8:00 comes early when you’ve got reservations with a bear named Pooh and a Tigger. We did manage to get dressed and be down at the 1900 Park Fair restaurant for breakfast. 1900 Park Fair is in the Grand Floridian, so we didn’t have to go far. We were seated immediately and visited the enormous buffet. While we were munching on Mickey Mouse waffles, bacon, eggs, etc. etc. etc., Winnie the Pooh and Tigger (too) came ’round for photos and autographs.

Also in attendance were Alice and the Mad Hatter (from “Alice In Wonderland”). Alice couldn’t have been more than 12 or 13 years old, or at least she played the part of an English pre-teen very well. The Mad Hatter was quite a card, big hat, big shoes and big nose.

We had a leisurely breakfast, and on our way out saw the Fairy Godmother and had another round of autographs and photos.

After leaving the restaurant, we went back by our room to pack the backpack and give everyone an opportunity for a “pit stop,” and then we made our way down to the bus stop. Today’s destination was Disney’s Animal Kingdom. We didn’t have to wait long for the next bus to arrive, but it was rather full, so most of us ended up standing on the trip.

Animal Kingdom is the newest major park on Disney’s Florida property, and while it’s larger than the other parks (with the possible exception of Epcot), it has fewer attractions overall. The size is due to the preserve area for the wildlife. It’s tempting at first blush to think of AK as a glorified zoo, but it’s more than that. True to form, it’s planned and themed in Disney style, from the centerpiece of the park, The Tree of Life, to the six lands represented around the axis.

After navigating the entrance bag checks and ticket turnstiles, we wandered through the entrance area, looking at all the animals along the way. Birds and various other small animals were on either side of the path as we walked down the Animal Kingdom equivalent of Main Street, towards the Tree of Life. The tree is pretty amazing. It looks completely real, except for the size, but is artificially constructed. As you get closer, you see that there are many, many animals “carved” into the trunk of the tree. Over 200 as I understand.

While we didn’t manage to make it to the park at opening, we weren’t too far behind the initial crowd, and lines were very short. Our first attraction was the “It’s Tough To Be A Bug” 3-D movie under the base of the giant tree.

I recall from our trip back in 2002 waiting in line for this attraction almost 30 minutes, only to have Michael and Matthew decide to bail at the last minute. This time around there was absolutely no line, and everyone had already experienced a couple of the 3-D style shows at other parks, and were on board with this one as well.

We obtained our 3-D glasses (bug opera glasses, I think they called them) and entered the theatre through an anthill cavern under the tree. The show was pretty funny, with all the same gags from other shows we’d seen. A huge stink bug came out at one point and “gassed” the audience, which was quite aromatic. Toward the end the show got a little intense, and Madison curled up next to me. For the finale, Hopper (the grasshopper from “A Bug’s Life”) called an army of beetles to spray the “invaders” (us) with acid (water). At the end the “smaller bugs” were allowed to leave first, and you could feel them running out under the seats.

After the show, we exited on the other side of the giant Tree, onto a path with more animals to see. Lemurs and Monkeys and Flamingos, oh my! As we followed the path around to the North, we saw Mt. Everest rising above the treeline. The newest attraction at Disney’s Animal Kingdom is Expedition Everest, and although it’s not officially scheduled to open until the first weekend in April, I had heard that the ride was in soft-open mode, meaning we could probably get on it.

Well, sure enough, we found the line. All 90+ minutes of it. Well, at least we now knew where most of the guest population in the park was today.

It was at this point that I hatched my cunning plan, otherwise known as “skip it now, come back when the park opens on another day and beat the crowd.” We’ll see how well that works out in a couple of days.

After taking a few pictures and stopping for a quick snack, we backtracked and found ourselves near the Kali River Rapids. This attraction is your standard “big round boat that gets you soaked” ride that I’m sure is perfect during the heat of the Summer, with long wait times to match. But on a fairly overcast 60-degree day in early February, the wait was zippo.

We decided to take our chances and piled into a nice specimen of a boat and took off down the river. This is a fun ride. The rapids are actually rapid, you get wet but not too wet, and everyone has a good time. The other people in the boat had the foresight to wear rain ponchos, but we weren’t that on the ball. So we got wet. In my case, some more than others.

Only after exiting the ride and walking across the bridge that carries you over the river and back into the park did I notice that the people standing on that bridge had buttons they could press to spray water on the unsuspecting boat passengers below. So now I know how I got so wet. Ah well…

After a quick pitstop, we walked further around the path and found the Maharajah Jungle Trek. This is a leisurely walk through the jungles of India where you can see Tigers, bats, gazelle and many exotic birds. We took our time walking through this area, snapping pictures of the animals and trying to identify what we were seeing.

Next down the path was the Flights of Fancy bird show, which I had heard was a must see. The show wasn’t scheduled to start for another 20 minutes, but outside the theatre killing the time was a cast member with a huge owl. He had a little headset mic and speakers and was explaining to the considerable crowd that had gathered there all the interesting details of this species of owl. The owl just sat there on his glove-covered hand, looking at everyone calmly like nobody’s business.

