Keane's March 2012 Trip Report - Part 3
"Let The Memories Begin... Again..."
Please see Part 1 for cast and plot summary...
Day 2. Monday, March 5rd. Morning and preparation.
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I get up early, since I do that. I make some coffee, and Mom comes out of her room for some. I have my Mickey coffee cup. It goes everywhere with me, and except for those two weeks in the hospital, has been used daily (or has at least been with me) for the past 12 years. From the Florida Keys to Olympic National Park, from Maine to Disneyland, that cup has more miles on it than any car I've owned. I should retire it before I break it.
Mom didn't bring any of her coffee cups (the travel mug types with lids), so I have to use one of those itty-bitty teeny-tiny excuse for a coffee cup that comes with the villa. She also neglected to bring any NutraSweet (I should have thought of that), but there's a couple in one of the sugar/creamer packs that come in the room, and make a mental note to raid a counter service restaurant. :-)
There are zebra out and an ostrich, and think of the turkey leg slated late this week.
Jenny eventually gets up, and we do our initial confusion on what to bring, making sure we all have our tickets, ID, etc, and we're off to Magic Kingdom.
If you read my September 2011 Trip Report summary, I pretty much detail how we've learned to deal with scooters on the bus and in the parks. We did even better this time in a lot of ways, but the basic procedure went like this:
Get to the bus stop, wait for the bus. If it's a multiple destination bus stop, let the driver know before he passes you if you're waiting for that bus.
Once the ramp is down, give Miss Marie her cane, and she gets off the scooter and I drive it up and in place. Jenny helps Miss Marie onto the bus. When getting off the bus, I'll drive it off the bus, and Jenny will then help her down the ramp.
Let me point out that Jenny is really ideal for this job. She's... short. So is Mom, and it works better that way. Jenny can help her around better than I can, and she can also go to places I can't.
At a theme park entrance, Jenny will take the bags and go through bag check, I will maneuver Mom through the crowds and through the turnstiles, and we will ultimately meet back up someplace near the maps/times guide display, except for MK, where we'll meet somewhere in front of the train station.
Got it? We'll do this every time we go into a park.
In the parks, I lead, so all Miss Marie has to do is follow me. Jenny hangs back with Mom, explaining things if she has to, and making sure she follows directions. I've also become quite adept at driving the scooter from the side, so I can maneuver the scooter in tight places, such as crowded paths and queues.
Day 2. Monday, March 5rd. Magic Kingdom.
We get to MK. It's crowded. It's not supposed to be crowded. It's an hour after opening. I'm disappointed.We go into Magic Kingdom, and we have to get three park maps for Jenny, since Miss Tina will be here in June, and Jenny is playing enabler. The times guide is now a folded affair the same size as the old time guides, with what you would normally expect on the front and back. The middle is a picture of the parade route, and the route no longer appears on the main map. Will there be more parades coming out of the new Fantasyland?
We then stop at the Main Street vehicles building, which also happens to double as the Sorcerer's Training kiosk for the "Sorcerer's of the Magic Kingdom" game.
Sorcerer's of the Magic Kingdom is a card/battle game currently in soft opening at Magic Kingdom. This new game isn't the Kim Possible scavenger hunt that exists in Epcot. Rather than getting a cell ph... A Kimmunicator, you're given a set of cards. A Key Card, and a pack of 5 spell cards. Now, keep in mind there are 60 different spell cards, so you'll want to get a pack every time you go there. (One card pack per day per admission media. They swipe your admission media on a terminal for verification, and probably ties the Key Card to you, in case you lose it or forget it.)
The Key Card is has an RFID chip in it, and is used to identify you. Disney keeps your record of progress through the game. At the designated site you are sent to, you find a keyhole someplace, and pass your key card over it. Something in front of you will turn into a portal, and you are presented with a challenge. You can present one or more spell cards to the portal. It uses some sort of video recognition system, each card has a unique symbol and background on them. There are different types of spells. Animal spells, machine spells, Hero spells, Princess spells, etc. The spell cards have an "attack", "Boost" and "Shield" rating. Each spell card seems to have 5 or 6 points spread between the three categories. It also has the type of attack, boost and shield, such as "Quick", "Charming", "Gross", "Energy", etc. Since Disney has not published any sort of rules, I don't know what any of that means. But I'll bet it's how the spell cards are used against certain attacks, making some spells more effective than others against certain foes.
Of the two packs I'd gotten, I already have a duplicate. "Pumbaa's Odorous Gas" spell. "Plug your mouth and hold your nose, And hope that soon a stiff wind blows". Great. Of all the cards to duplicate, I duplicate flatulence.
