Laura's Disney Lines

Hello everyone! I'm happy to be here with the rest of the AllEars.net "Blogging Brigade".

A brief introduction, since I'm sure most of you don't know me...Hi, I'm Laura, and I live in San Diego, CA. I'm AllEars.net's Disneyland Correspondent. With that address and title, as you might expect I get to Disneyland a little more often than to Walt Disney World. So for the most part I will be sharing with you my thoughts about my visits to Disneyland, and hopefully be bringing a little different perspective than you might otherwise be reading.

So here we goooooooooooo!

Last weekend my husband Lee and I were at Disneyland to cover the first of this year's Food and Wine Weekends at Disney's California Adventure. And we did something we've never done before...we went to Early Entry at Disneyland!

It's something we've just never had the opportunity to do before since there are only two ways to do it: 1) have a multi-day ticket that has a one-day Early Entry feature (nope, we've got annual passes!) or 2) stay at one of Disneyland's three resort hotels (we usually drive up just for the day). The Early Entry feature for resort guests is not something Disneyland advertises on its web site, though we were told about it at check-in. Resort guests may participate in Early Entry any morning it is offered during their stay - currently it's Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

Most of the attractions in Fantasyland and Tomorrowland and some of the shops on Main Street open an hour before regular park opening. (There's no Early Entry at Disney's California Adventure.)

I can't say Lee was very enthused about getting up in time to be at Disneyland at 7:00 a.m. - especially since we'd been awakened at 4:00 a.m. when the fire alarm went off at the Grand Californian. Fortunately it was a false alarm but we didn't know that until after we'd gotten dressed and hustled outside!

But once inside the park...we had a blast. There weren't very many people around, and we walked onto Space Mountain (which thankfully is back to being "regular" Space Mountain instead of Rockin' Space Mountain), Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters (twice) and then Snow White's Scary Adventures and Pinocchio's Daring Journey in Fantasyland. Casey Jr. Circus Train wasn't open during Early Entry, but we were on the first train when it opened at 8:00. I hadn't ridden that since I was a small child. I enjoy Storybook Land, with all of its miniature scenes and topiaries, and this gave us a little different perspective than you get from the Storybook Land Canal Boats.

So six rides in an hour - not bad! Especially since that's more than we usually do in an entire day.

We had a wonderful time, and I'm really glad we got up early to do it...especially since given the requirements it's not something we'll get to repeat any time soon.

So that's it for my first blog entry - if you have any comments, or things you'd like to hear about, please let me know!

Read my Food and Wine Report and check out the Photo Gallery!

And have a Disney Day. :-)

Laura

Whew...the Finding Nemo event was a whirlwind - it's hard to believe I was only away from home for a total of 30 hours - it sure seemed a lot longer than that!

Opening Day yesterday (Monday) was quite an experience and I was excited to be part of it. Even first thing in the morning (Early Entry was at 7:00) the park was buzzing - the new park maps featured "The Subs Are Back!" tagline and artwork on the cover. Cast Members were wearing special "Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage" buttons. Thanks to that Disney magic, all signs of the big party in Tomorrowland the previous evening had disappeared, but there was a big stage and risers set up between the Matterhorn and the submarine lagoon that had appeared overnight, and lots of booths from which radio stations were doing live broadcasts.

The first "event" on our schedule was the "What's New, What's Next" presentation in the Honey I Shrunk the Audience Theater. I'm not going to go into great detail here (maybe a later blog entry), but speakers included Disneyland President Ed Grier, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker with a demonstration of Muppet Mobile Labs (amazing!), Tom Fitzgerald, Executive Vice President of Walt Disney Imagineering, and Crush the sea turtle. With a brief interruption by a band of pirates...

After that it was time (well time to go and wait, at least) for the Grand Opening Ceremony, though it only started about 10 minutes late. Once again Ed Grier spoke, as well as Disney CEO Bob Iger and Jay Rasulo, President of Disney Theme Parks and Resorts. They acknowledged the Imagineering team sitting in the audience who oversaw the re-creation of the Submarine Voyage. Monday was "Dream Job Day" for the people who were selected for the "Dream Job" positions, and those cast-members-for-a-day walked by the stage in costume ready to go to work - Princesses-in-Waiting, Jungle Cruise Skippers, Haunted Mansion Butlers and Maids, High School Musical Pep Rally performers and of course, Pirates.

A little musical number was next, featuring flipper-footed snorkeling "dancers". Everything was going along just, well, *swimmingly* until a big whale popped up from the lagoon behind the stage. Oh no, how can the submarines possibly be launched with a *whale* in the lagoon??? Does anyone speak whale??? Luckily Dory was nearby - who was another of those wonderful "human" puppets. This whale must have been a bit hard of hearing, though (maybe because he *didn't* have water in his ears?), because it took the combined efforts of Dory AND the audience to get the whale to "pleeeeeeeeease goooooooooo aaaaa-waa-aaay."