After the owl demonstration, we filed into the open air theatre and saw the Bird Show. Wow. This is not your average birds in cages show. All the animals were free to fly around, over the audience’s head, and many did various “tricks.” There was a parrot that sang 6 complete songs, a Crane (named Fraiser, of course) that flew from the back of the seating to the stage literally inches over the crowd, and a vulture that took a dollar bill out of an audience member’s hand, and brought it back just a few minutes later. The kids really enjoyed the show as well, amazed at what all the birds could do. The interesting thing I thought was the fact that there were no nets over the theatre or any device to keep the birds from just flying away. The cast member who presented the show said that through positive reinforcement, the birds are enticed to stay. Since they live a pretty cushy life compared to their wild(er) cousins, I can see why they’d stick around.

Hunger was upon us after the bird show, as it was about 2:00 in the afternoon. We found our way around the path into the Africa section of the park, and found an eatery I had heard about called Tuskar’s House. While technically a counter service location under our meal plan, it easily the best counter service meal we had experienced so far. We had rotisserie chicken, salmon, and chicken sandwiches, again more than we could eat. Because the weather was so mild, we decided to sit outside to eat, and were glad we did. A troupe of African acrobats performed in the courtyard and were amazing. Following the acrobats was a group of percussionists playing tribal sounding rhythms. Matthew really got into that.

Next on our agenda was to ride the Kilimanjaro Safari. The wait was posted at 35 minutes, so we opted to get a fast pass and come back later. We thought we’d head down to the Dinosaur area and mess around there for an hour or so, watch the parade at 3:00, then come back and take the Safari jeep ride. As we were walking back around to the front of the park, looking at other animal exhibits along the way, the sky decided to open up a little and the rain started to come down. We ducked under the awning of a snack stand and tried to see if the rain would let up. After about 10 minutes, we heard over the loudspeakers that the parade was being cancelled.

The rain was getting harder, so we decided that we’d go ahead and head back to the hotel. We exited the park and got in line for the bus, which was covered, and tried to dry off as we waited. Apparently, many people had the same idea as we did and the buses were running a little slow and full. We managed to get on the next one that came along, but it was full.

Normally, being full, the bus would skip the next stop (Blizzard Beach water park) and drop off people at the resort stops the bus was scheduled for. However, apparently, due to the rain, some people had been waiting at Blizzard Beach for over an hour, so our bus was the lucky one dispatched to pick them up. Unfortunately, the dad of that group made an off-hand comment to the effect of “I’m going to be registering a complaint” as he boarded, and the driver decided that meant he should go get a manager right then and there. So there we sat for almost 20 minutes before he decided to go ahead and make his next stops. It took about 45 minutes, but we finally made it back to the hotel.

The plan at this point was to hang out at the hotel for a couple of hours, resting and doing some laundry, and then head to the Magic Kingdom for a little evening fun. Cynthia did 2 loads of laundry while the kids watched cartoons on TV and I updated my pictures and recharged batteries.

Around six we hopped onboard the monorail and went to the Magic Kingdom. The rain had mostly let up, and it had just gotten dark, so all the buildings were lit up. We had decided to get Madison a stroller so that she might last a little longer, especially with the prospect of rain. We made a beeline for Tomorrowland and immediately got a fast pass for the Buzz Lightyear ride. We parked the stroller at the Buzz ride and walked across the street and up the escalator to the Tomorrowland Transportation Authority, which is basically a tram ride around all of Tomorrowland. It’s a fun way to visit all aspects of this area of the park and decide what to do next. I remember this train being called the WEDway People Mover back 20 years ago, and was fairly innovative at the time. It’s magnetic propulsion system is very efficient and it utilizes the same rotating platform loading/unloading scheme that Spaceship Earth at Epcot did.

After the TTA, we visited the Carousel of Progress, an attraction I remember fondly from my first trip to the MK in 1981. The original attraction debuted at the New York World’s Fair in 1964, and chronicles the advances in technology from the turn of the century (1900, that is) to “present day” in a very unique setting, where the audience revolves around a center axis of six stages where audioanimatronic figures talk about the never ending march of progress. Once again, the ingenuity of Walt Disney shows how you can have 5 separate shows going on simultaneously, moving people onto and off of the attraction with great efficiency. It’s a little humorous, though, to see the representation of the most “modern” scene, which probably hasn’t been updated since the late 1980′s. Some things didn’t quite come to pass as predicted.

Our fastpass times for Buzz Lightyear were up, so we went across the street and to the front of the line. This “dark” ride is like others where you board one of an endless train of cars and move through various scenes, some under blacklight, but this one has an interactive component where the passengers are armed with laser blasters and can shoot back.

After exiting the ride we saw that it had started raining again, so we ducked into a gift shop and I bought a round of rain ponchos. Newly protected from the sprinklng, we grabbed a couple chicken strip baskets at Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe, and then strolled over to our old standby, fantasyland. This time the destination was “It’s A Small World”, which Madison loved, followed by Peter Pan, also a hit. As we exited Peter Pan the fireworks show had started, so we watched it a bit from the back of the park. We wound our way back toward the entrance, stopping to pick up a candy selection for everybody.

We turned in Madison’s stroller and caught the monorail back to the hotel to call it a night.

Day 4 began slow. I went down to the sundries store in the main building of our hotel and picked up some milk and donuts and brought them back to the room for breakfast. Cynthia had an appointment for a trip to the Spa portion of our resort, so the kids and I were just going to hang around the room and sleep in.

