Savanna at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge 2007 from Scott Miller on Vimeo.
I finally got Dominica and my first video from our trip to Walt Disney World in 2007 posted up no Vimeo. I have been meaning to get this done for forever and just have not gotten around to it. Now that there will be baby videos coming soon it is rather important that I eliminate any potential video processing backlog and get things completed.
This video was shot using our Canon Elura 60 camcorder from the balcony of our hotel room at the Animal Kingdom Lodge where we stayed for a weekend early last year. If you have a good video player on your computer such as VLC you can download the original 640×480 video in h.264 (m4v) also from Vimeo. Original h.264 video of Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge. This version should play beautifully on AppleTV as well and is available via the vlog feed for our subscribers.
Dominica, Liesl and Oreo slept in until around ten. I was in the living room playing some Fable 2 on the XBOX 360 while I had some quiet time to myself. Today is my relaxing day for the week and I am taking advantage of it.
I spent the bulk of the day playing Fable 2. What an awesome game. I am so glad that Dominica decided that we needed to get that as our one game for the XBOX 360 for “Christmas” as a gift to each other. I am over halfway through the game now playing as the boy and going for “good and pure”. Dominica is only about an hour or so into the game and is playing as the girl and has decided to go for “evil and corrupt” so that she can get as different of a storyline as possible from mine as she has watched so much of the game as I have played it.
Dominica spent most of the day shopping and surfing the web from the laptop that we have set up in the living room. Christmas is always a busy shopping time. We are so thankful that we live in an era when Christmas shopping is an online affair. There is no way that we could handle going out to the stores looking for things. We would go crazy. It would have to be me doing it all as Dominica can’t go out shopping. We learned that lesson from the grocery store a few days ago, and the grocery store doesn’t have crazy Christmas crowds.
We were both very thankful that today got to be a “do nothing” day for the most part. Liesl was a little fussy today but not horribly, and today we began switching her over to cloth diapers. Cloth diapers are cheaper, better for the environment and better for preventing diaper rash and/or contact dermatitis – which I had as a child. Liesl has a little bit of diaper rash at this point and so Dominica felt that it was the best time to start switching her over before it got any worse.
We did several loads of laundry and two loads of dishes today plus hand cleaning. We generate so much stuff that needs to be cleaned every day around here I just can’t believe it. And several loads of garbage too.
This afternoon Oreo started acting strangely. We first noticed that something was wrong when he went down to the basement all by himself to get away from us. He wasn’t acting funny beyond that so we didn’t think much of it. As the day wore on, though, he started spending more time away from is in the basement and started acting more sluggish and sickly.
I took Oreo out for a walk and he didn’t even make it past the front walk before he was sick twice. Hopefully this is nothing more than a stomach ache. I brought him back inside and offered him dinner or a bone and he wanted neither. I went down to the basement (which is when I managed to get the videos uploaded to Vimeo) and spent a few hours with him while he just lay on his pillow feeling sick.
Later in the evening I forced him to go on a little walk just to make sure that “everything was working” since he hadn’t been eating. Everything was working (you can work out the details there for yourself) and as soon as he was done I scooped him up and ran him back to the house because it is so cold outside and he is so weak. So at least we believe that there is no blockage and it appears that he just doesn’t feel well like he has a doggy flu. He went to bed as usual and seemed to be about the same so we will watch him through the night and judge how he is doing in the morning.
We are not aware of him having eaten anything strange in the last twenty four hours. He was very happy, alert and perky when I took him on his long morning walk around the top of the hill. He seemed to be in better than usual spirits, in fact. He was extremely energetic and after his walk demanded his breakfast and then made me play fetch with him for half an hour or more. It was surprising how healthy he seemed. I know that he was still feeling okay at two thirty when Dominica and I had our lunch because he cleaned our dishes in the kitchen (we had mac and cheese for lunch.)
The only possibility for him getting into something that he should not have, as I think about it, was on our morning walk he was spending some time sniffing under a boulder (we have a lot of those here) and with his nose burried in some leaves it is possible that he ate something in there of which I was not aware. I did not think that he did but looking back it is theoretically possible.
We will just have to wait and see tomorrow. We were all off to bed around midnight.
]]>Download the SGL Podcast Episode 60 in MP3 format.
In this episode, Scott talks about Scott and Dominica’s four day trip to Walt Disney World in Florida where they stayed at the Wilderness Lodge. Follow along as he tells about their trip. Highlights include eating at Artist’s Point, the Hollywood Brown Derby, San Angel Inn and Roarin’ Forks Canyon; Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor and Toy Story Mania. Their trip was from May 31st – June 3rd, 2008.
For this episode we are also trying out for the first time the OurMedia based Flash player built right in to the site so that you can listen to the show without downloading it. So far we are pretty happy with it. Let us know if you have any problems. RSS enclosures are, of course, still available as are all of the media links.
Music provided by the Podsafe Music Network.
The Night Tales Of A Fairy by Fumitaka Anzai
Misc:
Internet Archive Media Page for SGL Episode 60.
OurMedia Page for SGL Episode 60.
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We ordered in breakfast room service at a quarter till eleven. We got a nice big breakfast with eggs and toast and waffles and a continental bread basket and tea. We sat out on the balcony and ate as the weather wasn’t so muggy today. While we were eating the newlyweds that we met on Sunday evening walked by on the path under our balcony so we got to say hi to them again.
We spent the middle of the day just relaxing on the balcony and drinking tea after we had the room all packed. We checked out at one and gave our luggage to the valet services to keep for us until it was time to leave. They take care of everything for you when you use the Magical Express. You can just leave your luggage in your room and have bell services take it to the valet who have storage for it and will then load it on to your bus going to the airport for you so that you never have to do anything with it at all. Very handy.
We did some shopping for a while and spent a bit of time relaxing on the porch of the lodge where the Silver Creek runs out of the lobby and down towards the waterfall. There were several ducks playing in the creek which was very cute and relaxing to watch.
For dinner we decided to try out the Whispering Canyon Cafe which some people had told us was really good. It is right in the lobby of the Wilderness Lodge so it could not have been any handier for us. It is a full service restaurant but much more family oriented and not fancy like Artist Point.
