Our group- WMG, CIG, Michael G, EIG and friend Joey via Australia and China, all
the Leesa Gregory family, all the Witty Evarts family from San Rafael via Richmond, and then
meeting up with Angie Suarez and her children, Margarita and Juan Jose from Bogota Colombia. Total
16
Dec 28- uneventful flight, children switched rooms
creating big confusion for the whole time. Disney and I never knew who was the
right person for each room, and later when people started switching what parks
they were visiting we ended up short on admission passes for the last day.
Angie and I had to try 3 times each to get into Epcot.
Rooms at the Boardwalk Inn were not ready. We went to
lunch together at the Big River Brewing Company and then waited around until
the rooms became available. Jill's suite only opened at 5 or so, but we got comped $200. Michael
actually wasn't here the first day until late. He met Bill Ross the director and did some
sort of strange Doris and Rita thing around Orlando and at Medieval Times. The
rest had a way too fancy dinner at The Flying Fish right on the boardwalk.
Dec 29- Magic Kingdom day, kind of cloudy and drizzly all
day. We hit all the "lands". It is still a Small World after all. Thomas was a little scared of Pirates of the Caribbean. For some reason Jack Sparrow now looks like Johnny Depp. Carousel of Progress is the same except it has added progress to flat screen TVs. It still looks dated. It was
a big night for pro football so we could not get a place at any
restaurant for dinner so most just had in room dining.
Dec 30- Animal Kingdom day including the safari ride and
the Lion King show. B and C had met a Disney intern from an arts college who
actually was one of the performers in the Lion King. Animal Kingdom day was on
again, off again sun and clouds and was jam packed with people. It was hard to
move about the park when one of the big shows was letting out.
Dec 31- Legoland day, kind of cool and cloudy. I liked
this park the best because of the life size figures made of Legos, the lack of
such a huge crowd, and the Lego model cities- NY, Las Vegas, DC etc. The pirate
show was also good because of the waterskiing. This was the day Thomas and Juan
bonded when Leesa bought them matching swords as a reward for going on a
coaster ride. Sword fights all day long from that point on. 45 minutes from Disney World. We got back in time to go to dinner
at the steak house across the lake at the Yacht Club resort. A quiet New Year
celebration for us doing light baby sitting while the others went out for a
while.
This Jeep is made all of Legos.
Jan 1- Universal
Studios day, rainy. I never quite understood the layout of this park and
it turns out there are 2 parks on different tickets. Angie and her family went
to the one with Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, and Harry Potter, while we went
to the one with Bart Simpson, Men in Black, and Despicable Me. There is another
side of the pond where we were that we really never got to visit. It is a life scale model of New York in the 1920s and had an Olive Oil Shop with M. Corleone as proprietor. The best
parts were an animal show and a ball shooting place where Thomas got to use me
as the target. We all split up for dinner.
Jan 2- Day off and then Downtown Disney, sun in the
morning, rain in the afternoon. Some had a good couple of rounds of Fantasia
mini golf. The main thing we did was to go to the five story arcade. I got
stung by a bee inside the restaurant where we bought lunch. Dinner at Olivia's
at the Key West timeshare resort. We were pretty noisy but no one seemed to mind.
Jan 3- EPCOT on a freezing cold day. Angie's daughter said
she had never been so cold. It as about 45 with some wind, and Margarita, while
living at 7500 feet, had not seen such a temp since Bogota is also on the
equator. We went to Captain Eo with Michael Jackson and Angelica Huston from 1986, Finding Nemo, and Fast Track among other
things. At night we gave up our reservations for dinner and had room service-
the cheapest group meal of the trip.
It will be nice to be away from screaming children (not
ours) and the manic energy and constant noise of DW when we get back.
This link actually works:
