Hello All!!
We just got back home from a 2 week trip to FL with 9 days at WDW. Just to cover the basics, we (myself, DW, DD-5, and DD-7) took 2 days to drive to Orlando from NJ to stay at the Poly for 8 nights. The rest of our trip was spent visiting the St. Augustine area historical sites, and stopping at the National Zoo in Washington D.C. on the return trip. We took both 35mm film and over 2500 digital photos, plus some 8mm video. I hope to provide a detailed and informative trip report. So without further delay, here goes Day 1.
DAY 1: Sunday, July 10
The ride down to S.C. the previous day was fairly uneventful, except for lots of traffic in VA. We left Santee S.C. at 4:40 am and arrived in WDW by 11:30am. The weather was actually not that hot due to the winds caused by hurricane Dennis that week. Check-In at the Poly was very smooth and they actually honored our room request for Niue room 1705, which was also ready for us. We stayed in this room on our last trip in 2003 and loved the close location to the pools, snack bar, and the Great Ceremonial House. When we made reservations this time, we had them put the room request on our reservation. I also faxed the Poly adressed to the room assigner, 4 days prior to our arrival, requesting the room. I don't know what really worked in our favor but we were sure glad of the result.
Our first stop was our traditional Lunch in the Kona Cafe with a Big Kahuna Burger and an Iced Tea. Great as usual. Next was the monorail to the MK to get right into the experience. We headed directly to the Pooh ride since we promised this to our DD-7 because the last time we were there the ride was down for refurbishment. The wait was about 15 min. My 2 DDs racked up a nice little bill in the Pooh gift shop. We let them go a little nuts because this is their favorite ride/character.
We took notice of the walled off area for the Pooh Hundred Acre Playground. I noticed how the ranch style fence they placed in front of the walls actually contacted one wall. My mind started buzzing, so I had my DW stand up on the top rail to get a digital camera shot over the wall to see what the construction looked like. She actually took a pretty good blind shot of the area which I will attach to this post.
After leaving this area we headed straight to the Haunted Mansion per my younger DD-5's request. There was no line so we went right in. I love this ride. We exited and decided to do some browsing and light shopping in the Main St. Emporium to get a feel of what new items were being offered since last trip. It was getting a little late so we headed back to the Poly to get our luggage out of the van and into our room. As a surprise to our DDs, we took the monorail over to the Contemporary for Dinner at Chef Mickey's. The meal was great as usual with the prime rib and parmesian mashed potatos being my on-going favorite.
After dinner, we went back to the room for a little while to relax, unpack, and organize, then we headed back to the MK while the 9:00 Spectro was in progress. We headed to Tomorrowland and went on Buzz with no wait, then rode the TTA 2 times in a row while Wishes was filling up the sky. Next was Stitch's Great Escape with about a 5 min wait to enter the que area. I am glad I did not read the spoilers about this ride. [Spoiler Alert... skip now] I did not see Alien Encounter to compare, but I was a bit disappointed on how for the second half of the ride was mainly held in the dark with little going on except for the dialog and some laser cannon flashes. I thought the surround sound effects were top notch. I could not, however, get the smell of chili out of mind for a couple of days though. It seemed everwhere there was food cooking, I smelled....well....Stitch.
After this "experience" we left the MK just as the 11:00 Spectro parade was starting to call it a day to rest up for an early start in the MK.
