On Feb 26th, after a morning of working from 5-10:30am, I met Winnie at LaGuardia airport for a flight to Orlando for a 6 night stay. Kathy met us at the airport and I picked up a Dollar rental car, following Tony home to their new house. The place is lovely. An over-55 gated community, their new house is situated by a golf course with a resort-like clubhouse that offers 2 heated pools, a gym, billiards room, arts and crafts, computer room, library and meeting/banquet space among other amenities.
On our first full day there, (Wed) - Winnie & I got Kathy to take a walk with us. We waved to many of the residents there who were also on strolls or doing their morning exercise. For an early bird special, we went to their favorite Chinese /Sushi / Mongolian grill buffet. I didn't catch the name but it excelled in our expectations! We followed the Lagoda's found method of dining there. Skip the "regular" Chinese assortment and go with the sushi (good variety and fresh) and the Mongolian Grill. Load up the veggies of choice (mushrooms, water chestnuts, cabbage, bean sprouts, baby corn, bean curd...etc) - noodles or rice and add uncooked slices of beef, chicken, shrimp, pork onto a plate and then give the heaping mountain to the grill master with your choice of :flavoring: soy sauce, teriyaki, garlic or chili sauce and he cooks it right in front of you. Fantastic! All this was about $8pp!! Remember: Weekday early bird! :-)
On Thursday, the four of us went to the Magic Kingdom. I probably hadn't been there in over 15 years! I had purchased a 5 day One Day One Park pass with no expiration from an on-line site. Unfortunately it got lost in the mail. But with some terrific customer service, I was able to pick up a replacement at the will-call windows. Winnie had purchased a child's pass years ago and never did get a chance to use it and now Liz is 21! She was hoping to exchange it for possibly 2 days worth but discovered she had 7 days plus 3 days water parks still valid on it! She upgraded it to a no-expiration and was very happy to also be advised that 3 passes she had from her last trip to Disney yielded 2 more days on them. Kathy & Tony picked up annual resident passes. We were all set for Main Street.
Our first ride was the Jungle Cruise. 40 min wait but it didn't seem so bad - probably because it wasn't hot and humid out. After that we did Pirates of the Caribbean and then the train around the park. When we got back to Frontier Land, Kathy & Tony parted ways with us. Winnie "talked" me into riding Thunder Mountain! Anyone who knows me....KNOWS I am not a thrill ride person. BUT I figured..."when in Rome..."...I tried not to think about it as we wound our way around the line and then we were on and OFF! Ahhhh...if only there was a video tape of it. I was actually lifted off my seat and practically onto Winnie's lap at every sharp turn! Winnie was laughing hysterically doing that instead of screaming. I was screaming. Yeah...must have been a sight!
After that, we had lunch...we tried to find the new Be Our Guest restaurant but with all the construction in Fantasy Land, we kept getting turned around. Finally we found it but the wait was 1 hour! We were too hungry to wait and went to the Cosmic Ray Star Light restaurant where we got the Bacon Cheese Burger Deluxe. We were so hungry and so grateful to find two spots at the counter that we gobbled everything down before discovering a complete "fixings" bar!!
We followed Nikki's itinerary practically to the T. We loved Monster's Inc Laugh Floor (I didn't know what to expect and was so pleasantly surprised!) and Mickey's PhilharMagic in 3D.
The real surprise happened when we were done...leaving the park and had to take the requisite photo op shot by the pathway of Tomorrow Land with the castle as a backdrop. (see below) There was a professional photographer there also and suddenly a rat ran out. No...not Mickey...a real life rat! Everyone was screaming and jumping. Pretty funny.
The next day, only Winnie & I went to Epcot. It was a brisk cool day and the park was rather quiet. We parked in the entrance lot (Journey) so we didn't have to take a tram. With the exception of Soarin' which we got a Fast Pass, we walked onto every ride! It was won-der-ful! We rode Spaceship Earth 4 times! We did that because the first time - we didn't know about the custom video made of us at the end of the ride. I wasn't even in it! So at the end of the ride, we asked if we could go around again and they said yes. We liked our video but wanted a different scenario so prior to leaving the park, we went on again. (No lines!) We made a good one of us skiing:
Esther & Winnie's Spaceship Earth Video
We left the park to meet Kathy & Tony for dinner and went to Cracker Barrel. After dinner and freshening up, Winnie and I went back to see Illuminations. The evening's temperature was quite chilly that I wore my puffy winter jacket and scarf and was happily comfortable. We stopped at France to get dessert....chocolate Mousse for me and a Napoleon for Winnie. We stood by Japan to watch the show and it was wondrous! We need to return for a visit to MGM Studios and Animal Kingdom!!
The rest of our visit was relaxing, shopping and plenty of eating!! Just what a vacay should be!
Thanks, Kathy & Tony for being perfect hosts and to Winnie, for being a great companion !!
