25th Anniversary Trip Report Feb 2014

Sheesh you guys are QUICK, I am still editing and you are already posting replies, ok here is the explanation for the rest of the pictures above.

DSC 081 - The water art, as we are walking in on Main Street I noticed a CM "drawing" on the pavement with his broom, I had to change my perspective to figure out what he was doing and I got a picture as quickly as I could, if you look closely in the bottom right of the picture you see the heal of a woman who was in a hurry to get somewhere and rolled her stroller right through the art, you can also see the lines from the stroller wheels.

DSC 0100 - AAhhh the Castle on a beautiful morning.

DSC 0103 and DSC 0113 - Notice the girl in the red dress on the sidewalk "performing" along with the adult cast that are located on the street. I originally thought she was a family member of one of the cast members but later found out that she is a big Disney fan who loves the shows. She likes to "perform" along with the cast and her mother makes her dresses to wear when they visit Disney.

OK will add more tomorrow but wanted to get started on this report.

OK folks here is the continuation from the first day. I want to explain something before going further. I had completed a lot of typing for the first day posting, and was then trying to figure out how to add the pictures. I wanted to add them in the text so that I could describe any significance in the picture. Well I obviously did something wrong because I lost all of the work I had done. That is why the writing is so fragmented, I was just trying to get something written and experiment with the pics. Some of you saw the post almost immediately and the rest so they say is history.

With this posting I am doing a little experimenting to see if I can get the effect that I want. So far this is my third attempt at this posting! Aargh!

OK Day 1 continues " Because the morning of the first day was originally planned to be the completion of the road trip we looked at the morning in the Magic Kingdom as really bonus time. Our fast passes were for the evening hours so the morning hours consisted of just wandering around and riding whatever suited us at the moment. We first headed toward:

Adventureland
We walked passed Aloha Isle as it was early in the morning and we were not quite ready for the infamous Dole Whip (more on that later). We strolled through Adventureland and went right into Frontierland. Ready to experience a roller coaster we headed for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad!

The wait time was listed as 10 minutes and we literally walked right on without stopping except to physically step into the train, I snapped the picture mid stride! We then went for a leisurely stroll through Tom Sawyer Island.
We then headed toward Fantasyland, hoping the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train might be open. Of course we quickly realized it was not as they still had the temporary walls in place.

We strolled Passed Enchanted Tales with Belle.

Then Gaston's

Before doing a little shopping at Big Top Souvenirs, we were actually looking for a pretzel which we found just outside Big Top Souvenirs.

We then headed for what has historically been one of my favorite rides:

After riding Space Mountain we decided to go on a search for the illustrious PUSH. Particularly since there was talk of a contract dispute we wanted to see if we could find him. Knowing he stays in Tomorrowland we opted to ride the people mover to get a birds-eye perspective to see if we could spot him.

While we were wandering around I had received a text from Disney advising that our room was ready. Since we couldn't find PUSH and all of our Fast passes were scheduled in the evening hours we decided it would be smart to head for the room, get luggage into the room and setup so we can go back to the park and make a late night out of it.

I was thrilled with our rooms' location! If you are familiar with POFQ we were in Building 4, ground floor on the side closest to the parking lot. If you are not familiar with POFQ there is one bus stop at POFQ, building 4 is the closest building that you can get to the bus stop and being on the ground floor on the side of the parking lot put our room very close to the bus stop, we were also the closest building to the Sassagoula Floatworks and Food Factory. So everything was very convenient. We got our luggage unpacked then walked over to the Floatworks to look around for a bit before heading back to the MK.

When we got back to the MK we rode the train around to the Fantasyland Station, on the way we saw these characters:

That evening we had Fast Passes to ride Space Mountain again, Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion.
This picture is from a video I took as we were leaving the park on our first night!

We headed back to POFQ where my wife was surprised to find her first gift of the trip:

My fingers are growing weary so I will close this submission here. I will try to get the 2nd day posted tomorrow evening. (The 2nd Day is Hollywood Studios.)

Hollywood Studios - Day 2

Before I get too far into the day let me explain that Hollywood Studios is not a favorite park of ours. Our favorite parks are probably Epcot and MK. There are a few things we really like at Hollywood Studios but to be honest this is one of the parks that we feel confident that we can cover everything we want to do in one day. Besides, I had some plans that my wife was not aware of so the fact that she agreed that this could be a shorter day worked out very well.