Cynthia went to the Grand Floridian Spa, and had a facial and massage, which she reports was wonderful.

We took our time getting ready, and Cynthia returned mid-morning, so we didn’t make it to the bus stop until around 10:30 to head over to MGM Studios. We had lunch reservations for the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater, an interesting restaurant concept whereby you sit in replica cars in a large room outfitted to resemble a 50′s-style drive-in theater, complete with the speaker hanging on the pole by the car and cheesy trailers for B movies playing on the big screen. I had the ribs, Cynthia and Michael had hamburgers, the other two had chicken. And the trailers were very very cheesy. I’m not entirely sure the kids got the whole concept of watching a movie in your car. A little before their time, I suppose.

After lunch, we decided to head on over to the Lights Motors Action! stunt show and get in line, although it turned out not to be much of a line (the stadium seats about 5,000 and while almost completely full, the crowd moved very well). This show was a blast, no pun intended. Cars, motorcycles, people on fire, what more could you want? Michael and Matthew really got into it.

After the show (and the requisite trips to the restroom), we wandered into the “Honey I Shrunk The Kids” playground, where we found ourselves in and among the likes of a 5 foot tinkertoy, a huge roll of film with a blade of grass slide coming out of it, and about a million other kids and parents running around with cameras.

The kids had a great time running around, sliding down the slides, crawling all over things. And, like the other parents watching, trying not to lose their kids, I snapped some great pictures there.

Next, the daily trip through a souvenir shop where the boys picked out a pair of Pirates of the Caribbean pistols, which I found interesting seeing as we hadn’t been to that attraction yet. We followed that up with soft drinks and gummy bears.

We worked our way toward the center of the park, near the big Sorcerer Mickey hat, to catch the midday parade. It started, and suddenly the entire population of the park materialized in front of us. So much so that it became quickly apparent that we were not going to see the parade. So we turned around and found ourselves directly in front of the Great Movie Ride.

TGMR takes place in a building made up to look just like Mann’s Chinese Theatre, which I thought of as interesting this time around since I was in LA just this past May and actually was in front of the real thing. I’ve always liked this ride; it reminds me of the Jungle Cruise at Magic Kingdom, only without the boat. You ride 20 or so to a car with a cast member up front telling you corny jokes and pointing out interesting movie trivia as you “sail” past classic scenes from great movies. Half way through a live action scene straight out of a western is acted out, with the tour guide a participant in the show. Cheesy, yes, but fun, especially for movie buffs like me.

Afterwards, we went to the Animation building and took a tour of Disney animation, which included a short film and a walking tour of artifacts from recent animated films. This culminated in a lot of Chicken Little paraphernalia, photo ops and the like.

After that, Madison wanted to take a rest, so she and Cynthia found a nice bench and sent me off looking for roasted almonds. Once I returned with the snack, the boys and I went to catch the Indiana Jones Stunt Show. We were about 20 minutes early, so we went ahead and went into the seating area, and took up a spot 3 rows back and right next to the sound booth. I like to watch the tech crew “behind the scenes” almost as much as the show, especially if I’ve seen the show a few times before. Afterwards I talked with the tech crew and asked them some questions about the gear they used. I even shook hands with the stunt guy that played Indiana Jones. I made it a point to tell him how much we enjoyed the show, and he seemed to really appreciate that. I doubt many people take the time to tell them that in person.

After the show the boys and I met back up with Madison and Cynthia and we all decided to go ahead and go get seats for the Fantasmic fireworks show. Unlike the fireworks shows at Magic Kingdom and Epcot where people gather randomly to watch, Fantasmic takes place on and around an island in a lake, with stadium seating “in the round.” We followed the crowd and found seats on the left-hand side about 10 rows back; not bad at all.

Fantasmic was great! It was more a stage presentation than a fireworks show, per se. The neat thing about the show was how they sprayed water in a large “fan” and then projected scenes from Disney movies on it. Characters acted out the basic Good versus Evil story, in the form of Mickey as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice against all of the classic Disney villains. Fireballs, boats, lasers, fireworks, music, the whole nine yards. They even set the lake on fire at one point. The neat thing is how they were able to put it out on cue.

We followed the crowd again, this time towards the busses and found the one with Grand Floridian on the marquee. Back at the hotel we grabbed some pizza and chicken strips at Gasparilla’s and took dinner back to the room. A few cartoons later and we called it a night.

Day three started with a quick breakfast in our room (glad we packed those breakfast bars), after which we packed up and caught the monorail to the Transportation and Ticketing Center. Here we switched to the other monorail line and rode over to Epcot. I’m sure there’s cost issues, but I wish WDW would go ahead and build monorail runs to the other two parks. It’s such an efficient and fast way to get around. While the busses work, nothing beats the monorail.

Right away I noticed that the entry lines at Epcot seemed not to move as quickly as they had at the Magic Kingdom and MGM. Cynthia took the kids and went around the bag check lines and went ahead and entered the park, while I waited to have my bags searched. Once we got in, we looked at the “Leave a Legacy” monuments for a few minutes, then moved on towards Spaceship Earth (or “the big golf ball” as we came to call it). Noticing that the line was practically non-existant, we opted to go ahead and ride.