Lunch was great. Dominica got an enchilada made with quinoa and I got whiskey maple glazed trout. The really cool piece of the meal was the bottomless milkshake that, on this particular day, was available in vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, bubblegum or cotton candy! I, of course, got it in bubblegum which was awesome. The food was really good and, once again, no room for appetizers or dessert. The price was good too. We had several full, sit down meals where we were surprised by how inexpensive it is.
One thing that we definitely learned on this trip is that the Disney Dining Plan doesn’t make any sense for us. We eat fewer meals per day and more “fancy” meals (all sit down – no counter service) than the plans really account for and we don’t tend to use the drinks and often not the appetizers that come with them but often get other things, like the milkshake, that are not included. Had we done this trip on the dining plan we would have paid between slightly more and almost double for each and every meal that we ate, and from watching other people use the dining plan it seems to be a bit more hassle than just charging the room. So our way gives us better flexibility and saves us money. No upside to the dining plan that we could find.
The bus took us at four over to the airport. We were there with about two hours to kill before boarding time. I did some reading in my book while we were waiting to get on the flight. We were just early enough that Continental offered to bump us to an earlier flight but because we had checked one bag we were not able to do so. So we were stuck when we could have been home around six in the evening. We might have even been able to get Oreo if things had gone really well.
The flight went well and because the trip home was longer than the trip heading south they had a movie available for us to watch so we got to see The Spiderwick Chronicles which was pretty cool as it was a movie that we had wanted to see anyway. It was extra cool as the DVD is scheduled to release until June 24th. It was a pretty good movie too and really helped pass the time. Also helping to pass the time was the loads of free ginger ale and Scotch that they kept giving us on the half-empty flight. Dominica and I had a three seat row to ourselves and all that we could drink. They even gave me a couple Scotches to take home with me as they didn’t need anymore. We were very happy with our flight!
It was pretty late when we got home. We took a taxi back to Eleven80, picked up our packages that had arrived while we were gone and headed for bed. While we were gone the rosebush got spider mites and was dead. It had been in pretty rough shape before so that was no surprise. The mandarin and the tree by my desk seem to be doing well and the ivy seems to be okay. Neither palm seems too happy although the one near my desk is probably okay. The one by the loveseat has spider mites now too and is all but dead.
]]>This morning we are heading to Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme park which is the park with the early morning extra magic hour for the Disney resort guests so we can get in a little before the crowds descend on the park. Hollywood Studios is by far the smallest of the four major parks which causes it to be the most crowded. It is almost always “wall to wall people” and it is pretty much nothing but open concrete everywhere making it insanely hot and because of the high, close walls everywhere there is little airflow.
Our first order of business arriving at the park is to get to the new “Pixar Land” and hit Toy Story Mania which opened this weekend. We know that there are going to be crazy lines there as everyone is trying to ride that ride.
When we got to Toy Story Mania the line was about out to the door. I would guess that it was twenty to twenty five minutes long which isn’t bad considering we didn’t do a FastPass nor were we there first thing but more like eight thirty by the time we actually got to the attraction doors.
The waiting line was very well done at Toy Story Mania. Lot’s of thought was put into it and there is a huge, animated Mr. Potato Head that talks to the crows as they pass by. Sometimes Mr. Potato Head is running on automatic and sometimes there is a person controlling him and interacting with the audience. It seems to be a new theme at Disney to have people behind the scenes running things that previously were just recordings. It is a very good idea because it makes the dark recesses of the park seem alive rather than like dusty, forgotten corners and it adds a lot of interest to things that otherwise would be very boring. There was definitely a person running Mr. Potato Head when we were in line but when we went passed him and talked to him he was running on automatic for a few minutes so we didn’t get to interact with him 
The ride itself, we were told, is similar to the popular, new Buzz Lightyear ride in the Magic Kingdom. It is good that they put a new ride in Hollywood Studios because DHS is very short on attractions and those that it has are all either intense thrill rides like a cheap Six Flags or really old and dated like Muppets 3D. It’s only really amazing ride is the Great Movie Ride which is awesome (like Pirates of Caribbean or Spaceship Earth) but feels like an old ride these days and could do with a refurb as well.
Toy Story Mania was really awesome. It is a lot like Buzz Lightyear in that it is two people sitting in a “car” going through the ride each with a “gun” that you use to shoot things to get points. Both are elaborate video games. In Buzz Lightyear you ride through a physical dark ride and use a laser gun to shoot physical targets located throughout the ride. In Toy Story Mania you wear 3D glasses and ride from one screen to another where you use your “gun” to participate in carnival like games on the screens. The combination of the physical ride with the stuff happening in 3D works pretty well and the games that you play are pretty fun.
TSM makes a great addition to Hollywood Studios and shows that Disney is still thinking. The downside is that Disney is running behind the times – they have never been very tech-savvy (their website has been a textbook example of what-not-to-do since the mid 90s) and they are often years or decades behind the “real world”. I think that the isolationism of the parks lends itself to them fooling themselves into thinking that they are more innovative than they really are.
The audio-animatronics were practically timeless when introduced in the 1950s. They won’t be replaced by anything in our homes for a very long time, if ever. Decades more at the very least. Easily another half century. And even then they are art on their own regardless of outside technology. They are used to tell a story in a meaningful way. But things like TSM, unfortunately, are based on technologies rapidly available to everyone at home. TSM is really nothing more than an elaborate Nintendo Wii game. Sure we can’t ride in carts like that at home but that is an incidental part of the ride – nice but if it was gone you would hardly notice. And it is just for two plays, a Wii can do it with four. With new HD displays and more and more people able to do 3D at home the TSM experience is likely to be surpassed by at-home video game systems widely available in just a few years (in many ways it is surpassed already) which makes it fun for the moment but strange that Disney would invest so much in a ride that will very quickly be used as an example of how, for the cost of admission and one night in a Disney resort, you could own this at home and play it anytime you wanted for as long as you wanted.
After TSM we rode the Great Movie Ride which, as always, is awesome. Such a good ride. When we were done it was only ten thirty and we had just over an hour to kill before our lunch reservation at the Brown Derby. We talked about doing any number of rides or attractions but, in the end, there was nothing in Hollywood Studios that was even worth the effort of walking to for us. We would have done TSM again but the line was long and nothing else appealed in the least. So we went to the ABC Commissary because it was air conditioned, bought a drink and a chocolate mousse and sat for an hour until it was time for lunch. It was cool and relaxing and almost no one was in there at that early hour so it worked out pretty well.