In addition if you pick up on some disappointment it is because when the flowers that were pictured above were delivered the rest of the surprise for my wife was NOT delivered. I had to go to the Hotel Desk to find out what was going on with the rest of my order and it was not delivered until the next day. (Sending letter to Disney about that one)

Day 2 - Another beautiful day in Disney World as you can probably tell from the pictures:

We actually got a later start this morning in part because I had to go back to the front desk to find out what went wrong with the delivery I had ordered, and no I am still not happy about that.

We had fastpasses for Rock N Roller Coaster and of Course Tower of Terror (one of our favorite rides)

One of the things we made a conscious effort to do was at least one thing different each day which worked out really well and is a theme we repeated throughout our vacation. Since we are now empty nesters we no longer have to do the things that our son wants to do, it is up to us and we wanted to do different things. We still enjoy the thrill rides, probably obvious by now, but we also want to slow the pace down and enjoy the other aspects of the Disney World experience.

Case in point with our son, lunch would have been a quick counter stop and then on to more rides. We had never eaten at the:

It was a hoot! Watching the old Sci Fi shorts was funny, the food was nothing spectacular but the decorations and setting made it really fun. This was our first time eating at the Sci Fi Diner and I don't know how we would feel about returning but it was fun.

We did most of the rides at Hollywood Studios and for some reason Kathy thought the fountain outside Muppet 3D was neat:

We ended up leaving HS fairly early and headed back to our room.

One of the things we had asked mousekeeping to do was increase our allotment of in room coffee. One cup per person was simply not going to satisfy the caffeine requirements for the two of us. So I left a little note requesting extra coffee along with a tip where mousekeeping could easily see it.

When we returned to our room we had received the extra coffee we requested but mousekeeping had also gotten very creative with the towel art left in the room and Kathy was quite pleased with the extra touch.

That evening I had planned a carriage ride to present another gift to my wife (another surprise) so we got on the boat that runs from French Quarter to Riverside for the Carriage Ride.

And here is The Captain;

While we were on the Carriage Ride I gave my wife another gift that she had been hinting about for a while, a charm bracelet with several charms. After the carriage Ride we wandered around Riverside and took a few pictures:

Then went back to French Quarter where we enjoyed a quiet stroll and taking some more pictures.

We then called it an evening and went to our room, sorry no pictures available.

More tomorrow.

Oops, every Friday is our date night so the next update will be Saturday.

Shhhhhh Don't tell anyone ... you will ruin my reputation!

OK guys this is Day 3 of our Anniversary Trip and the significance of this day is it is our anniversary (February 11). You may have noticed that I have mentioned on more than one occasion that we wandered around taking pictures, well the back story there is we decided on a DSLR camera of a "gift" to us with the stipulation that Ms. Medic also learn to play the role of photographer so that has been part of this trip.

Now on to the day, it started just like the others, we took our time knowing that we would be up late tonight we didn't rush to make rope drop. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, took a few photos of the food court:

Then we wandered around the resort and took a few more pictures.

Then we were off to the Magic Kingdom as we had planned to be in the MK on our anniversary.

More of the usual fast passes, enjoyed the infamous Doll Whip! (Wishing I had one as I am sitting here writing this trip report. Hhhmmm could make Orlando in about 10 hours, entrance to MK get Doll Whip enjoy, be back home about Lunch tomorrow .... That's a thought!)

As we strolled we noticed a few "little" things we hadn't noticed before so let's play a little game shall we? Where was this picture taken?

Now I am sure some of the Disney Masters in the group could walk right to this spot.

We had to do the Haunted Mansion again, we both strongly believe that once is never enough when it comes to the Mansion. This time, no fast pass so we went through the regular line and had more time to take some pictures:

She really looked the part and stayed in character very well.





We really enjoyed the updates to the Haunted Mansion. It seems as though we didn't get the full benefit of the updates when we rode it on Sunday because we had a slightly different experience on Tuesday. (On Sunday the ride had stopped a couple of times so that may have had an impact) On Tuesday when we rode the "hitchhiking ghosts" were quite funny. Don't want to spoil it for anyone.

