to send a photo pic to my kids and my guy. Back to the OK stage for the 4PM show. They did Loch Lomond second, saying it was a request and pointing to me to indicate I was the requester. And let me tell you, they did the most SMOKIN' version of Loch Lomond, better than the cd even. I was blown away and so pleased! That show was the best of the shows I saw the whole time I was there. So you don't have to count; LOL, I will tell you that out of 20 possible shows I saw 15. All were good, but this was the only day (as you will see later in the report) that all 5 of the original members were there with no replacements. And of the shows I saw that day (3 out of 5 since I had to miss the final two to make it to spectromagic), this one was the highlight.
I had an hour to kill between shows, and believe it or not I walked back to the room for a little bit and relaxed. http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a221/idratherbeinwdw/maroom.jpgThis is one of the things I adore about BWV, being able to go back "home" and sit in the villa and enjoy it with just a five minute walk to get there. Back to OK for the 5:30 show, and then walked through to the monorail to go to Spectro, which was starting at 7. My timing was still great, about a 3 minute wait for the monorail, and in spite of at least 50 people getting on ahead of me, NONE had asked for the front! So I got the front to myself, that was another first for me! (done it with family and friends alone, but never solo). I got to the TTC, visited my walk around the world brick (it's a tradition, LOL) and then headed to the MK monorail. And amazingly again, there it was, no wait at all! Even with the brick visit and taking my time, I was in the MK by 6:30, having left Epcot at about 5:50.
Oops, tried to post and it said too many characters, I will have to finish this with a part 2.
I was about to ask her to take my pic so I could have a "first in line at the MK shot", but then someone walked over to her and said "We are going to open early, get the turnstyle ready". So by 8:30 we were let in to the waiting area just outside the MK entrance. At 8:45 they cm's appeared on the railroad station singing the "Good Morning" song, and were soon joined by Mickey, Minnie, Mad Hatter, Alice, and Pluto. http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a221/idratherbeinwdw/Img_0621.jpgThe family of the day were introduced, and soon we were counting backwards from 10 to "open" the MK. BTW weather was great, 70's, low humidity, blue skies.
I was right up front and I really like taking shots of the MK when it's empty, so I took a bunch of pics of the castle with no one there to "spoil" the view. http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a221/idratherbeinwdw/castle.jpgThen I went to the ride that I knew would have the longest lines later that I liked best, Peter Pan's flight. Rode 3 times in succession, the cm let me stay on without getting off and going around. I am not a coaster person, so I didn't worry about lines at BTMM or Space mtn (splash mtn was being rehabbed, but i don't do that one either).
Once I was done with Peter, none of the other attractions I liked have long lines, so I took my time after that. The park had emh the day before, and I find that usually the emh park is the least crowded the following day, and this was no exception. Even after riding peter 3 times when I walked over to the HM and looked at the Frontierland area, there was virtually no one there. http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a221/idratherbeinwdw/Frontier.jpgSnapped a few photos and then went on HM. It was so empty it was just me and one other couple in the stretch room. So of course I had to do that 3 times too.
Next I did POTC, Philharmagic, IASM, COP (buzz was being rehabbed, darn it!) There were no lines anywhere, and the park was very uncrowded. Finished going on what I wanted to, time to do some browsing at the Emporium! They were doing "right in the middle of main street" as I walked into the emporium, stopped to watch that for a bit.http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a221/idratherbeinwdw/main.jpg I didn't buy anything yet, but kept a few things in mind for later in the trip.
Now it was about noon, time for my midday break. I really had phenomenal luck with transportation this trip, and this was no exception. I waited about 2 minutes and up pulled the BW bus. I assumed we'd stop at Swan/Dolphin since normally the route back is the reverse of the route in, but luck was with me! Right to BWV we went! First I stopped at the pool bar (leapin libations) and picked up their extremely tasty version of a pina colada. It's called a Roller Coaster Meltdown and is made with pina colada mix, ice, and coconut rum, all blended and then topped with dark rum. I am not much of a drinker, but mmmm those are SOOOOOOOOOOO good!
I took my drink back to the villa with me and made myself some lunch to go with it. Took everything out to the balcony and sat and ate lunch and drank the RCM.
Then I went back inside for some a/c and watched the new channel for a bit, the vacation secrets one (not anything I didn't already know, more geared towards newbies), and also watched the one with top ten attractions. I HATE the perky phony (to me) girl on that top 10 channel, ughhhh! So, although I do enjoy watching the scenes of the rides I couldn't watch that too long. Also I find that "top 10" often means the things WDW wants you to go to. NO ONE can tell me stitch is top ten and I have seen that there on past trips. I am not sure if all the resorts have channel 96, but that's the one I watch most often. It has a loop of old classic Disney cartoons, my favorite being Lambert the Sheepish Lion. OK, sing with me now: "Lambert. the sheepish lion, Lambert is always tryin to be a wild and wooly sheep, Lambert the sheepish lion".
2:10 PM time to walk back for the 2:30 Off Kilter performance! And YAY as promised, Jamie was back. http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a221/idratherbeinwdw/Jamie.jpgThey did a great show as usual. http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a221/idratherbeinwdw/jm.jpgI had on my "off kilter rocks" babydoll shirt, and figured they'd have to honor my request since I was doing free advertising for them! In actuality they'd do it anyway, but it's fun to get all the comments about how much they like me wearing "their" shirt. They have a new cd, and I was dying to hear them play one of the tunes, called Green Fields of France. It's a fairly well known Irish Ballad, some of you may have heard of it. MUCH to my chagrin they said they hadn't rehearsed it enough, and wouldn't be able to play it!! I was like "It;s on your new cd and you don't know how to play it??" They said if I was going to be around for a week or so they'd practice it, but they were not prepared to play it that week.Totally shocked me, as they had never turned down a request of mine before. I recovered nicely and asked for my second favorite from that cd, one more of you may know, as it's quite famous, Loch Lomand (The bonnie bonnie shores of Loch Lomand). They cheerily agreed to play it at the next show.
I walked over to future world and did SE, wandered about mousegear and stopped at Imageworks to send a photo pic to my kids and my guy. Back to the OK stage for the 4PM show. They did Loch Lomond second, saying it was a request and pointing to me to indicate I was the requester. And let me tell you, they did the most SMOKIN' version of Loch Lomond, better than the cd even. I was blown away and so pleased! That show was the best of the shows I saw the whole time I was there. So you don't have to count; LOL, I will tell you that out of 20 possible shows I saw 15. All were good, but this was the only day (as you will see later in the report) that all 5 of the original members were there with no replacements. And of the shows I saw that day (3 out of 5 since I had to miss the final two to make it to spectromagic), this one was the highlight.
I had an hour to kill between shows, and believe it or not I walked back to the room for a little bit and relaxed. http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a221/idratherbeinwdw/maroom.jpgThis is one of the things I adore about BWV, being able to go back "home" and sit in the villa and enjoy it with just a five minute walk to get there. Back to OK for the 5:30 show, and then walked through to the monorail to go to Spectro, which was starting at 7. My timing was still great, about a 3 minute wait for the monorail, and in spite of at least 50 people getting on ahead of me, NONE had asked for the front! So I got the front to myself, that was another first for me! (done it with family and friends alone, but never solo). I got to the TTC, visited my walk around the world brick (it's a tradition, LOL) and then headed to the MK monorail. And amazingly again, there it was, no wait at all! Even with the brick visit and taking my time, I was in the MK by 6:30, having left Epcot at about 5:50.
Oops, tried to post and it said too many characters, I will have to finish this with a part 2.