Our reservations at the Brown Derby were at eleven forty. We got seated pretty much immediately. Both Dominica and I had been looking forward to trying the noodle bowl with coconut fried tofu after having read the online menu at AllEarsNet. I also got an appetizer of lobster and corn bisque. Dominica couldn’t eat that much so she didn’t get any appetizer.
The atmosphere at the Brown Derby was very nice and the food was good. It wasn’t “blow you away” food like we had hoped but it was quite good. The bisque wasn’t the style that I prefer but was very good for people who prefer their bisque with more tomato and less cream. The noodle bowls were good and huge. Dominica couldn’t finish hers and it was all that I could do to finish mine. No dessert for us today! We like the Brown Derby and would eat here again when in Hollywood Studios but I don’t think that I would make a trip to the studios just to eat here.
After lunch we were out of the park right away. We grabbed the boat again and went to Epcot. It was probably around one or one thirty at the latest when we went into Epcot for the afternoon.
It was pretty hot all morning and hot going into the afternoon. Yesterday and Saturday were brutally hot and we felt awful being outside. Today wasn’t quite as hot but still up there in the nineties. A lot hotter than we wanted it to be.
To escape the heat we headed first for Spaceship Earth which only had a short line. We rode that again. Dominica had forgotten about her VIP room stuff and we decided not to bother. The VIP rooms really aren’t as interesting as they sound (I have been in the Kodak VIP room) and are only useful if you want to see what they are like or for business functions. We had wanted to see the view of the fountain from there but it wasn’t worth the effort involved for us.
Then we went to The Land where we rode Living with the Land again then took the Behind the Seeds tour. This is my third time doing the Behind the Seeds and Dominica’s second. The timing was perfect that there was a tour leaving at three forty five and by the time we signed up for the tour (it costs extra and is limited availability) it was already pushing three thirty.
The tour took until five. It was pretty warm in the greenhouses but not as warm as being outside. The Behind the Seeds tour is always fun and informative. Because it is a real, guided tour and not an automated attraction you get a lot more out of it because it is personalized each time. The first time that I took it it was with a SUNY Cortland intern giving the tour. In 2005 the tour that we took was given by the director of the research facility there at Epcot. And this time by one of the senior researchers with like fourteen years of experience in agriculture science. So we have gotten a mix of experiences on the tour between the different people and the ten year span over which I have been taking the tour. Our tour group ended up being only Dominica and I and one other couple from southern Illinois. We had a really good time.
After our tour we spent a little time hanging out in The Land’s Sunshine Seasons food court with a little bite of dessert just so that we could wait for the heat outside to dissipate a little before going back out into the think of it again. From there we could see the sky through the front windows and could see that it had become overcast during the two hours that we had been inside of The Land.
We went outside and it was indeed beginning to rain. What a relief. It had been so hot for so long that even getting wet was a welcome relief. We took a wonderful walk in the rain from The Land up to the Canadian Pavilion at the beginning of the World Showcase. The O Canada movie is newly updated so we went in and watched that. It was still a bit warm outside but improving.
The movie is a really good update to the classic O Canada movie even with Martin Short in it which they could have done without. But he managed to not ruin the film. I was quite upset when I learned that he was in it but he wasn’t all that bad. Not good, definitely not good. But not horrible. The movie itself was quite good, though.
Then on to the United Kingdom Pavilion where we put in our name as the Rose and Crown Pub for dinner. Dominica was sure that we couldn’t get seating but when we asked if there was space available they were like “of course”. The wait was only about ten minutes or so. We found ourselves a nice bench in the UK and just relaxed until it was time to be seated.
The weather had cooled off significantly so we took an outside table so that we could enjoy the rain and the wind that had now come in. We both got fish and chips and I got a Boddingtons. Lunch was good. We have eaten at the Rose and Crown before and have and have had the fish and chips before as well. The chef came out to check on things at the end of our meal and we were surprised to find that she was from Bound Brook, New Jersey – very close to my Warren office. South Bound Brook (which is all one town but on different sides of the little river there) is where Dominica and I were seriously looking at buying a condo at one point. That is the condo that Bob Winans saw when he drove down to check it out.
After dinner it was probably six thirty or maybe closer to seven. We walked around the World Showcase taking a relaxing stroll. We walked through Morocco and did some shopping all throughout the showcase. Then in Norway we stopped for dessert at the Norwegian bakery where we always get something to eat. We sat outside at the bakery for a long time relaxing as the weather was pretty nice and there was nothing more that we really wanted to do in the park.
After we were done eating we walked down to Spaceship Earth and rode one more time before leaving the park to grab a bus back to the hotel. It was eight thirty when we walked out of the gates and Epcot closes at nine. So we managed to do a pretty full day starting just thirty minutes in to the extra magic hour in the morning at Hollywood Studios and going to thirty minutes before close at Epcot. We were pretty exhausted.
It was pretty much straight to bed for us when we got back to the Wilderness Lodge. Tomorrow we get to sleep in. Our plan is to have breakfast delivered to the room and to just relax at the lodge until it is time to go to the airport. We exhausted our need to go into the parks for this trip and we know that we are supposed to be back next year with a lot more time than we had on this trip and will be looking for stuff to do so no need to tax ourselves now. Our flight leaves Orlando around seven thirty tomorrow evening. We will leave the hotel at four in the afternoon.
]]>Today is our big “park” day in Walt Disney World. Epcot opens early this morning at eight o’clock so our plan was to be up early and get it as soon as the gates opened for resort guests, but I was so tired after getting almost no sleep for such a long time and getting so little yesterday that I just wasn’t able to get up that early today. Dominica was up and ready to go long before I was.
We did manage to still get up at a reasonable time and were down at the Roarin’ Forks cafeteria getting breakfast around seven thirty. Not nearly as early as we had hoped but not too shabby, all things considered. We just did a simple continental breakfast at Roarin’ Forks. All of Disney is full of great bakery items. There are many bakeries around WDW all turning out incredible fare.