The next event we had planned was the Tomorrowland Terrace Desert Party. Now this was not a surprise for my wife but it was certainly intended to coincide with our Anniversary. Not knowing the seating arrangements and how it would all work we decided to head over to the Tomorrowland Terrace area and start scoping out how everything was going to work out. As we arrived nobody else seemed to be around forming a line so we started walking from one side to the other taking pictures of the castle as you can see in the next few photos, the color is changing and it is getting darker out.

OK as you can tell it is getting dark and Ms. Medic and I walk back to the other side and find a group of probably 6 to 8 people. We ask if they are inline for the Desert Party and find out that indeed they are. Some good hearted banter ensues, chit " chat, etc. At some point I said something to the effect of there wasn't going to be any blood letting, I don't even remember what it was in reference to. We settle in as more people are arriving and assuming what I believed to be their positions in line behind us until it is about time for the Desert party to begin. That's when I found out I had made a grave error. The original group of people began telling everyone who was "behind" me that the line was forming behind them! It seems that when I had arrived and thought I was getting in the back of the line I had actually taken the front of the line, all of the others just let me because of my reference to blood letting! Then they said that they had adopted us because it was our anniversary. I have never felt so ashamed and humiliated, I apologized as profusely as I could, I did get an email address and I am sending them a link to this article in another attempt to apologize. I think in the end everyone got a laugh out of it.

Now in further explanation, if you do the Desert Party it really doesn't matter when you arrive because the tables are assigned before anyone arrives. So being first in line has no bearing on table assignment. In addition we very strongly recommend the Desert Party to observe the fireworks (Tinkerbelle comes right at you) as well as for the deserts which are absolutely extraordinary. (We give it two glowing ears up!)

In closing here is a picture of the creation left by mousekeeping for us today:

Don't know how to fix the picture rotation maybe one of the wonderful admin folks will help me out!

Speaking of the flowers I ordered, has anyone spotted Tinkerbelle in the flowers??

A word of caution, some readers may find this information frightening. Mrs. Medic will verify the contents of this posting because she witnessed everything I am reporting on here.

I am talking about the dreaded ES (Estrogen Swarm). We encountered several of these swarms while visiting Disney. For those that have never encountered an ES let me describe their origin and general characteristics. These swarms are found in higher concentrations following "cheer competitions". During the competition phase the swarms are occupied and typically not seen outside the competition area. It is the periods of time when the swarm has completed a phase of the competition and waiting for the next phase to begin when they can be the most dangerous.

There is typically one queen per swarm. Depending on the size of the swarm there may be several members of the queens court that are typically found scattered throughout the swarm that help to control the swarm. On rare occasion you may spot one or more males in the swarm, they appear to be miserable and are usually found in the back of the swarm and are used as pack animals.

Out of an abundance of caution we did all we could to avoid these swarms. We spoke with another Disney visitor about his encounter with a particularly invasive swarm. It seems that while in line for a snack he had noticed a couple of members of a swarm, recognized from their clothing colors, as these swarm members approached the counter to claim their snacks they secretly signalled the other members of the swarm. This caused the entire swarm to descend on the snack line having a significantly negative impact on the rest of the Disney visitors patiently waiting in line.

You may hear the chants of these swarms, please head the warning!

There was a cheerleading competition while we were there.

Before we continue with the trip report Mrs. Medic and I are curious to find out if any of the Disney masters were able to recall where this photo was taken?

We have been surprised that someone hasn't chimed in with the answer.

Day 4 Epcot

We were not in a big hurry to get up and moving on this day. Day 3 at Magic Kingdom had been pretty long so we were dragging a bit this morning. (Just a little extra coffee!) In addition we have reservations at the Rose and Crown this evening and are hoping for good seats to view illuminations. Enjoyed some beignets and coffee as we prepared for the day. Up to this point the weather has been absolutely wonderful, warm sunny days just a little cool in the evenings. Wearing shorts and t-shirts and feeling a little sun on my face! Life is good. With the reservations today will be another long day so let's look through the day pack to make sure we have everything we need. Essentially empty the day pack and then pack what is needed, still camera, video camera, sunglasses, wet ones, lens cleaners, gum, spare battery for video camera, set ready to go. We head out for Epcot. As it turns out the day was overcast and we didn't take very many pictures this day.