I’m continually impressed and amazed at the ingenuity in the design of various attractions and rides at Disney. One thing Disney is very good at is moving people through processes efficiently. Walt himself had a fascination with mass-transit and it lives on in the design of attractions such as Spaceship Earth. Instead of individual cars and the normal stop/start of the loading and unloading process, SE utilizes an endless train of cars that never actually stop. When you enter the attraction, you step onto a circular conveyor belt and have around 60 seconds to enter the next open car before it disappears into the void. Occasionally the ride has to be stopped to accommodate guests with special needs, but by and large the ride continually moves, increasing the effective “throughput” of people per hour. The exiting process at the end of the ride is similar, but in reverse.

The ride itself is interesting, taking the rider on a journey from pre-historic times to the future, explaining how various forms of communication developed. Along the way the car is turned left or right to show various auto-animatronic incarnations of the scenarios the narrator is explaining in the speakers embedded in the headrests of the car itself. The ride twists and winds its way up inside of the big ball until it reaches the apex, then the car turns a full 180 as it begins its descent back to ground level. All in all an interesting “dark ride”, but unfortunately it’s showing it’s age a little. It would be nice to see the later portions updated a bit to more accurately reflect the impact that the Internet has had on human communication over the past decade.

After Spaceship Earth we were exited near the entrance to Innoventions East. The main focus of this exhibit seemed to center around computer based simulations and multi-player interactions. The boys played a 4-player game of Toon Tag, where each player chooses one classic Disney character (Mickey, Minnie, Goofy or Donald) and runs around in a virtual playground trying to “tag” the other players. Michael was Goofy and Matthew played Mickey. Madison found some single-player more suitable for a 4-year-old and played those while the boys and I looked around.

The next game was called “Robot Challenge”, and was designed to teach about the different properties and uses of plastic while letting players design and race their own virtual Robots. Michael played this one, creating a robot he named “Creepy Bruiser” and came in 6th (out of 12) in the race. After exiting the game area, the kids were allowed to collect pieces and build their own robot character to take home.

At this point we needed to high-tail it to Norway in the World Showcase portion of Epcot to make our lunch reservations at Akershus castle. We were set to have lunch with all of the Disney Princesses, but the problem is we didn’t know where Akershus and Norway were. As it turns out it didn’t really matter that we were ten minutes late for our reservation, as it seemed that everyone else there had the same reservation time as we did. We ended up having to wait 15 or 20 minutes to be seated.

They called our name and led us into the banquet area, stopping for a quick visit/picture with Ariel from The Little Mermaid. The boys weren’t too interested in getting pictures take with her, but Madison was all smiles. We found our way to our table and tried to make out the Norwegian menu to find something to eat for lunch. Michael quickly found Spaghetti and Meatballs on the menu. I went with something called Kjottkaker, which turned out to basically be a traditional Norwegian meatloaf. The deserts came on a single plate for everyone to try. My favorite was the Lingonberry Tart.

During lunch we were visited by Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Prince Ali (Aladdin) and Jasmine, and Belle (from Beauty and the Beast). Autographs were obtained, pictures were taken. Madison wasn’t too sure about Ali, but warmed up when he told her a couple of jokes.

Once we finished lunch, we decided to explore the remainder of Norway as long as we were already there. We found the Maelstrom boat tour of Norway, which included an indoor ride aboard dragon-headed boats traveling among the Vikings and Trolls of 10th century Norway. After the boat portion of the ride we were presented a short film about Norway and it’s people. Of course, after exiting the attraction you’re dumped directly into the gift shop where we saw interesting things such as candy and troll dolls from Norway.

On the way out of Norway back towards Mexico, we passed a full-sized version of a Viking ship and a replica of the Gol Stave Church.

Of course, on our way into Mexico the kids immediately spied the street merchant selling various trinkets, and had to try on the giant sombreros. Each wanted one, but since we couldn’t figure out how to bring them back home on the plane, we decided to just take pictures and move along.

In Mexico we found an Aztec pyramid and wondered up the steps to explore what was inside. Just in the doors we found a Mexican marketplace, with artists practicing their art making various things from pinatas to hand carved and painted animal figurines. We got in the (short) line for “El Rio del Tiempo”, which is a “Small-world”-type boat ride through past and modern Mexico.

After the boat ride we watched a glass blower making a small glass Pluto figurine which the kids really found interesting. Cynthia bought a souvenir while we watched and then we headed back out into the bright sunlight to plot our next move.

We decided to make our way back to Futureworld to see some of the pavilions there, choosing the leave the remainder of World Showcase for another day. As we made our way back across the bridge to Futureworld, we visited a hat stand and Madison picked out a pair of Tinkerbell-styled Mickey Mouse ears and Cynthia bought a Princess visor. Michael bought a flashing necklace with some of his Mickey Dollars.

The first Futureworld pavilion we came to on the west side was the Imagination pavilion, where we were just in time to catch the next showing of “Honey I Shrunk the Audience.” This turned out to be a 3-D movie type attraction, very similar to Muppetvision 3-D. They took things a few steps further, shaking the whole audience seating area during the “shrinking” process. There was a snake sequence that was a little scary, but the thing everyone remembered was at the end when the huge dog “sneezed” on the audience. We walked out a little damp from the dog snot. Eww.

Next was the Land pavilion, where we took one look at the line for Soarin’ and immediately went and got a fast pass. As we were about to leave the building to go on to the next thing, I happened to stop by the Land Grill restaurant and checked on reservation times, and as luck would have it they had an open slot for 6:00. I put us down, since we had a great time there last trip and didn’t currently have plans for dinner.

Everyone wanted an icecream walking to the next building, so we bought a snack and sat on the freshly mowed grass to enjoy it. The day had begun to warm up and it was really nice outside. The kids ran around a little after finishing their icecream while Cynthia and I rested on the lawn.

The next building we came to was The Living Seas. This building was still being renovated, so the main entrance was closed off, but there was a temporary entrance around to the side (through the obligatory gift shop). We saw a line forming for Turtle Talk with Crush, so we decided to go ahead and queue up, knowing that it wouldn’t be getting any shorter. While we ended up having to wait about 15 minutes, it went fast and they funneled us into a small theater. The kids went to sit down front will all of the other younger viewers and Cynthia and I stood in the back.

The theatre was modeled as though you are looking into a large fish tank, although it ends up being a projector screen. When the crowd finally got settled, Crush the Turtle (from Finding Nemo, computer generated on the screen like in the movie) came out from behind some seaweed and said “yo”. There was a Disney cast member with a handheld microphone down front that ran the show and interacted with Crush, seemingly from a script, when suddenly Crush asked if anyone had any questions. He pointed out kids by the color of their “shells” (shirts) and actually answered their questions and joked with them. He taught them all how to say “dude” and told them that they should say it as much as possible for the rest of the day (ha ha). The whole show was very well done and very entertaining; the kids really enjoyed it.

After the Crush show, we spent 45 minutes or so walking around the various aquariums looking at many varieties of fish, sharks, jellyfish, sea horses, manta rays, etc. There was an interactive area for kids to explore and play around in, and an upstairs level for seeing manatees, turtles, and other sea life.

On our way back towards The Land pavilion, we wondered through Innoventions West, another interactive area with various displays. We saw exhibits on the land, played new computer games, saw displays on fire safety and played on a real fire truck.

The time for our fast pass on Soarin’ was up, so we headed quickly across the walkway to The Land and went to the head of the line. Fast pass is the way to go on the more popular attractions; while the normal queue was at 70 minutes at that point, we waited less than 5 minutes for our turn.

Soarin’ was by far one of our favorite attractions at Epcot, if not the whole trip. First you sit in seats where your feet can dangle free, then when the ride starts they swing you out in front of a giant IMAX screen that completely fills your range of vision. It simulates hang-gliding over 12 different areas of California, from a stream in a forest, to an orange grove, to skiing down the slopes of the Rockies, to sailing over the waves off the coast. As you go from environment to environment, the ride gently swings left and right, wind blows in your hair and the smells match the screen. The orange grove was my favorite.

The ride culminates in flying down Main Street USA of Disneyland and over Cinderella’s castle during the fireworks show. Absolutely exhilarating!

After our flying experience on Soarin’ it was almost our time for our reservation for Dinner, so we rode the escalator upstairs and checked in at the counter. Ten minutes later we were seated at our table. The Land Grill is a rotating restaurant that slowly revolves over the Land’s boat ride below. There are various scenes, from the fields of a farm to the desert and a jungle.

The food at the Garden Grill is almost exclusively grown right on site in the special hydroponics areas of the Land pavilion, and was some of the best we had all week. It was served family style, and included fresh catfish, chicken, corn, mashed potatoes, etc. Very, very tasty, and all you could eat. During dinner, Mickey Mouse, Pluto, Chip and Dale came around for autographs and pictures. Just as we were finishing dinner the restaurant completed its revolution bringing us back to where we started.

Leaving the Land, very full, we stopped at a souvenir stand so that Matthew and Madison could follow Michael’s earlier lead and get flashing necklaces, since it had started getting dark. We knew the fireworks show wasn’t too far off, so we wondered back to World Showcase to find a good spot before the crowds started getting big.

We went to the right this time, into Canada, and took up seats on the shore of the lake. Michael, Madison and Cynthia held our spots while Matthew and I went exploring Canada. We saw the totem poles and wondered through the gift shops (lots of hockey stuff, eh), and then walked on towards the UK. We ended up finding a slightly better spot to watch the fireworks show, so we radioed the rest of the crew to meet us there.

Illuminations, the fireworks show at Epcot, was spectacular. It included lots of music, lasers, fireworks and exploding things over the lake, dancing fountains, and a large Globe on a barge that showed images from around the world before opening up and showering the sky with fireballs and more fireworks. It was neat being around a lake and having the whole show take place in the center rather than far off like at a traditional fireworks display.

After the show the park was officially closed, and the mass of humanity made its way towards the gate. Once we exited, we hopped aboard the trusty monorail and made our way back to our hotel, where the kids promptly crashed. It was a very full, very fun day, and we were exhausted. And there was still so much in Epcot we hadn’t seen!

We started off our first full day in DisneyWorld by eating a quick breakfast of pop-tarts and breakfast bars in our room, and then got dressed and ready to head off to MGM Studios.