We took the bus from the Wilderness Lodge to Epcot which was pretty smooth. It was just after eight thirty when we walked into Epcot. There were not very many people there which worked out great for us. Our first stop, obviously, was Spaceship Earth. We were both very excited to have a change to ride Spaceship Earth as it has just completed a new, and sorely needed, refurb. This is the refurb that we have been expecting now that Siemens has taken over sponsorship of the pavilion after AT&T dropped it some years ago.
There was practically no line at all for Spaceship Earth this early in the morning. It has not been a “hot” ride for a very long time as it is one of the original 1982 attractions but it is a classic and it is extremely well done – although I believe it to only be the third best of the four original attractions of its type: World of Motion, Universe of Energy and Horizons. The update was very well done, in my humble opinion. The ride was shut down for a while and all of the sets were cleaned and the clothing washed and that sort of stuff which was pretty important as the ride was beginning to look pretty drab when Dominica and I rode it last year. Jeremy Irons, who had done the narration for the rides last update which was some time ago, was replaced by Judy Dench for this latest update. The story line of the narration was changed and one of the animatronics scenes was changed (Greeks now do math rather than theatre) so that the entire exhibit is skewed towards the Internet rather than legacy telephone communications although the two are closely related and really only minor changes needed to be made.
Towards the end of the “first section” (the “first section” being the part of the ride when you climb into the ball and the “second section” being the part when you are descending out of the ball) the silly old vignette of people using video phones (or whatever that was supposed to be) was removed and a vignette of Steve Wozniak working on the prototype of the Apple computer (the Apple 1 kit, not the Apple ][) was put in its place. Dominica was very impressed as I turned to her and said “that’s Steve Wozniak” when the Judy Dench narration hadn’t explicitly mentioned who was being represented in the example of the beginnings of the personal computer. She had known already who it was having read about the ride online but didn’t tell me so that she could see if I would guess it. I had no idea that she was waiting to see if I knew who it was and I recognized Wozniak (whom I have met in person) from behind leaning over a desk.
At the intro to Spaceship Earth there was always a “slide show” or something similar that showed faces of cavemen before going on to show the cavemen vignette. This has been replaced with a video of cavemen fighting a woolly mammoth which is a huge improvement without affecting the original “intentions” of the ride.
All throughout the ride the movements and actions of the animatronics seem to be improved and some new affects, sounds and music have been added or updated. It feels a little bit less like the ride was made in 1982 now.
The second half of the ride has been complete changed which is good as the old AT&T ending was horrendous even when it was new. The ending portion of the ride is a tough challenge, I am sure, for the Disney Imagineers as they use all of their available physical space in building the first half of the ride leaving the last half with little more than a dark tunnel in which the riders must descend backwards (for safety and comfort reasons.) The old ending was little more than twinkling lights and was positively annoying to have to ride through. The new ending is cute and very funny even if cheap and not very inventive.
Replacing the old second half of the ride is now a “choose your own future” thing done on a little screen that has been built into your “car”. This is a throwback to the same feature on the Horizons ride by GE back in 1982. Only this time instead of just three possible endings you get to pick from dozens. I’m not sure that this is better for Disney than the three endings of Horizons, though, as the three ending options gave riders a reason to ride the ride three times to see if they could see all three endings each of which was completely different from the others. But this selection processes of dozens or scores of endings is far too many for anyone to attempt to see them all and most of the endings overlap with each other and are not truly unique. So only riding a few times nets you anything very valuable in the way of final endings.
The way that the endings work is that, at the beginning of the ride, your picture is taken and at the end you face is put onto the body of cartoon characters who are shown going about their day in the future based on technologies that Siemens is current working on. It is an interesting concept and can be very funny but is just an elaborate version of the Christmas Elf greeting card that my dad has been sending for the last few years. In fact, it doesn’t look quite as good as that card because there is no manual editing of the pictures and the pictures are taken using a cheap camera from too far away in a poorly lit space. So the elf card has an advantage. So while it is cute and funny it is not innovative and ends up being an example of where Disney has failed to keep their park updated in such a way that it is not being overtaken by technologies that people now possess at home. The entire last half of Spaceship Earth ride is literally something you would expect to see on some company’s web site in a section that no one really goes to because it is silly and meant for kids. It isn’t bad – but it isn’t really impressive either.
When you get off of the Spaceship Earth ride Siemens has their little advertising area there where you can interact with Siemens displays and get a feel for what they do as a company. One cool thing that they did is show everyone’s pictures up on a huge display with a giant map and then it places people’s faces onto the map so that you can see from whence people are coming. Then you can go to a little computer terminal and select your picture and send it to yourself via email so that you have a greeting card of your ride. That was a nice touch and given that the ride uses some very standard “at home” technologies at least they carried it through and did all the things with it that you would expect to be able to do these days. So that was a nice touch.
It is important to note that none of the changes in Spaceship Earth were for the worse. Some didn’t go as far as we would have liked but none of them took away from good parts of the ride. Spaceship Earth is definitely now a better ride, or just as good in some places, as it was last year or in 1982, for that matter. So this is one update that we are very please that Disney has completed. Ever since Horizons become Mission to Mars and the World of Motion became Test Track we have feared that Spaceship Earth would become a big cheesy tilt-a-whirl or some other cheap carnival ride.
After riding Spaceship Earth, Dominica’s favourite ride, we headed on over to Nestle’s The Land for my favourite ride “Living with the Land”. We never go through Epcot without riding on Living with the Land at least once or twice. It is so peaceful and relaxing and since it is a real, living exhibit there is always some change worth noting in the greenhouses. This year there are no real changes to the ride from last year except that the audio system seems to have been fixed and is no longer cutting in and out. The last time that we were riding on the ride the human narrator had just been replaced by the prerecorded narration and the kinks hadn’t been worked out yet.
After The Land we headed on over to Exxon-Mobil’s Universe of Energy which was updated many years ago but is still pretty good. It could use another update though. Partially just because it is old and partially because so much has happened in energy production in the years since it was originally installed. Ellen hosts it and it would be nice if they got her back to do it again because she did a really good job and they themed it with some stuff in the Animal Kingdom’s Dinosaur area with her as well which worked out pretty well. And Jamie Lee Curtis did part of the show which is awesome. I do feel like they did a couple of minor updates and I think that there is a dinosaur that squirts water into the audience that didn’t do that before – and it managed to get me square in the face too!