As the musical number concluded the monorail glided silently into view over the lagoon - completely decked out like one of the yellow Finding Nemo subs, up to and including the conning tower! It was so cool! There was a burst of fireworks and it was official: Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage was *open*. (Though it didn't open to the public for another 90 minutes or so.)

I was curious about what the line might already be like so I went in search of the queue. Which wasn't hard to find, since it already stretched from the Matterhorn (where the outermost barricades had been placed) ALLLL the way back to it's a small world (with multiple switchbacks, of course), but it took me a while to get to the front of the line. There I spoke to Mike from Las Vegas (an AllEars.net reader!) who with his wife and a friend were the very first people in line - they had arrived at the park entrance at 5:30 that morning and got into line as soon as the park opened.

I spoke to Mike again just after he'd gotten off the ride - big smiles all around, and he told me it was "awesome". I asked him if it was worth the wait, and he said: "totally." And he wasn't just talking Turtle to me! :-)

At that point it was about 12:40 and all of the barricades had come down...the Nemo queue stretched alllll the way around the submarine lagoon, past the Matterhorn, down into Fantasia Gardens and up onto the small world terraces. And there were switchbacks along most of that which almost doubled the length. The estimate is that it was a four-hour wait at that point.

Disney has done a few things to make the wait a little more endurable - snack and beverage carts have been placed in strategic places all along the queue, and they've done a great job of shading the queue as much as possible. The queue is positioned under the monorail track wherever possible, and the Fantasia Gardens and small world terrace areas have some shade. There were many Cast Members stationed along the queue, especially where the line crossed walkways, and they were doing a great job at keeping those clear. Cast Members were also walking the line and handing out a "Submarine Voyage Quest" to parties with young children (and some not-so-young! :-) ). This colorful brochure includes games like finding hidden objects in the Tank Gang's fish tank, multiple choice questions about the subs and the Finding Nemo movie (What kind of fish is Marlin?), Fun Facts, and a maze game. Cast Members told me that the brochures were in rather short supply and only expected to last for several days before they are gone.

One other interesting thing Disney will be doing: extending park hours for the Submarine Voyage attraction up to an additional 2-1/2 hours after regular park closing - the idea is that anyone who gets in line for the Submarine Voyage before the park closes (even if it's one minute before!) will still get to ride. Though if the line is already over 2-1/2 hours I'm not sure how that works!

There are more pictures of the Nemo attraction and Opening Ceremony posted on this week's Wandering the Land page.

A new Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage attraction page is HERE.

Before I left the park I went over to Pirate's Lair on Tom Sawyer Island to see if I could find any of the Pirates-for-a-day at work. And I did. :-) They were appearing with The Bootstrappers - a musical band of pirates. (Or is "musical band" redundant?) There were two women and three men who were lounging around Lafitte's Tavern with the Bootstrappers and joining in the songs themselves at times. One of the guys was doing a pretty good Jack Sparrow, at least as far as mannerisms went. (My favorite part of the Bootstrappers' act is when they talk about the "cursed dinghy ride" and warn everyone to stay away...especially the kids. Because it's filled with thousands of cursed little children that have been nailed to the floor and forced to sing that song "over and over and over..." Then they sing the song in a minor key as they slowly rotate or imitate the stiff movements of characters in the ride. Ok, *I* find it amusing...)

One thing I've noticed about Pirate's Lair, though - there's always a longer line to get OFF the island than to get ON...I'm not quite sure how that works!

Until next time,

Laura

Last Friday Lee and I drove to Disneyland in the afternoon (took us about two hours from San Diego, which wasn't nearly as horrible as it can be at that time of day) and spent the evening at DCA and Disneyland.

I was pleasantly surprised at how *un*crowded it was - on a Friday night in the summer I was expecting it to be very busy, but it really wasn't bad. Waits in the Paradise Pier area of DCA were 30 minutes or less for most attractions - I don't think California Screamin' was even that long - maybe 20 minutes.

It had been a warm day (in the low 90s) but by the time we arrived it was mid-80s with a nice breeze and very comfortable. Even as the evening wore on it was great - often times it gets a bit chilly at night and you need a light jacket, but I was comfortable even at 11:00 that night in shorts and a sleeveless shirt - and for those who know me, you know how unusual *that* is! :-)

We went to DCA first and watched a bit of the Miner 49ers who were performing near Grizzly Peak, and then went to the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail area, because I wanted to see the "The Magic of Brother Bear" show. It was predictably corny and mildly entertaining. The Challenge Trail play area was uncrowded, and we took the opportunity to play around a bit ourselves - Lee traversed the rock climbing wall with ease and we both went into Kenai's Spirit Cave to place our hands on the glowing paw print and find out what kind of animal spirit lives inside us. On Lee it couldn't make up its mind...the display started off with a moose (dependable, honest) and ended up as a skunk (curious, adventurous). And the second time he tried it he was a wolf (wise, loyal). I was a beaver (hard working, industrious).