There are currently 20 portals (5 portals in each of Fantasyland, Main Street, Adventureland and Frontierland/Liberty Square) and two Sorcerer's training kiosks. It looks to be an interesting game. One that would take a good portion of a day, if you're intent on playing it. Hard to do with Miss Marie in a scooter, though...
We make our way up a still crowded Main Street. There's some construction walls up on the East side of Main Street, which blocks the castle from the middle of the street. The problem is, one of the buildings has a canopy that comes all the way out to the curb, so it can't be helped. Oh well.
We turn left into Adventureland, and Miss Marie has forgotten the hat we bought her last time at home. Well, we'll get another one. We end up with a hat somewhat like mine (both are made by Dorfman Pacific), except hers is more rigid. So a rigid green hat, with a mesh top. It takes about 20 minutes to pay for it. sigh.
We pass the Egg Roll/Corn dog cart on our way to the Tiki Room. We have 1pm Liberty Tree Tavern (LTT) reservations, so I have to pass...
The room comes alive again, I think I've seen the new old version more than the old new version, under new management. I still wonder if the Tiki Goddess is still in the volcano...
We wheel out of the Tiki room, and decide the best way to kill a half hour would be the Country Bears, since it's between us and LTT. Mom not only ran into and up a wall here last time here, but fell asleep during the show.
She not only doesn't run into any walls, but she stays awake. Some SG behind us is happily snapping away flash pictures. Idiots like that annoy me. I still want to carry a tazer in the park for SG's. Just sayin'.
We stop at the bathrooms at the Frontierland/Adventureland breezeway, and there's a Sorcerer's Portal right next to the breezeway. I watch for a minute, then move on.
We get to Liberty Tree about 15 minutes prior to our reservations, and are taken quickly, seated in the Thomas Jefferson room. I like Jefferson, he might be my favorite Founding Father next to Ben Franklin. One day I'm going to have to make it out to Monticello to check the place out. But I digress.
Teresa is our waitress, and I actually remember to do food porn. Mom has the "Tavern Punch" which is a mixture of vanilla ice cream and an orange sherbet(?), and the Pot Roast. I also had the pot roast, and Jenny had the Colony Salad. She also ordered the Gooey Cake for dessert. Ugh. Way too sweet...
In any event, it was a very good meal. For Magic Kingdom. Unfortunately, it's one of those places you have to have a reservation for. The place is also pre-ADA, so getting the scooter in and out of the restaurant is difficult, but not impossible. Just watch out for the stairs.
Liberty Tree Tavern, Thomas Jefferson Room
We take a stroll through Fantasyland after lunch, and Magic Kingdom is *crowded*. We stop in at Philharmagic, another attraction Mom fell asleep in last time, so it should be brand new for her, right?
Going through this queue the last time was a nightmare, but Mom seems to be doing better driving the scooter. I also find I can drive the scooter myself when walking next to it (when possible). I can probably drive the scooter better than Mom can at a walking pace. I find myself doing this a lot in tight places.
We actually get past the turnstiles without much difficulty, though we have to wait a couple of show cycles. It's that crowded. We get into the handicap queue, and are soon joined by a CM who's VIP'ing a couple and their two kids. Two things are obvious. They're loaded, and they can't (or won't) control their kids worth a damn. I still want that Tazer...
I still wonder what Mom thinks about attractions like this. She isn't all that familiar with Disney animated features, and Philharmagic depends heavily on previous knowledge of the films. Of course, it's the greatest musical hits of Disney Animation, so that, and the 3D effects might carry the attraction. It's my favorite 3-D movie on property.
We exit the theater, and can barely move through Fantasyland due to the crowds, and chaotic stroller parking. We're going to get out of Magic Kingdom. Too crowded. We'll go to Epcot.
We approach the back of the castle, and I decide to take the route to the left. Bad mistake. The route the right, empties you out into Liberty Square by the Sleepy Hollow counter service, and then you can continue forward to Crystal Palace/Main Street without ever hitting the Hub. The route to the left, empties you out at Cosmic Ray's, and you have to take a path that's a direct spoke out of the Hub area.
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| The Main Street Train Station |
Main Street U.S.A. / Town Square
So, the Ferry it is! They have three Ferry's running, and the net effect of this, is there's always a ferry in port, with the third ferry waiting at one of the ports for the currently docked ferry to leave. It's all done quickly and efficiently.