Then it was off to the world showcase. There was a line at the Finding Nemo ride and we weren’t too thrilled with it last year and can happily wait to do it again until next fall when we are planning to return with Dominica’s entire family for more than a week in the parks. No reason to do anything now that we don’t really want to do.
We actually did everything in Future World early enough (everything that we cared to do, that is) that we got to the World Showcase and had to wait almost half an hour before they opened. So we just hung out in the gardens in the UK Pavilion where it was a little cooler than being exposed in the open Florida sun.
We decided to do an early lunch so that we could escape the heat on the early side but we quickly discovered that nothing in the World Showcase really serves lunch before noon which makes eating in Epcot that much more difficult. We looked at the menu at the Rose and Crown where we had the most amazing vegetable pot pie (rutabaga Wellington) last year but now it is off the menu and nothing that sounded tasty would be good considering the heat outside. So we moved on and tried to get a seat at the restaurant in the France Pavilion but they were not seating until noon and we were not sure that we wanted to wait. So we kept on walking.
I talked Dominica into eating at the San Angel Inn in the Mexico Pavilion because I have always wanted to eat there. For twenty one years, since my family first came to WDW in 1987, I have always wanted to eat at the San Angel Inn which is located inside of the Mexico Pavilion between the little “market” and the “River del Tiempo” that the Gran Fiesta Tour takes place on. It has the most amazing ambiance. Min had heard that it wasn’t really that good but I had heard that it was one of the best places to eat in all of WDW and since I had always wanted to eat there (and since it was nice and cool) she decided to let me.
The San Angel Inn is an extremely popular dining location in the World Showcase because of the ambiance and the widely accepted palate available for Americans but we were really early and managed to get seating for a quarter till one in the afternoon. So we had roughly an hour to kill until we ate.
While Min was making reservations I strolled around the museum exhibit in Mexico. The Mexico Pavilion always has a really neat little art of Mexico display that changes on a regular basis. Right now they are doing a show on the animal carving of Oaxaca in southern Mexico.
We rode the Gran Fiesta Tour and then walked over to Norway, which is right next door, and rode the Maelstrom and watched the Norway movie. Hopefully now that Norway has really done well financially on the global markets they will invest in updating the pavilion which is, I believe, the newest of the Epcot World Showcase pavilions (built between the first and second trips that I made to Disney in 1987 and 1992) because the movie is now very old and bits of the ride need some repairs.
After the ride we stopped and listened to a Norwegian folk band that was playing on the street. Dominica thought it was funny that I thought that the music sounded so much like the music I would hear after coming home from school each day because my mother would often practice her accordion playing at that time of day.
Then it was time to do some shopping in Mexico as we waiting for our seating time to roll around. Because we were right there in the pavilion we were able to get seated earlier than our reservation time which worked out perfectly, but not nearly as perfectly as where we were seated! After waiting for twenty-one years to get to eat at the San Angel Inn Dominica and I actually got seated, without asking or bribing, right on the waterfront in the best two person table in the house! We were very excited as the hostess walked us closer and closer to what appeared to be a water side location. It was awesome.
Only about eight percent of people who eat at the San Angel Inn get to eat water side. They are by far the best seats in the house and the seats that make the restaurant really famous. As you dine the people riding in the boats on the Gran Fiesta Tour occasionally glide by on the River del Tiempo. It is like being on the ride for the entire meal. There are only a few places to eat in Disney where there are seats overlooking a ride (Pinocchio’s Village Haus has a few seats looking onto the loading area of It’s a Small World and the Garden Grill is a rotating restaurant that looks into Living with the Land) but that is about it. It is a really neat feature that I hope they think about when building new restaurants. Pleasant rides like Living with the Land are perfect spots to have the attraction and the restaurants coexist.
In addition to the ambiance the food was amazing. As my readers surely know, Dominica and I are vegetarians (ovo-lacto-vegaquarians – eggs, dairy and fish) and if you look at the San Angel Inn menu there really isn’t anything vegetarian on the menu except for fish which Dominica often does not want to eat and I was not in the mood for as we already had reservations for a fish dinner tonight. But Disney is famous for being accommodating in its restaurants which are often excited to have people taking an interest in the menu and are delighted to make special accommodations for you. We made reservations at the San Angel Inn trusting that they would be able to come up with something for us.
And did they! The San Angel Inn made us the tomatillo enchiladas and queso burritos. The food was amazing. It was so delicious. We were extremely happy that we gave the San Angel Inn a try. Sadly we didn’t have enough room for any dessert.
After lunch we tried walking a little more but quickly determined that it was simply too hot to be outside and that there was no way that Dominica was going to be able to handle the eat so we walked back to the bus station outside of Epcot and took the Disney bus back to the Wilderness Lodge.
Once back at the lodge we napped for several hours before dinner time. For dinner we had reservations at the exclusive Artist Point at the Wilderness Lodge which is one of Disney Signature restaurants. We were very excited as Artist Point is quite famous. Everyone raves about it. (Check out the current Artist Point menu.) AllEarsNet’s current menu lists the salmon dish as $34 but because the Copper River was available at the time that we were there the salmon was actually $47.
Our reservations were for five thirty – right as the restaurant was opening. We got there and were seated within a few minutes. We were the second table to arrive for the evening.
Dinner was awesome. Dominica didn’t want fish – she hasn’t been liking fish recently which has made dining more difficult but luckily Disney really takes care of you when you need strict vegetarian meals so it wasn’t a problem. It is just unfortunate as Artist Point is most famous for its incredible fish. (For fellow vegetarians – many of the Artist Point items mention that they include some amount of meat but simply tell your server when ordering and they will inform the chef as each item can be made without the meat.) I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try the Copper River salmon that was the highlighted dish this week. The Artist Point menu is constantly changing but their top item is always salmon. Copper River salmon is hard to get so this was a special treat. Min got the vegetarian potato and chive pot stickers which were good but didn’t compare to the salmon.
The food, service and atmosphere were really amazing. We really enjoyed Artist Point. For dessert Dominica got the famous Artist Point Cobbler and I went for the Hazlenut Chocolate Torte. It was all quite amazing.