We had a wonderful dinner at the Vineyard Room (more on that in a future blog entry) before wandering over to Disneyland for the rest of the evening. I can't remember the last time I was there in the evening when the crowds were that low. I didn't check the board for wait times, but at 8:15 we only waited 10 minutes to get on Buzz Lightyear and Astro Orbiter was only using about 1/4 of its queue. The line for Nemo only went back to Fantasia Freeze - and it was only a single line (no switchbacks) until it reached the area near the seagull buoy. Which I'm sure means it was still close to 90 minutes, but that's better than 2 or 2-1/2 hours!

Our objective for the evening was to *finally* see the Remember...There's Magic in the Stars fireworks show. We've tried to see it four times - once we couldn't find a place to stand and ended up wandering around and around in the "you must keep moving" pathways, once we saw it from the balcony of the Disney Gallery after we'd done the Fantasmic! dessert buffet, but it was an obstructed view, and twice we've been on Main Street, with a good viewing spot, and the show has been cancelled due to high winds. Sigh.

This time we got a spot near the hub about 25 minutes before the show started and the show went off at 9:25, just as planned. It was incredible!!! Wonderful fireworks, so well synchronized to the music. It's even better than Wishes at the Magic Kingdom (though the two share a lot of music). But Wishes doesn't have the tribute to the different "lands" that Remember has. And Tinker Bell's flight is amazing - she flies not just once but twice, AND she circles around the castle instead of flying in just a straight line. I have no idea how they do that, but it looks great.

We'd planned to go home after that, but decided to stay for the 10:30 Fantasmic! instead. We wandered over to the Rivers of America area about 10:10. There were still lots of viewing areas open, but we scored a prime spot just behind the light tower at center stage. This looks like a horrible spot initially, because you can't see the stage through the light tower, but we knew that about 10 minutes before the show the light tower is raised into the air, so those behind it have a great view of the river and the stage on Tom Sawyer Island. That's also where the sound booth is - we were behind that and could watch the sound engineers at work. I can tell you that the running time of the show is 23 minutes and 37 seconds because I could see the show clock. :-)

Again, the entire area really wasn't very crowded - I've been in New Orleans Square packed like a sardine and unable to move after Fantasmic! ends, but on this night we could move around pretty easily. Even when we got out to the parking lot trams the crowds weren't bad - we could've caught a tram with only a short wait, but we decided to walk back to the parking garage instead.

It was really a great evening - we'll have to do that again sometime - there's lots of restaurants at the Disneyland Resort that we haven't tried yet! And I want to see Remember from a place where I can see the projections on the castle walls and the Matterhorn - those were blocked from our viewpoint.

Laura

I made a quick weekend trip to Disneyland and actually spent the night up there for a change - mainly because I was doing the Segway tour which started at 7:15 a.m., and would have meant getting up *really* early if I left from San Diego!

I met my friend Patty at my hotel on Saturday (Best Western Park Place Inn - more on that in a later blog), and she surprised me with a Disneyland birthday button! My birthday was the day before - I've never had a birthday button before. And it was fun - CMs at the turnstiles and in the park said "Happy Birthday, Laura!", and so did several guests, and I got singled out for some special attention by the Laughing Stock Company, and the Mariachi Divas over at DCA sang "Las Mañanitas" (the Mexican birthday song) to me and two other birthday people who were watching.

There were banners up at the parks (mostly where you saw them on your way out) advertising this year's Disney's HalloweenTime, which starts on September 21 - a week earlier this year. It was very festive last year, with great decorations! I hope to visit this weekend.

Now that summer is over the park is a lot quieter (even on Saturday it wasn't horribly busy, and it was a beautiful day - sunny and shorts weather, but a lot cooler than it had been in the last month!), and the Nemo line is down to something semi-reasonable - 45-60 minutes most of the time.

I don't think I've mentioned this before - the "yellow submarine" monorail that they premiered at the Finding Nemo grand opening is still decorated and has been in use ever since the opening (though they removed the conning tower!) - it's really cute - we saw it zooming around a number of times.

The construction of Toy Story Mania at DCA is beginning to take a more visible shape - as Patty pointed out to me the facade is taking on more of a Victorian look than the seaside amusement park look of the rest of the area. There's rumors that there are lots of changes coming to DCA (especially Paradise Pier) in the next few years, so maybe this is the start of it?