While we were aiming to get there when the park opened, our objective this trip was not to kill ourselves trying to do everything or cram everything into one day. Last time we went to DisneyWorld, it was a 4 day trip, and it’s just about impossible to do everything in 4 days. It’s impossible to do everything in 2 weeks, but if your objective is to do most of the major attractions and have a somewhat leisurely pace about doing it, give yourself a week. The Magic Kingdom will be two days easy (especially if you have kids under 10). EPCOT is like two parks in one, so two days there. The Disney-MGM Studios can be done in a day, and Animal kingdom can pretty much be done in a day. By the time you throw in other things like a swim or two at the resort pool, a trip over to Disney Marketplace or Disney Quest, or any of the other many attractions, you’re at a week. We were there for 9 days this go-around, and that worked really well.

We took the bus from the Grand Floridian over to MGM studios, and landed at the park around 10:00. After navigating the entry gates and bag search (and a quick restroom break), we were on our way down Sunset Boulevard. Madison found a pony in front of one of the gift shops and we had to stop for a quick “ride.”

(don’t forget to click on the thumbnails for larger versions of the pictures)

We took a right at the end of Sunset and wound up at the entrance to the Rockin Roller Coaster. Having ridden this ride before, I was fairly certain that Madison wouldn’t be interested, but I thought the boys might. So we decided to try out “Parent Swap”.

Parent swap is where everyone waits in the line for an attraction, and then when you get up to the front you tell the Disney Cast Member that you want to swap parents on this ride. One parent rides with the kids that want to ride the attraction, while the other parent waits for them with the child that isn’t big enough or doesn’t want to ride. Then, when the first group gets back they “swap” and the second parent rides while the first waits with the child that didn’t want to ride. Pretty cool system.

Well, it turned out that Matthew had second thoughts once we got into the queue, and decided not to ride when we got up to the ride. So I went with Michael, and Madison and Matthew exited with Cynthia.

Michael and I had a blast (zero to 60 in less than 3 seconds — woo!). After we exited and looked at the silly photos that they took of us on the ride, Michael decided to ride it again, this time with mom. So Matthew and Madison and I went looking around while they took their turn (the line was really short, less than 5 minutes wait). We found a popsicle stand and got a couple of ice-creams.

As we headed back across the center plaza towards Muppetvision 3-D, we ran into Chip -n- Dale, and Minnie Mouse and Goofy. Autograph books in hand, the kids got signatures from all and I snapped the pictures.

I also had a chance to find out about a new service at WDW, Disney’s Photo Pass. This is a much better way of handling pictures than the usual, obtrusive park photographers that stop you as you’re walking into the park and try to up-sell you into some ridiculously priced package.

The way it works is the first photographer you run into gives you a small card (your Photo Pass) that is barcoded. Then they take your pictures (several shots each) and scan your card. As you run into other photographers, you have them take your picture and scan your card. There are photographers in several places, usually near landmark “picture spots” and wherever characters are signing autographs.

The trick here is there’s no high-pressure sales going on. They simply shoot and scan your card. Then, when you get back home you can log into disneyphotopass.com and type in your ID from your card. Up pop all of the pictures that have been taken over the course of your trip, for you to browse and edit. You can add titles, character signatures (they’ve already been pre-categorized with the right signatures for the characters in the shot), make greeting cards, etc. Then you can pick the best and order packages to be printed and sent to you. Pretty neat.

Muppetvision 3-D was very cool, we all got a little wet when Fozzy Bear sprayed the audience with his flower boutonniere. After that, we were dumped out on a back street near Al’s Toy Barn, where Buzz Lightyear and the Green Army Men were taking pictures and signing autographs. Yes, the Green Army Man signs his name — wait for it — “Green Army Man.”

We stopped in Al’s Toy Barn (the gift shop) and the kids used some of their Mickey Dollars to buy a souvenir or two. Mickey Dollars is a great idea I got off the Internet back when we were planning our trip. Here’s how it works: Cynthia and I made up a currency-looking Dollar bill (with Mickey Mouse on it) on the computer that we called a Mickey Dollar, and then printed out several. In the weeks leading up to our trip, whenever the kids did their chores or special things around the house, they got Mickey Dollars instead of real cash (therefore, they’d save it for the trip, not try to spend it beforehand). By the time we got on the plane to go, each boy had about 37 Mickey Dollars, and Madison had about 30. Over the course of the trip we didn’t have to negotiate or deal with “I want this, I want that” at all the toy shops; the kids were in charge of their own budget. This ended up working really well. Anyway, the boys bought Buzz Lightyear cell phones and Madison bought a Ballerina Minnie Mouse.

We made our way over to the Star Tours ride and took a short interplanetary hop, Star Wars-style (and the requisite trip through the Star Wars themed shop afterwards), and then noticed that it was probably a good time to head back to the hotel for a little rest before making our dinner reservations at Cinderella’s Castle.

We caught the bus back and decided to have a dip in the pool. There are two pools at the Grand Floridian, one calm large pool in the middle of the resort, and another slightly smaller pool on the South side that has a huge waterfall, a slide (a long water park-type slide, not the little backyard kind), and a zero depth entry (that’s where one end of the pool gradually goes to zero depth and you just walk out, instead of the normal 3 foot with a ladder or steps). The boys and I played in the pool, waterfall and slide for a while, and Cynthia and Madison went and found the hot tub at the other pool. Fortunately, all the pools are heated, so even though it was in the high sixties, it was still very nice for swimming.