After dinner we went back to the room and changed and headed out to catch that boat to the Magic Kingdom. Tonight is the extra magic hours in the evening for the Magic Kingdom so it is actually open until two in the morning which is kind of crazy. It is really sad that Disney is no longer keeping Epcot open really late at night because it has so many great restaurants, bars and lounge areas that are perfect for a late evening in the park. The Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios don’t have the same level of late night adult oriented venues like Epcot does so they really don’t make as much sense to have open so late. It is very sad that such a great piece of Disney is no longer available. Hopefully the crowds will demand that Epcot stay open later and Disney will change the closing time to something a bit more reasonable.
On the way to the boat we ran into a couple who were just married on Friday who came to Disney on their honeymoon from Corpus Christi, Texas. We ended up hanging out with them for a while because the first boat was overfull and we all had to wait for a second boat to come get us as so many people were going to the Magic Kingdom all at once and we rode the boat with them so we hung out for about half an hour. It is always nice to hang out with people in Disney World.
Tonight ended up being our only time going to the Magic Kingdom. In one evening, starting at seven o’clock when we arrived, we were able to do everything that we wanted to do in the Magic Kingdom with time to spare!
We started in Adventureland riding Pirates of the Caribbean. We skipped the Jungle Cruise as it has a pretty long line which is encouraging because that is an original 1971 ride and it is still attracting huge crowds even when it is a Fastpass ride! Very cool.
In Frontierland we did the Country Bear Jamboree which I may not have done since 1987 when I first went to the park with my parents when I was just eleven. The Country Bears are definitely one of the rides that desperately needs to be changed. I can see where it would be a neat attraction for small children but the animatronics are dated and in horrible shape, the show is really cheesy and not good for adults or children and the sound has deteriorated to the ponit where not a word of the entire show can be understood. I think that they need to really rethink this show and make it more like the new Monster’s Inc. Laugh Floor which I will talk about shortly.
After Frontierland we moved on to Liberty Square and rode the recently updated Haunted Mansion. The updates were quite good. Lots of the old stuff has been updated and the ride is quite a bit nicer than it used to be. It is still very classic but works much better. No downsides to this update.
Then on the Fantasyland. Dominica talked me into riding It’s a Small World which, even after all these years, I still think is completely awful. It is a combination of boring, creepy and cheap. The people running the ride were very friendly though which, I imagine, is a daunting task, all things considered.
Then it was time for Mickey’s Philharmagic – the 3D movie based on Disney’s Fantasia which is one of Dominica’s favourite attractions in the entire park and definitely the best 3D movie (since Captain EO was removed which is likely to always remain Disney’s best 3D movie.) The curtain was missing from the show though which was weird. It seems like Disney would fix that right away. The show looked a little weird because it was missing.
There were a lot of people in Fantasyland so we really didn’t consider doing anything further. We continued on to Tomorrowland where we rode our all time favourite Magic Kingdom ride – The Carousel of Progress. The CoP hasn’t been updated since our last time to Disney (although the final scene really should be updated every three or four years) so we were just riding it because we love the ride.
We rode the Wedway People Mover which is now called the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. It occurred to me on this trip why I don’t like this ride nearly as much as I used to (besides the fact that they removed Walt’s name from one of his brainchildren) – it is because when it was still called the WEDway People Mover the audio portion of the ride would talk about the linear engines used to propel the cars and it would discuss how this was an important technology for the future and talk about how it works. Linear motors are import for use in things like maglev trains so they are still quite relevant today. Now, instead of being interesting and educational, the ride has been really “dumbed down” and is nothing but a bizarre ride that takes you around Tomorrowland and has an announcer doing marketing for Tomorrowland shops and attractions and for things that don’t exist which is all very cheesy and weird. It’s kind of uncomfortable to listen to because it is so disconnected from reality and even the make-believe Tomorrowland of the park. It used to be a really great ride and they could fix it with nothing more than a meaningful narration!
We rode Buzz Lightyear’s ride again and, Dominica will want me to inform you, she managed to beat me this time in the Buzz Lightyear Space Adventure game which is still fun, even for adults.
At this point we pretty much exhausted all of the rides and attractions that we were interested in in the Magic Kingdom. Between Disney improving queue handling and us just being much better at getting around the park we seem to be able to just go from ride to ride without ever waiting in any serious amount of lines. It really didn’t seem like we waited at all the entire time although technically we did wait a few minutes at Buzz Lightyear.
On the way out of Tomorrowland we walked by Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor and decided that we had plenty of time and nothing left that we wanted to do and that it had kind of looked interesting and, since there was visible line, we would give it a try. There wasn’t a line but the Laugh Floor is truly a “show” and not a ride so everyone needs to be aware that you simply have to wait for the show in front of you to finish. The wait was actually quite long and it is one of Disney’s infamous “slanted floor” waiting areas which are very tough on feet and ankles. They show horribly boring and actually annoying videos to “keep you entertained” while waiting but that could have been greatly improved.
Once we got in to the actual show, though, we discovered that this really is an extremely entertaining show! The show uses human controlled video characters from the movie Monsters Inc much like the Logitech webcams for the last several years have done face recognition to allow you to animate video characters based on your real time facial movements. That is exactly what this show is. Live human actors controlling “monsters” and doing a live comedy show where they get audience participation. It was really good. We had a very good time. The show is very short, though, and ours had one of the main participants flat out refused to take part in the show which caused the whole thing to just stop for several minutes as they attempted to coax her to participate. It was really annoying having the entire theatre just sitting there waiting for one person who didn’t want to play along. There should be more warning that you might be picked at random to be a part of the show. The stuff you do is simple but if you are sick or don’t speak English or just won’t participate there needs to be a way to opt out for everyones’ sake. But overall the show was realy good. We are very glad that we tried it out.
On the way out of Tomorrowland we saw where the Tomorrowland Terrace, which has a new Asian noodle bowl menu, is and are looking forward to eating there next year when we return. They have several delicious looking items. We stopped by the Main Street Bakery and picked up some items to eat back at the Wilderness Lodge later tonight and for breakfast.
Then it was time to catch the boat back to the Wilderness Lodge. It was almost two in the morning when we arrived at the lodge! What a long day for us. We were really tired by the time that we got back.
We ate some of our bakery products and then it was definitely time for bed. Not much sleep for us tonight as tomorrow morning we need to be in Hollywood Studios pretty early.