Day 2. Monday, March 5rd. Epcot.
The Epcot Beam is still running, and we travel up the ramp to the Epcot monorail. While waiting, one of the CM's has her transportation cards out, and I go to see if she has the 12 monorail card. She does not. But she does give me what she has, 8 cards, 5 of them unique! They will get filed with my 3 bus transportation cards. There are 25 in all! The completist in me is worried I'll have to go try to collect all 25 one trip...
We enter Epcot without a problem. Well, except for that little incident where I forgot to take my wallet out of my fanny pack, and didn't have my AP or Mom's MYW ticket, so I had to wait for Jenny anyway. We get three Epcot maps for Jenny.
Flower and Garden starts in a couple of days, and the Central Plaza garden that usually holds some sort of topiary, is empty. The pictures from the front of the park, will only have Spaceship Earth (SSE) in it. We'll see what it looks like in a couple of days.
We get a couple of PhotoPass pics behind the plaza garden and in front of SSE. We decide to go on SSE, and enter the back way to the handicap entrance. No sooner do I park the scooter, than we're taken up the exit to the exit area, which is also the handicap load area.
Once again, Jenny enters the car first, helps Mom in from the front, and me from the rear, and I go sit by myself. I briefly contemplate a nap, but decide I need to be awake at the end of the attraction. I find taking pictures of a ride this dark, in a moving vehicle, is impossible. There is an SG, several cars back, that is happily taking pics using his/her flash. So in the earth room, at the top of the dome, SG is still taking flash pictures. Of a projection. An SG is, as an SG does...
We exit where we entered, and send the obligatory postcards off. We exit SSE toward Energy, and cut through Innoventions.
Stormstruck is right there, so we visit a tornado. It's a neat little 3-D attraction. And I'd rather not have Jim Cantore near me, ever. I really hate it when he shows up in Chicago...
We continue through Innoventions, and right across from Sum Of All Thrills, is Habit Heroes. This was that spectacular fail sponsored by Blue Cross/Blue Shield about obesity. All sort of people got offended. (Many others didn't. But in today's media world, it's the people yelling that get the press.)
I found it interesting that all the "offended", put the blame directly on Disney, but didn't criticize Blue Cross/Blue shield at all. I mean, they only sponsored it and had to approve of the design and sign off on the attraction. (If you read any of the stories (note I didn't say articles), in many you could smell an anti-tasty-park-food bias.)
We exit to Energy, and transfer Mom from her scooter to a wheelchair. We go through history playing Jeopardy for the next 40 minutes. Now, I don't want to say this attraction needs an update, but have you seen Alex Trebec lately?
It's past 5pm when we exit, and decide to call it a day. Miss Marie is fading quickly. We exit Epcot, and grab an AKL bus, which is at one of the closest stops, but turns out to be one of the longest waits for a bus this trip.
Mom's not hungry, but we need to have her eat something else, so we get off the bus at Jambo, rather than Kidani, and go to the Mara for quick eats. Jenny had the veggie flatbread, Mom had the pepperoni flatbread, and I had a bacon cheeseburger. With fries. And some lettuce, so I could say I ate something green.
We also picked up a couple of pats of butter for cooking eggs, and a refillable mug (with a few packs of equal) for Mom's coffee.
After we eat and about to leave, mom has to go to the bathroom. Jenny looks at me trying to figure it out, but I lead them to the pool bathrooms next door. Jenny admits she didn't even know these existed. Local knowledge. I've only stayed here three times... While waiting for them to get out of the bathroom, I turn the scooter around and manage to spill diet coke over Jenny's three MK maps. Crap.
We decide to walk back to Kidani. I've never done this. It would be a heck of a shorter walk if you didn't have to walk completely around the South wing of Kidani. A shortcut through Sunset Savanna would save a considerable distance, more so if we ride the zebras...
We enter Kidani through the Pumbaa elevator (I think), which takes us to the second floor, or actually, the lobby floor. On our way down the corridor, I see some moron stuffing pizza flyers under the doors. Since we're going through the lobby anyway, I report this to the front desk. They seem unconcerned, but the pizza flyers stop coming under the door for the next few nights. The fraud through these flyers is so bad, Florida had outlawed the flyer stuffers outright for a while, until the legitimate pizza outfits complained. The fraud, however, continues.
Get back to the room, plug in the scooter, check my mail, transfer and backup all my pictures (twice, which takes longer than you might think) and relax for a hour before getting to sleep. Tomorrow we go to Animal Kingdom.
End March 2012 Trip Report - Part 3.
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