Our Disney Vacation
For our 5th anniversary, we planned a trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando! 
We arrived in Orlando on Sunday afternoon. After checking in at the hotel, we headed to Downtown Disney for some shopping, dinner and maybe some clubbing. We had dinner at Wolfgang Puck Cafe — we both had sushi and finished with some wonderful desserts! We also checked out Disney Quest (too bad we didn’t have more time — we could have played in there for hours). After dinner we went to 8trax, the 70’s & 80’s club but it was totally dead. After about 30 minutes of dancing by ourselves, lol, we headed back to the hotel.
We spent Monday at the Magic Kingdom. No matter how many times I go there, it still feels magical every time. We started to describe that effect as “pixie dust.” I guess it’s really the ability of the Disney cast members and imagineers to take you to a completely different land and make you forget about everything else completely. Our first attraction was the Haunted Mansion, before a scheduled lunch reservation at the Liberty Tree Tavern. On our way through Frontierland we got to see Woody and Jessie. We exited the Pirates of the Carribean to find Captain Jack Sparrow teaching an audience how to be pirates. We rode Thunder Mountain Railroad and Space Mountain and lots of other fun stuff. After watching the fireworks we headed back to the hotel for dinner.
Tuesday started off with a backstage tour of the trains at Magic Kingdom. It was in the 30’s that morning, so it was a good thing that we had bought some souvenir fleece sweatshirts the previous day. After the tour we headed over to Epcot and had lunch in Japan. We rode Test Track three times in a row! After that we did Spaceship Earth and Mission Space (the Orange line). We enjoyed a glass of wine while walking through France just after the sun went down and then had dinner at Biergarten in Germany. The day ended with “Illuminations”, the Epcot fireworks show.
We went back to Epcot on Wednesday to finish touring the world and the last couple of rides that we had missed. We had lunch at The Coral Reef and then headed over to Mexico to find Donald Duck (we had been told that’s where he hangs out). John had an authentic German beer while I tried a glass of Italian wine and and then some Sake as we walked through Japan. We snacked on a funnel cake in America and then bought a souvenir for Shane in Canada. Instead of dinner, we had some nachos at the hotel bar and enjoyed the absolutely hilarious Bob Jackson.
Thursday morning was the “Keys to the Kingdom” backstage tour of Magic Kingdom. We went to the bakery on Main Street for breakfast before the tour started. One of the cashiers saw my “It’s My Birthday” button (we got it from Guest Services along with Anniversary buttons for both of us) and gave me an enormous chocolate chip cookie. It was 16 inches in diameter — I’m not kidding. Once the tour was done, we headed over to MGM Studios just in time to get completely soaking wet thanks to a 45-minute downpour. We waited out the rain in some stores and then went through one of the movie attractions and had dinner at Pizza Planet (from Toy Story). We looked around a bit more and then grabbed pretty good seats for Fantasmic.
We headed back to MGM on Friday, but after doing Sounds Dangerous, the backlot tour and the Star Wars ride we decided that MGM just sucked. No pixie dust here! So we spent the afternoon over at Animal Kingdom where we took the Kilimanjaro Safari and then walked around some. We split a burger and fries before taking the trek of buses and boats over to the Yachtsman Steakhouse for our anniversary dinner. Dinner was wonderful. Our server gave us personalized menus and a long stemmed rose for me. We started off with champagne, lobster bisque and a seared tuna appetizer. Then we had the most tender steaks ever and finished with an assortment of desserts. I got the chocolate cake, John had the key lime pie. But since it was my birthday the server brought another (different) chocolate cake with a candle, and some truffles for our anniversary. After dinner we went back to Downtown Disney for some final souvenirs and then to the hotel bar where Bob Jackson had everyone sing happy birthday to me. I left a trail of rose petals on the way back to our room.
Saturday means time to leave. The entire trail of petals was still there when we got up. We got our bags packed and dropped them off at the bell desk before heading over to Magic Kingdom for a couple of repeat rides. The barbershop quartet saw my birthday button and insisted on singing a Happy Birthday medley. We had lunch and then headed back to the hotel to catch a shuttle to the airport. As much as we hated to leave, it was still good to be headed home.
What a wonderful week!
By the way, if you want to do a trip to Disney and don’t quite know where to start with the planning, talk to Jen K. at Enchanted Escapes Travel. She did a great job planning our trip, gave us lots of good info, and didn’t charge a dime over the normal Disney rates. I highly recommend her!
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[...] Well, we finally did it. We’ve booked our second “Vacation of a Lifetime”…. going back to Walt Disney World in February 2008. Count down along with me (I’m so excited!!) with the nifty widget to the right. If you really care, you can read all about our first trip (this year) or check out our photos! [...]
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Hi Patti,
I am finally getting around to reading your blog and checking out your pictures. Awesome trip report, btw. I really enjoyed reading it–it was almost as if I was there myself. I totally agree about the “pixie dust” effect of the MK and the lack of it at MGM. I found the same to be true, but we still had some fun at MGM–did you do Tower of Terror?
Your dinner at the Yachtsmen Steakhouse sounded delicious. What did you think of your other meals? How did you like your tours–do you think they were worth the extra cost? I would really like to do the Keys to the Kingdom one at some point.
I’m so glad that everything worked out fine and that you had such a great vacation. Thanks for the plug on the Flyduster list. I really appreciate it.
If I ever get around to making a blog for my website, I would love to link up to this post–would that be ok?
Have a magical day!!
>I found the same to be true, but we still had some fun at MGM–did you do Tower of Terror?
Heck no — I totally can’t deal with heights.
>What did you think of your other meals?
You were right — it was a ton of food. When we got there Sunday, we split a quick-service meal; it was an enormous roast beef sandwich, a huge cookie and a drink. All of our table service meals were wonderful. The food was great, the atmosphere was great. Wolfgang Puck was a really nifty trendy place. The Liberty Tree Tavern had HUGE portions; we couldn’t finish our appetizers or entrees, but did save room for dessert.
The Biergarten was a complete hoot; the buffet was good (German food, but they did have some kid-friendlies) and the band was doing a yodeling contest. The food at Coral Reef wasn’t spectacular, but sitting in the middle of a fish tank was worth it. Most of the table service meals we had would have been a $70 – 120 bill if we hadn’t bought the dining plan. I can’t believe people were actually forking over that much cash. The dining plan was definitely a winner!
>How did you like your tours–do you think they were worth the extra cost?
Definitely worth it, however, you have to be able to “step back into the pixie dust” once the tour is done. When they tell you you’re going backstage, they really mean it. One of the first things we saw was Woodie without a head. So, it could really spoil the magic for you if you don’t go into it with the right mindset. The train tour was about 3 hours, the Keys to the Kingdom was about 5 hours including lunch (which they provided).
>If I ever get around to making a blog for my website, I would love to link up to this post–would that be ok?
Not a problem! Feel free to ping me if you’d like to know anything else about the trip. BTW, for those who don’t know, Jen was my travel agent. If you’d like to book a trip to Disney but are feeling overwhelmed, give Jen a call. She gets everything all tied up, and it doesn’t cost you a dime extra. Her website is http://enchantedescapes.net/