]]>I was awfully tired this morning after having worked until eleven thirty last night and then having the alarm go off at four thirty this morning. I actually woke up three minutes before the alarm all on my own which at least saved me from being jolted awake by the alarm itself.
No matter how much work we do ahead of time to get ready for traveling there is always way too much to be done at the last minute like packing my CPAP, laptop, getting the plants ready, etc.
We got a taxi at six to take us to Newark-Liberty International. The went smoothly and we were at the airport with plenty of time to kill before our flight. We got through security and relaxed until it was time to fly. We grabbed a breakfast at a steak place that did big egg and cheese on sub rolls just before flying.
I starting reading “Dreaming in Code” this morning. That’s the only book that I am taking on the trip with me. That and a few back issues of Baseline that I haven’t had a chance to read yet.
We flew Continental to Orlando which was a nice change as the flight was direct and about an hour shorter overall and less expensive too. The flights went quite well. Dominica has been nervous about flying because she gets motion sickness and can’t take Dramamine anymore but she use SeaBands and they actually worked wonderfully for her (although personally I think that it is a placebo – but hey, whatever works.)
We landed in Orlando and took Disney’s Magical Express to our hotel. The Magical Express is a Disney chartered bus operated by Mears (who does all of the good Orlando area transportation) that takes you directly from the airport to the hotel and deals with everything for you. It is really a nice touch for people staying at a Disney resort and it is free which helps to mitigate the cost of a Disney resort versus staying outside of the park. It also helps to make the experience more integrated so that you feel like you are in Disney World from the moment that you step off of the plane. (From a business perspective it also allows Disney to completely cut you off from any of their competitors in the area keeping you completely focused on Disney activities and curtailing the desire to sample other parks or resorts – which is actually good, I think, because people who do that always dislike the region, in my experience – they ruin it for themselves and then confuse the cheap touristy stuff in the Orlando area with Disney stuff.)
The Magical Express dropped us at our hotel, Disney’s Wilderness Lodge, which is located in the Magic Kingdom resort area but is not on the monorail. The Wilderness Lodge is located on Bay Lake very near the Contemporary Resort but its principle access to the Magic Kingdom is via a water ferry that takes you right up to the main gates very quickly. We decided to take care of our own bags rather than to have the Magical Express check them through for us. That is a nice service that allows you to go straight to the parks without even thinking twice about your hotel stay, but most of the time we prefer to have our bags and access to them right away. If the Magical Express deals with them then they take an additional three hours to get to your room because they come on a separate bus and you don’t have access to them right away.
We got checked in and were into our room, a pool view room on the inside of the courtyard on the second floor, around one in the afternoon. We relaxed for a little while. We decided that because it is so hot today that we were going to skip going into the parks today and just take it easy and do some resort activities instead. We come to Disney more than often enough to have little drive to get in and do things in the parks themselves.
Around three we took the water ferry over to the Magic Kingdom and from there took the Animal Kingdom Lodge bus to the AKL as we had five thirty dinner reservations at Boma – which since we have started promoting it has become an insanely busy restaurant which is nearly impossible to get into anymore. Reservations are a must and if you want any choice of times you need to think about it weeks in advance even during moderately slow times of year! What used to be a niche restaurant in a niche resort is now one of the Disney hottest commodities.
As always, the bus service to the AKL took forever. Disney hasn’t figured out how to deal with the far-flung resorts that are accessible only by bus yet and it can easily take an hour to go from the Magic Kingdom to the lodge which is a major problem. Disney has started putting tons of great restaurants and activities out in their resorts – which is great – but because of this the transportation system is strained beyond capacity and getting around the parks can be a major hassle even for Disney resort guests at deluxe resorts who never leave WDW!
We weren’t too early getting to the Animal Kingdom Lodge – our timing was quite good, in fact. Dinner was awesome, as always, although several of our favourite items were not on tonight’s menu so there were several things that we were left wanting. But everything that they had was awesome. Our server was Lindsay, from Buffalo, who was also our server last May when we ate at Boma! You know that you eat at a restaurant at Disney a lot when you start knowing people.
After dinner we went outside to look at the savanna for a few minutes but it was incredibly hot and we decided not to stay for any length of time.
We took the bus over to the Disney Hollywood Studios because, again a major problem with Disney transportation, there is no direct route from the AKL to the Epcot Resort area with the Boardwalk where we wanted to go. So we went first to Hollywood Studios and then down to its boat docks where we could catch the ferry that runs between the Swan, Dolphin, Beach, Yacht, Boardwalk, Epcot and Hollywood Studios. Sounds incredibly indirect but it is the best means of which we are aware of traveling between the AKL and the Boardwalk.
On the bus ride over people were starting to talk about the large fire that could be seen not too far away. No one seemed to know what it was but there was a massive smoke cloud beginning to rise above the trees making the sky fairly dark even though it was not overcast.
We just missed the boat for the Boardwalk so we had about twenty minutes to sit and wait at the docks. From the Hollywood Studios boat launch looking due east the fire was huge and appeared to be not too far past the woods there. There was a helicopter or two circling the fire as well. The fire was so intense that even where we were the whole area was getting covered in ash as it started to fall from the sky. It was really weird. We could only barely smell smoke as the smoke itself was going far above us but the debris was coming down and was all over the ground and our clothes. Really large pieces of ash were coming down and it was constant. I have never seen anything like it. No one ever figured out where the fire was, though.
I took a careful look on Google Maps from where we were standing and the direction that we were facing it had to be somewhere around Disney’s Caribbean Beach resort, Typhoon Lagoon or Disney Downtown. The distance didn’t seem to be that far so I think that that is about as far as it could have been but it is impossible to gauge. There are many resorts right after Disney Downtown and then outside of the park that is a heavily populated area so there is a lot out there that could have been burning. We have been unable to find any news sources confirming this massive fire which is really, really strange.
The boat ride was nice and pretty quick. The captain informed us that if we rode all the way to the Boardwalk that it would take an extra ten to fifteen minutes but if we disembarked at the very first stop, the Swan and Dolphin Resorts, that the footbridge lead right onto the Boardwalk and that it would only take two to three minutes. So we chose to do that instead. In reality it appears that the Boardwalk dock should just be combined with the Swan and Dolphin as it is incredibly close. I have no idea why they bother to have the separate one unless it just isn’t clear enough how to get to this “hidden” one that lies deceptively behind the Boardwalk rather than in front of it.