One of the things we did on this trip, not sure if we have mentioned it up to this point or not, was to purchase Disney PhotoPass Plus so we start the day getting our picture made with the golf ball behind us.

We had fast passes for Soarin', Space Ship earth and Mission: SPACE

Space Ship earth while not a "thrill ride" was neat. There have been some updates to the ride and it seems to garner more attention now than it has in years past. We enjoyed it enough to ride it twice and sent the videos to our email with each ride. Makes you wonder what the future truly holds.

Soarin' always a great experience! After the fast pass we looked and the line was only 15 minutes so we went for a second ride. Tried to take a few pictures while waiting in line:

LOL Mission: SPACE this is one of Medic's favorites, Mrs. Medic says it is fun, not a favorite, but fun. Well on this day due to the line being 5 minutes we rode several times, orange each time! Go for maximum intensity! Until Mrs. Medic said she had had enough of Mission: Space.

Besides Test Track, which we didn't ride because of the wait time, that was pretty much the extent of the rides at Epcot, the rest of our time was spent in the World Showcase, in a relaxed, people watching, mode. As a side note we have reservations at the Rose and Crown this evening in part because our son is currently in the Air Force stationed in the UK so we thought it only appropriate to eat at the UK.

I shared on an earlier post that we have been trying at least one new thing each day. Well today the new thing was lunch at France. Food was OK, still not sure about the service, since I don't speak French ordering was a bit of a challenge. I think they may have been annoyed with me but then isn't that a common finding among the French? I mean aren't the French supposed to be snobbish? Oh well the sandwich that I got would have been much better with a more appropriate meat to bread ratio. (Too much Bread, not enough meat) other than that it was good and the Chocolate Eclair's were quite tasty. According to Mrs. Medic her sandwich was quite tasty and she gave it an "A" where I gave mine a "C". Mrs. Medic agrees that the service was probably what we should have expected as the French really don't like us very well anyway, "they tolerate us".

Now if you recall just a couple of paragraphs earlier I discussed how we had essentially emptied the day pack and made sure we had packed everything we may need for the day. One of the items that was removed from the day pack and not re-packed was our ponchos. The real irony here is that several years ago while visiting Epcot, we got caught in one of those illustrious Florida thunderstorms and had to purchase ponchos. Well we had packed them and brought them from home, had them packed in our day pack, carried them with us every day except TODAY and guess what ..... it rained TODAY.

Mrs. Medic and I share a fondness for Germany. Mrs. Medic's father was in the Army, stationed in Germany so she lived there as a child and has a lot of fond memories. I have a love of Germany because I was stationed there while I was serving in the Army. While we were enjoying our visit to Germany the bottom fell out of a previously overcast day. Along with the sudden rain, the weather became quite chilly. Since we didn't have our previously purchased Disney Ponchos with us (they are in the hotel) we purchased another set while in the gift shop at Germany!

With newly acquired ponchos donned we head out to brave the rain and realize just how drastic the change in temperature really was! We are ill prepared for the temperature change, the rain we can deal with but we are typical tourists, ill prepared for the cool down that we are experiencing. We begin to head toward the UK in preparation for our Dinner reservations, stopping off at America to do a little shopping. We then proceed to the Rose and Crown and arrive early, check in and then head for the bar. It's raining, I am cold, and it is time for a scotch! Mrs. Medic orders an English Rose and we engage in some idle chit chat with the others patrons who are escaping the cold rainy evening. Wet and cold we settle in to a dry warm environment content to be consuming adult beverages in whatever quantity we so desire! It is not long before they have paged us as they have a table ready. We were slightly disappointed that we did not get patio seating where we could enjoy illuminations. At the same time, patio seating was closed off due to the rain and cold! We were told that when Illuminations is about to start they take all of the guests of the Rose and Crown to a designated area to view illuminations. Luckily when illuminations was about to start we had already finished our meal and there were seats available in the patio area that allowed for great viewing of Illuminations.

All things considered it was a good day, weather dealt us a curve but didn't dampen our spirits.

Day 5 Animal Kingdom

A little misleading because we actually visit three parks on this day. We start the day in Animal Kingdom and after an overcast day and rainy night yesterday today starts off with loads of sunshine as you will be able to tell from the pictures. Along with the Sun our spirits brighten as we venture to Animal Kingdom.

