September 10, 2008

Up again at 6, got my breakfast at Pop Food court, a cheese omelet this time. But this time, the CM at the register just gave me the certificate without any fuss. I guess the manager from yesterday spoke to her workers and told them the deluxe plan is included.

Now this is my plan for today. Get to Disney Hollywood Studios (formerly known at Disney-MGM Studios, which I call the Studios only), get fast pass for Toy Story Midway Mania, ride it, use fast pass to go back on, then walk to Epcot, get some pins for a friend, then monorail over to Magic Kingdom.

Geez, even writing that, I am tired, and you wonder why I get blisters on my feet from walking so much while there J

I make it for rope drop and watch this little show they put together as part of opening ceremonies for the park. They have a hostess, a director, cameraman, and cue card holder. They get a family and have them welcome everyone to the park that day, as they are pretending to film there.

I need to vent here a little. To get into the park, you place your ticket into a machine, it reads it, and you place your pointer or any finger on this scanner. The scanner reads something about your finger to help cut down on fraud on theme park tickets. It isn’t hard, but I always seem to be stuck behind people who forget which finger they used to get scanned, and they hold up the line.

Once the rope drops, a group of CM’s hold back the mad dash to Toy Story Midway Mania by walking quickly in front of the crowds, but not running, not allowing guests to get in front of them. I make it to the fast pass machines, and I get stuck behind someone who needs like 6 of them, so I go to another that isn’t being used. The CM at the machines tries to keep order by telling them, don’t worry, they won’t run out, but I need one that isn’t too late.

I ride it once, taking photos of the queue, and watching Don Rickles/ Mr Potato Head do his things. Lots of things to take photos of here, lots of child hood memories of toys around. My score is 127100. When finish riding it the first time, I still have 20 minutes before I can get back on, so I look for a place that sells bottle soda, so I can walk and drink later when I walk to Epcot, but everyone sells them in cups and lids, not practical for my needs. I walk about and head back to Toy Story mania and decide should I wait for my FP return time? Or just go on the normal queue? I know I don’t have enough time to ride it twice more. The standby line is a little longer, so I wait a couple of minutes for fast pass return time.

I ride it a second time, it’s just after 10 am and I am leaving the studios and heading to Epcot. My second score was 114100. I did better my first time. Like other people have stated, this attraction is hard on your arm, as you pull a string to fire your gun. I switch hands several times through the game.

On the way out, I do Sid Chuhunga Trivia Challenge. Here are the questions, will answer them in tomorrows report

1 what actor came back in time to save John Conner?

2 what actor said ‘Houston, we have a problem’?

3 what movie did Dan Akroyd say ‘we are on a mission from god’?

4 Russel Crowe won an oscar in 2000 for this movie 

5 What director brought you a ‘galaxy far far away’?

When I gave him my answers, took me a while to get #4, but I got them all. We were chatting a little, he had a question that he wanted to ask, but was deemed to hard, so here goes, In Zorro, what was Zorros horses name? Took me a while to remember Guy Madison playing the title role, calling the horses name, but I got it too J

Call me crazy, but this is what I did next J

I walked from the studios to the Boardwalk. I stopped by ‘The Screen door’. I used a snack credit and get a PowerAde, downed it quickly while waiting to take a ferry from the Boardwalk to Epcot. I walked through Epcot, stopped by the pin trading station near Spaceship Earth, bought promised pins for friend. Then I walked to the monorail to go to the Ticket/Transportation Center (TTC). At the TTC, I changed to the resort monorail at go to the Grand Floridian Café which I had a lunch time ADR for. I didn’t have enough time to do anything in the park before heading to the Grand Floridian for lunch.

For lunch at the Grand Floridian Café, I had French onion soup, New York strip steak and chocolate cake for dessert. This is definitely a nice replacement for the now closed Concourse Steakhouse.

After lunch, I took the monorail to the Contemporary to do some exploring there. I took some photos of the new building going up near the tower building from the terrace.