We took a walk down the length of the Boardwalk. This was Dominica’s first time ever actually on the Boardwalk although she had seen it from the Yacht and Beach Club resorts across the lake in 2005 when we had taken a bus to those resorts and then walked into Epcot from the world showcase entrance. We stopped at the Boardwalk Bakery and picked up some food for tomorrow morning and then we got some ice cream at the creamery there and sat out enjoying it on the Boardwalk itself.
We didn’t stay for very long as there isn’t very much to do on the Boardwalk if you don’t feel like drinking and even then you really need to be prepared to stay out pretty late, and staying out late on the Boardwalk leaves you with the issue of how to get back home as this is a large area with no late running transportation back to the Disney resorts even though it is a prime spot for Disney nightlife. Again, a major transportation oversight with the potential to leave deluxe resort guests stranded while still on Disney property!
We hopped the boat back to the Hollywood Studios and from there caught the bus back to the Wilderness Lodge. It was quite early for going back to the hotel but our day started very early and we needed to catch up on some sleep desperately. So we just hung around the resort for the evening. We took a walk down by the geyser and along the Silver Creek that flows through the resort. There isn’t a lot to see but it is worth a walk around. We did a little window shopping at the Mercantile as well. Then off to an early bed. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.
]]>This morning I finished reading “Agile Java Development with Spring, Hibernate and Eclipse” by Anil Hemrajani.
Today is my work from home with Oreo day. Oreo has been really exhausted and is really happy about being home today. He and I both slept in this morning making for a ten hour night or so! We both needed the rest. Then he moved to the living room and slept while I worked not asking for his breakfast until after two in the afternoon.
I ordered some new books from Amazon last night: “Java Persistence with Hibernate” (aka Hibernate in Action, Second Edition), “POJOs in Action: Developing Enterprise Applications with Lightweight Frameworks” and “Spring in Action, 2nd Edition“.
It is a really nice, bright and sunny day so I took Oreo for a nice walk in the park. Today is my last day with Oreo until Wednesday night – a whole week without my little dog – so I want to spend as much quality time with him as possible. It is very sad to have to go so long without him. The original plan was to have him stay at Dominica’s parents’ house with Dexter for the weekend. But then we realized that we wouldn’t be able to pick Oreo up until next weekend making us go about eight or nine days without him plus once we worked out the mileage and cost it is far cheaper to send Oreo to daycare. The cost of transferring him involve twelve people hours of drive time and 880 total miles which, when factoring in gas and wear and tear, is quite a bit more expensive than four or five nights at daycare. And at daycare the money is going to nice people rather than up in exhaust fumes.
Dominica got all of our dinner reservations for Walt Disney World made today. We have reservations for Boma in the Animal Kingdom Lodge, Artist Pointe at the Wilderness Lodge and the Brown Derby in Disney Studios. Boma used to be slow and you could just walk in on most days but since we have been telling everyone about it it has become one of the most popular eating destinations in Disney and is nearly impossible to get into these days.
I ended up having a really busy work night tonight so Min and I didn’t get to spend much time together. We watched a little AppleTV and ate a quick dinner together but I was paged out during dinner and several times after we ate. As it was I had worked solid until around seven thirty.
My “free time” ended when my networking team got done with a production issue and were able to help me with a networking problem that we had been waiting on all day. So I got stuck working late into the night trying to get a machine fixed. So I lost a lot of my last night with Oreo too.
I worked until one thirty and then gave up for the night. Tomorrow is Friday and it is going to be an exceptionally long one for me as I have quite a bit of weekend work that needs to be completed and since I am gone for the weekend it has to be done tomorrow evening. So my night is really going to go late. Plus it is Friday so it always goes late.
Dominica and I fly out of Newark early Saturday morning so we have to be up around five thirty in order to make it to the airport on time. I am going to be pretty tired by the time that we reach Florida. We are guessing that we are not even going to bother going into the parks on Saturday. We will arrive in Orlando at 11:30 in the morning and should be in the resort around 12:30 via Disney Transportation from the airport. It will take us a little while to settle in and then we have dinner reservations at Boma at the Animal Kingdom Lodge at 5:30. It could easily take an hour to go from the Wilderness Lodge to the Animal Kingdom Lodge so it leaves a rather small window to go to the parks.
After dinner it will be rather late for burning a day pass to the parks and so we will be most likely to just go to the Boardwalk and relax for a little while and then will likely spend the evening relaxing at the Wilderness Lodge. It is a nice resort that you should, in theory, want to hang out at so we will give that a try. The Animal Kingdom Lodge definitely came through in that department last year.
Saturday we are planning to be up early and to hit the Magic Kingdom first thing, I think. Dominica has a pretty rigorous schedule planned for most of the time that we are there. We have dinner reservations back at the Wilderness Lodge’s Artist Pointe on Saturday night so the Magic Kingdom makes a lot of sense since it is so close to the lodge.
Monday morning we are planning on going to Disney Studios which opens early that day. We want to be among the first to ride on Toy Story Mania which opens this weekend there. That is the only actual new ride for us this year. We will have to do the Great Movie Ride while we are there – it is the one truly amazing attraction in Disney Studios. Then at eleven in the morning we have early lunch reservations at the Brown Derby restaurant in the studios which is the best restaurant in that park. The menu looks awesome and neither of us has ever tried it.
]]>Photos:
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Videos not available until after we return and edit.
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]]>Disney Day One 2007
Disney Day Two 2007
Disney Day Three 2007
Download the SGL Podcast Episode 55 in MP3
Download the SGL Podcast Episode 55 in Ogg Vorbis
Day One of Scott and Dominica in Disney World. Recorded in Room 2433 of the Animal Kingdom Lodge on May 11, 2007. No music, just a Disney World update covering our trip to WDW yesterday and our first day in the park today. Today we only went to EPCOT.
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]]>Scott records episode six over two days in Geneseo, talks about Open Office and his upcoming trip to Walt Disney World.
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SGL Podcast Episode 6 OurMedia Page.
(This epside was originally hosted on Podomatic before being moved to SGL.)
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