I have read in another forum about things in Disney that others have never done. There are a few things in Animal Kingdom that we simply have never done either and in preparation for the trip we made notes of things we wanted to do that historically we have overlooked for whatever reason. One of those things was:

"Flights of Wonder"

This show, in our opinion, was very entertaining. The birds will fly right over your head so be prepared. While trying to get pictures I was literally just pointing in the general vicinity and snapping as fast as I could. Luckily my camera can be set to take continuous pictures when the button is pressed so I think I got a few decent pictures.

This is the opening of the show, multiple birds flying in a variety of directions:

Here is one that almost went right over our heads:

A different bird that came even closer:

More:

But the one that, in my opinion, stole the show was "Hope" An American Bald Eagle.

After Flights of Wonder we headed over to the tree of life to enjoy "It's tough to be a bug"

I have read several opinions regarding Its tough to be a bug but Mrs. Medic and I enjoy it. On this trip Mrs. Medic was surprised as she forgot about one of the stimuli you get towards the end of the presentation.

Then we head for Kilimanjaro Safari. Now the sun is shining brightly but it is still a little cool. I wonder what kind of pictures we are going to be able to get on the safari. I cannot remember if we have said much about the camera or not but we purchased a DSLR camera and we are both learning how to use the camera. One of the things it will do is take continuous shots when you press the shutter so while on this safari we take a tremendous number of pictures! (Over 100) I am working on publishing all of the pictures and will follow up with a posting when I have a link established. I just don't think it would be appropriate to post all of them here. By doing it this way anyone interested can view them and we don't clog up this space with 100+ pictures.

So for this day the new things we have done include "Flights of Wonder" and now we have reservations at:

I read in several posts that they serve a Kobe Beef Burger here that is reportedly quite tasty. Since we have endured a long cold winter I am ready for a good burger so in keeping with the recommendations of this group I decide to put the recommendations to the test.

Absolutely enjoyed the Kobe Beef Burger and would certainly recommend it!

After our stop at the Yak & Yeti we had to walk around and just enjoy the scenery for a bit:

After wandering around, taking some pictures, people watching it is time for the thrill ride of the day:

Luckily the lines are not bad because we arrived a little before our fast pass and decide to go through the standby line. One of the things you really miss using fast pass is all of the preparation for the ride. As we are nearing our turn to ride it appears that we are going to be in the front of the train! But then they pull two riders from another line to sit in the front. This is new to us! We inquire of the front seat passengers how they pulled that one off and they told us all you do is as you get to the front of the line simply announce that you want front seat, you get moved to another line for the front seat.

So how long is the line for the front seat you might ask. Well on the day we were there it was really quite short, only a couple of minutes and you are guaranteed the front seat!

Hhmmm Mrs. Medic and I finish the ride, get in the fast pass line and of course ask for the front seat and in a matter of maybe 10 minutes we are the front seat passengers on Expedition Everest!

When we exit Everest we wander around for a while and Mrs. Medic decides she wants to go to the Boardwalk so off we go! Bus ride to the Boardwalk! As you can tell the weather is really quite nice on this day!

Visited the boardwalk maybe 10 minutes, Mrs. Medic is now ready for a boat ride to:

I don't remember exactly what we did at Epcot this day other than perhaps some shopping and sightseeing except that we made it to the American Pavilion:

After the show we wandered for a bit and then decided it was time for a Dole Whip. We inquire at Epcot and you would have thought we were aliens, the CM had not clue regarding this whip we were asking about. We then find out that Dole Whips are not served anywhere except the Magic Kingdom during this time of year so we are heading for the Monorail for the quick trip to the:

Upon our arrival they are preparing for a parade! Oh No, our route to the Dole Whip is blocked! but we find that periodically they are allowing people to cross the street! We finally make it through the madness and arrive at our destination for our Dole Whip. Now mind you this is only the second or third Dole Whip we have had. Another item we learned about in the forums that we had to try. After the Dole Whip we went to the:

Under New Management is gone and the show is very much back to the original Enchanted Tiki Room show. I think it could use some updating but glad Gilbert Gottfried's voice is no longer a part of the show.

So there you have it, started off in the Animal Kingdom, went to Epcot and closed the evening with a Dole Whip and the Enchanted Tiki Room. Another good day in Disney.