From there, I walked back to the Magic Kingdom to catch another boat launch to the Wilderness Lodge. Somewhere in the Wilderness Lodge are trains that belonged to Walt Disney, something I was very interesting to see and photograph. I looked around for something called ‘The Spike Room’ or something like that, but I gave up and asked the CM at the check in desk, I am looking for Walt’s trains. She said ‘the trains’ is in The Villas at Wilderness Lodge, not the hotel portion, but the timeshare part. While walking between building, which is covered, but opened on the sides, it is pouring outside. This is a part of an offshore hurricane.

I found ‘The train room’ which consists of two of his train cars, some other things from his father’s days working at the railroad, and photos of Walt with his trains.

I head back to the boat launch, when it occurs to me, are the boats running? I ask a CM, who I think is a manager at the Wilderness Lodge, she says good question and goes and makes a phone call. She returns a couple of minutes later and tells me, as long as they have visibility, they run the boats. While it is still raining, it’s not a heavy downpour like before. So I take out my rain poncho I had, unfolded it, placed the chocolate brownie I bought at the food court for a snack credit (just felt like itJ and walked to the dock. There was another boat sitting there, the CM was trying to dry the seats. I asked if the boat to the Magic Kingdom was running or not, he looks at me, says yes, and points, here is one now. People get off, but only I get on. Even the CM sees the humor of using the public address system to go through their spiel when it was only me on the boat. The CM on the boat told me there was a delay due to the weather.

It’s almost 3 pm and I decide to ride the railroad. I get on at Main Street. I just miss a train and wait the 7 minutes for another. Another train pulls in, but there is some delay, as they hold up the train due to the rain shortened parade needing to cross the tracks. I guess the 3 pm parade starts at 3 pm J

I take the train to Frontierland and get off the train, but I don’t leave the platform, which alarms the CM working the station. She says that if the train sees me at the exit, they will emergency stop the train, as they would fear I will run in front of it. I tell her I just want to video tape the train pulling into the station. She directs me to the other side of the station and allows me to wait here. While she walks me to the other side, it seems some other guests walked on the train station from the exit. She tells please, next time use the proper entrance.

After I videotape the engine entering the station, I start to wonder around Fronteirland deciding what to do next. Earlier this week, Terrie messaged me that Hall of Presidents will be going down for a major rehab, and they planed to see it today, if I could meet them around noon, which I didn’t make it.

I make it to Hall of Presidents and wait for the next show, it is now 3:45 pm. When I am seated in the theater, who sits down in front of me? But Terrie and her husband. I met Terrie last year so she recognized me. Unless I am paying attention, when I am walking, I don’t notice anyone ;)

After Hall of Presidents, they want to go on Country Bear Jamboree, so I tag along. They are both transplanted New Yorkers, so we talk about New York.

After CBJ, I said my good byes and headed back to Tomorrowland to see Carousel of Progress.

I left the Magic Kingdom to go eat at ‘Ohanna for which I had a 6:20 pm adr for. Now for anyone who ever ate at ‘Ohanna, it is served family style. They come around with you large skewers of meat or shrimps. They also give you large portions of starter food, which is salad, dumplings, chicken wings, bread, and some other things I can’t remember. I told my server, just bring me ½ of what they normally do. Whether you are 4 people or just one, they bring the same size portion. I just can’t eat that much. They bring me a smaller portion of salad, which is good, but everything else, is just too much for me to eat. I eat the dumplings and have a chicken wing, but touch nothing more. The waitress says, don’t worry, they don’t throw out the leftovers, but compost any leftovers. I have about 10 bbq shrimps, one piece of other the other things, steak, pork, and turkey. For dessert, I have ice cream over bread pudding with banana sauce. I don’t touch the banana sauce J

After ‘Ohanna, I took the boat back to Magic Kingdom and bus back to Pop Century. I was the only passenger on the boat, so I was talking to the CM, as he was a former New Yorker, and spoke up when he saw my Coney Island t-shirt. I have several that I wear only when I go to Disney.

I make it back to Pop Century about 9 pm. I walk through the food court and spot what I wanted the other night, nachos and cheese. Knowing it was closed the other night, I asked what time it would close that night. The server asked someone in a chef’s cap and I was told 12 am. The Pop Century has four sections where they serve different food items. They open and close at staggered times. So I went back to my room to get a little comfy, walked back to the food court at 10:30, only to find that section closed. Grrrr. Another thing to add to complain about.

Back at Pop, end of day 3.