Disney 2010: Day 6

We started our day at Hollywood Studios to finish up the things we missed on Sunday.  First we did Toy Story Mania (and grabbed Fastpasses for later), then the Toy Story Character spot to see Buzz and Woody.  John beat me by almost 10,000 points.

We had some time to kill before the Beauty and the Beast live theatre show, so we browsed the shops down the boulevard and collected some pressed coins.  A very nice lady in the candy shop gave us chocolate covered marshmallows on sticks for anniversary.  They had sprinkles and M&Ms on them too — talk about sweet.  Holy cow!

Along the way, we ran into a DVC kiosk.  We’ve periodically talked about investigating the Disney Vacation Club (timeshare) since this is our fourth trip, but have never actually done it.  With almost no plans for the rest of our day and $100 in it for us, we went ahead and made the appointment to go see Saratoga Springs later that afternoon.  From there we got to Beauty and the Beast with a few minutes to spare.  It was a great show!  Lots of singing and dancing; all of the songs from the movie.

Our appointment with DVC wasn’t until 1:40 and our Toy Story Mania Fastpasses didn’t start until 12:50, so we had more time to kill.  First on the list was lunch, which ended up being at the Studio Catering Flatbread Grill.  John had a chicken caesar wrap that he says was pretty good.  I went with the BBQ.  We were right next to the Honey I Shrunk the Kids movie set, so we decided to stop and check that out.  Pretty darned cool!  We  had a great time climbing the spider webs.

After the webs we used our TSM Fastpasses.  This time I won… and then off to Saratoga Springs for our DVC tour.

The Saratoga Springs resort is beautiful, and it’s probably the one that we would call our “home away from home” if we were to buy into DVC.  The DVC program itself would seriously work for us because we could use it at any Disney resort world-wide, or at over 500 other locations world-wide….. and a lot of the places we have been talking about going (Gatlinburg TN, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Mexico, Great Britan, France, Sedona AZ, etc) are on the club.  The question for us is:  do the numbers really work with the way we vacation. The buy-in is reasonable, but there are annual maintenance fees of up to $700 (increasing by up to 2% per year) for the next 50 years to think about.  So we really need to think about that, run some numbers, create massive spreadsheets, pray, and think some more.  But enough of that — here are some pictures of a one-bedroom studio with a jacuzzi tub that looks out on the lake (the room we’d probably be renting with our points).

After the tour they dropped us by the ice cream parlor for sundaes, but we passed because we had dinner scheduled at Restaurant Marakesh in Epcot later that evening.  We did stop for free family portraits though.  They did the standard one, but after watching John enjoying the toy train that was running around the tops of the walls, they did one over at the ice cream bar with the train in the background too and gave us both.  Unfortunately they’re only printed copies; I may try to scan them later because the second one is pretty neat.

And then it was off to Epcot where we saw a funnel cloud, Alice in Wonderland, Mary Poppins and lots of seagulls before dinner.  We had dinner at Restaurant Marakesh in Morocco.  Instant favorite.  We both had couscous dishes; mine was beef with zucchini and other veggies.  John’s had beef, plums, sesame seeds and a honey sauce.  Both were amazing.  The entertainment was good too.

After dinner we wandered around some, and John bought me a pearl at the Pick-A-Pearl stand in Japan.  It’s pretty crazy; you select an oyster and they shuck it right there with lots of ceremony and drums banging.  It was a very pretty 7.5mm pearl; white with some pink shine to it.  We had it mounted on a very simple gold setting that would fit on the necklace I brought down here with me.  We finished the evening at the tequila bar in Mexico.  I bought a flight of three traditional tequilas, but John didn’t want any.  The bar tender brought over a free fourth shot for my birthday.  No worries — they were only 1/2-ounce shots; not whole ones!  John had one, and I had the other three.  And then we went back to our room where these little guys were waiting for us.

So.. what’s next?  We’ll finish up Animal Kingdom and get our shopping done at Magic Kingdom.  We’re keeping an eye on the weather back home; not quite sure what to expect.

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