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.