After about an hour of that we met back in the room, got dressed and caught a monorail back over to the Magic Kingdom. This time after clearing “customs” we went directly to Cinderella’s castle for our dinner reservations. We got pictures with the princess herself, then were seated in the main banquet room for a very nice dinner (rotisserie chicken, pork tenderloin, hot dogs, ice cream), complete with a short show featuring the Fairy Godmother and the mice from Cinderella.

We walked around a bit and explored the castle after dinner, then made our way over to Fantasyland where first on the agenda this night was the Dumbo ride. I sat that one out and took pictures while Madison flew with Cynthia, and the boys rode together.

Afterwards we rode the Winnie the Pooh ride, which consisted of a ride through the storybook in a honey pot that spun, bucked and wiggled. I managed to snap a picture of the whole crew, one of the few that has me in it. Madison had to have a Pooh Lollypop after that. Next was a little playtime in the 100 Acre Wood playground, and then another spin on the Teacups.

As we wondered out of Fantasyland back through Tomorrowland on our way to the exit, we ran across the Indy Speedway, and took a ride in the cars. Matthew actually drove one solo, and did a pretty good, if not overly careful, job of driving!

We decided not to stay for the crowds, er, fireworks this evening, and opted instead to go ahead and catch a monorail back to the hotel. Turns out we had a pretty good view of the whole show from the monorail as it made its way around the Seven Seas Lagoon. Once back at our hotel we grabbed a couple bottles of milk for breakfast the next morning (utilizing that fridge in the room) and headed back to our room. About 30 minutes of the endless-Disney-cartoon channel and it was lights out.

Now that we’re back and settled back into the grind of the day-to-day, I thought I would take a few minutes and document our trip to Disney World. Over the next few days I’ll post a journal of what we did along with a select group of pictures (we took over 800!) If time permits I might even edit together a little video. We’ll see how that goes. Anyway, welcome to our February 2006 trip to the “Most Magical Place On Earth”!

Our trip began rather early, 5:15 to be exact. The plan was to get up early, pack up quickly and be out of the house by 6:15 so we could be at the airport parking by 7:00. Our flight was at 8:30, and with the logistics of getting all our baggage from the shuttle parking lot to the check-in counter, I knew we’d need the time. Well, needless to say we didn’t get on the road until 6:30, but made it to the airport by 7:15. Fortunately, everything went smoothly and we were able to park, ride the shuttle to the terminal, and check-in with about 15 minutes to spare before boarding.

Here are a couple of snaps of us waiting in the new American Airlines terminal B at DFW. Click on any of the pictures to see a full resolution version.

Our plane boarded quickly and we had seats up front, so we were in the last group to board. But that meant we’d be the first off once we arrived in Orlando.

The flight was uneventful; Cynthia read, Michael listened to his iPod and watched the scenery outside, Matthew took lots of silly movies with his camera and listened to his iPod and Madison watched a movie on mine.

iPod with video, best invention ever.

Somehow I didn’t get any pictures of it, but we took Disney’s Magical Express from the Orlando International Airport to our resort. This is a really neat service offered to guests staying on property at WDW. Prior to your depature, they send you special luggage tags to put on any checked baggage before you get on the plane. Once you get to MCO, you simply go downstairs to the transportation counter and check in, then get on the bus to your resort/hotel. Later on that day, your bags “magically” arrive in your room. In our case, we spoiled a little of the magic; the bags came so quickly we were still in our room when they got there.

We arrived at Disney’s Grand Floridian around one o’clock (local time, Plano Time + 1 hour). It’s quite a site pulling up to the GF: it’s turn-of-the-century Victorian architecture is quite grand in it’s splendor. It’s a beautiful property.

I checked us in and although our room wasn’t guaranteed to be ready until 3:00, they had us all set and issued our keys immediately. Room 8324 in the Boca Chica building. A short walk across the courtyard and around the main pool and we found our room on the third floor, just around the corner from the elevator. Our hotel was situated on the east side of the property, just on the west shore of the Seven Seas Lagoon. Although our room was a “garden view” (read: slightly less expensive than “lagoon view”) the view was very nice, and we could walk out of our building to watch the fireworks over the Magic Kingdom or see the Electrical Water Pagent on the lagoon itself.

Our room was very spacious, larger than any room we’ve had at Disney to date. It had two very fluffy queen-sized beds and a daybed, which Matthew promptly claimed. The bathroom area had two sinks, and the toilet/shower was a separate room, which I like since the shower doesn’t end up fogging up the mirror over the sinks. Our room hadn’t been upgraded to include a refrigerator yet, so I called down to the front desk and they promptly delivered one.

We unpacked and decided to head out to Gasparilla’s for a bite to eat, since it had been too many hours since our pop-tart at 6:00 AM Texas-time.

One of the cool things about the way we booked our trip turned out to be the Disney Dining Plan. Basically you pay for a meal plan up front, and then you don’t have to worry about nickels and dimes at each meal. The plan is based on the number of nights of your stay, and for a set daily rate (different for adults vs. children) you receive a credit for a snack, a counter-service meal and a table-service meal. A snack is something like a box of popcorn or an ice-cream. A counter-service meal includes an entree (hamburger and fries, for example), a drink, and a desert from any of a (large) number of eateries both inside and outside of the parks. A table-service credit gets you an appetizer, an entree, drink and desert from most of the sit-down restaurants on property.

At first this sounds like “sure, pay up front and end up paying more when you’re there”… but in reality, if you know how the eating works at WDW (and we did, having been numerous times before), this is a great deal. At each meal we ended up having more food than we could eat (often taking the deserts with us for snacks later), and at each meal we never had to worry about what the cost would be. This was great at sit-down restaurants, since we never had to look at the prices of the entrees. It can throw some serious cold water on the experience to eat a great meal at Cinderella’s castle and then get a bill for over $200 at the end. Our table-service credit worked for just about anything on the menu (in fact, we never ran into a situation where something wasn’t covered). The credit also covered gratuity, so there was literally no out-of-pocket at any of our meals. I imagine the waiters and waitresses like this plan too, since they get an automatic 18% tip on the bill.

We actually ended up our trip with two table-service credits and one counter-service credits left over, and never paid for food the whole time (apart from the occasional lollipop or candy-type item). I did the math once we got home: our meal plan for the whole family (5 people, 8 days) was just over $1000. Had we paid cash for the meals we ate, it would’ve totaled over $1450. That’s not including the 3 credits we had left over. I thought it was a great value.

After snagging a lunch at Gasparilla’s at the hotel, we went back to the room to grab our jackets and backpack and head to the Magic Kingdom. When we got back, there was a My Pal Mickey sitting on one of the beds with a couple of balloons. Madison went straight to it and was so excited! Pal Mickey is a little Mickey Mouse that you carry around Disney World, and he tells you about things, sings songs and tells jokes. It’s really cool, and works a lot better than I thought he would. The only downside is he seems to eat batteries faster than he should. I changed the batteries at least three times during our trip. By the way, earlier I had the concierge send up the Pal Mickey to our room as a surprise for the family. I love the concierge service!

One of the (many many) reasons we chose to stay at the Grand Floridian was the fact that it’s a monorail resort. Meaning on the monorail. Meaning one quick ride to the Magic Kingdom. No Bus. No long walk. Way cool. If you go to WDW and plan to stay at one of the deluxe resorts, stay at either the Contemporary (only if you can stay in the tower, though, don’t stay in the garden wings, they’re too far from the main building), the Polynesian or the Grand Floridian. For getting around, the monorail is too convenient. The busses, while efficient, are always too crowded and too sparse.

One quick monorail trip and we were standing at the entrance to the Magic Kingdom! Once we managed to navigate the “let’s look in your bag to make sure you aren’t carrying anything dangerous into the park” stop and the “place your first two fingers in this biometrics reader so we aren’t getting ripped off by you giving your ticket to someone else” stop we were in the park.

On our way down Main Street we stopped in the Emporium gift shop and got Madison an autograph book and pen, since she hadn’t been before (the boys both had their autograph books from our trip back in 2002).

We saw a barbershop quartet and listened for a bit, then made our way to the end of Main Street, right in front of Cinderella’s castle, where we decided to watch the Cinderellabration show.

After the show we shot north to Fantasyland, where the first item on the agenda was the Teacup ride. Being her first ride, Madison was a little apprehensive, but once things got “spinning” she warmed up to it quickly! Matthew talks about it here.

Next we traveled over to Toon-town, which is an area of the park aimed at younger kids (i.e. Madison’s age). We saw a number of things including Minnie Mouse’s house and rode a roller coaster, the Barnstormer. Madison wasn’t too sure about that until she found out it was perfectly OK to scream your head off. Then she had a blast.

We rode the train around the park to Frontierland, and then the boys and I took a spin on Big Thunder Mountain. Awesome coaster, the boys loved it so much that I sat with Madison and Cynthia went on it with them a second time. The crowd was very low and the wait time was about 3 minutes.

After that we happened on Woody and Jessie (from Toy Story 2) and got autographs and pictures.

The day was wrapping up, so we headed over to the castle to grab a spot to watch the fireworks show “Wishes.” I think it’s the best MK fireworks show yet. Some of the shells were so bright, it looked like daytime in the park!

I snapped this really cool image of Michael in front of the Castle as it was changing colors prior to the show.

After the fireworks show, the entire population of the Magic Kingdom shuffled towards the gate, and although crowds seemed to be low earlier, whenever you pack that many people on Main street, it’s a bit crowded. We caught the monorail back to our Hotel, and since it was only 8:45 local time (7:45 to us still), we decided to grab dinner at the Grand Floridian Cafe. Steak and Shrimp, Yum!

Well, that and a lot of fun and good memories… Pictures to follow.

This time next Tuesday, we’ll be in DisneyWorld!

The boys and I just got back from seeing The Incredibles, the new animated film from Pixar. In a word: incredible!

What a blast! The animation was spectacular, the story was great, the gags were side-splitting, etc. etc. etc.

If you’re over the age of about 5, go see it; you won’t be disappointed!

O, by the way, in addition to the main feature, we also got to see the new Pixar short, Boundin’, which was hilarious, and the first teaser trailer for Star Wars Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. Applause around the theater on that one. Looks good. Looks dark.

Pixar has ended negotiations with Disney to extend their partnership, and will seek other distribution starting in 2006.

By the way, if you haven’t seen the trailers for The Incredibles and Boundin’, go do it.