I saw the Remember fireworks at Disneyland that night from a spot near the castle where I could actually see the projections on the castle for a change. There's some really cool stuff - stars during the Main Street portion, flying spooks and hitchhiking ghosts during the Haunted Mansion section, skull and crossbones for Pirates, a moving duck target during the Frontierland Shooting Gallery bit (that's my favorite - it just quacks me up), crazy swirls for Toontown, "water ripples" for the Submarine Voyage, and a "light speed" pattern for Star Tours. I like that show more each time I see it.

The next morning Patty and I did the Segway tour - but you can read all about that HERE. It was a lot of fun - I liked it even more than the Epcot Segway tour, I think.

While waiting for the tour to start I *finally* got a decent picture of the new cloud-patterned "CALIFORNIA" letters in front of the park - just in time for them to change to the Halloween candy corn, I'm sure!

After the tour I wandered around the Disneyland Hotel taking pictures - and eventually found the Disney Vacation Club (DVC) sales office and models that are way on the far side of the Dreams (aka Bonita) Tower. I asked about the Grand Californian DVC, and they said they had no news on that...but it was finally announced earlier today. The press release is HERE.

Other news bits...

Ariel's Grotto at DCA will be starting a daily character breakfast on September 21, which runs through January 6. Breakfast will be served from 8:30 to 11:30 - $25.99 for adults and $13.99 for kids. Since the park doesn't open until 10:00, Cast Members will direct guests to the restaurant either from the main entrance or the Grand Californian entrance. Priority seating arrangements can be made up to 60 days in advance by calling Disneyland Dining: 714-781-DINE (3463).

And there's a new tour for the Halloween season - Disney's Happiest Haunts tour runs daily September 21-October 31. It starts at 6:00 at night and visits three attractions - Tower of Terror, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and Haunted Mansion Holiday. From what one of the guides told us, each tour guide gets to assume the persona of a character of their choice - like a pirate, or a miner or a psychotic actress. The tour includes creepy stories, and it's not for young children or those who might be easily frightened. Lee and I are signed up for the tour on September 28, so we'll know more after that. In the meantime, what we know about the tour is HERE.

It was a short trip but a lot of fun!

Disney's HalloweenTime is becoming one of my favorite times of year at the Disneyland Resort - it's just so festive and fun! The Halloween decorations are really clever - I like the huge character pumpkins sitting atop Disneyland's entrance. Not to mention the candy corn appearance of the "CALIFORNIA" letters in front of Disney's California Adventure. I think the imagineers must have had a lot of fun with it. But one drawback is that Disneyland is significantly more crowded, especially in the evening.

I didn't get the chance last year, but this year I sat in on one of the Woody's Halloween Round-up shows back in the Big Thunder Ranch area. Pretty corny - just like you'd expect - but cute. It's hosted by Tex Tumbleweed, but of course stars Woody, Jessie and Bullseye. From what I could tell each day's shows follow a continuing story arc - I saw the second show of the day, which featured a character (Lucky the Cat) who had apparently been introduced in the first show. And Woody impersonating a ghost. And the show ended with a cliffhanger - was the witch hat that blew on stage good or bad??? Should Jessie use it as part of her Halloween costume? Unfortunately I missed the later shows so I never found out!

But my favorite part was the "commercial" - where Tex does an ad for the show's sponsor, Cowboy Crunchies. He even brags about how they are loaded with sugar - and all a kid needs to do is take one whiff of the cereal to make them strong! He got an audience volunteer to demonstrate that. Ah yes...all the elements of bad 50s-era live TV shows. :-)

What's next for our Dynamic Duo? Will Laura and Lee make it through the treacherous Friday Freeway Free-for-all with time enough to change into their costumes before the Mickey's Halloween Treat party? Will their macabre masquerade survive Mulholland Madness? Find out next time...same Blog time, same Blog channel!

This blog entry is a bit late, since up until now I've been concentrating on writing about the Tower of Terror 13K - but I think I've said all that I have to say about that now. :-)

This is only the second time we've been to Epcot's Food and Wine Festival - the first time was two years ago, and we had a great time. But we love early December and all of the Christmas festivities, too, and we can't really justify two trips to Florida within 4-6 weeks, so we've decided to alternate the two.

We arrived at Walt Disney World on Friday evening and checked into the Boardwalk - always a great choice when you're planning to spend a lot of time at the Festival! Hard to get during F&W, though - I made our reservations almost 11 months in advance.

We'd planned to meet Deb Wills at the Festival, but she wasn't feeling well and had to cancel. :-( It was an Extra Magic Hours (EMH) night at Epcot, and it turns out the F&W booths were open during Extra Magic Hours, too!

Since it was Friday night the park was quite crowded, between the locals that had come in for the evening and the resort guests who had come for EMH. We stood in some fairly long lines (10 minutes or so) for food at a few places.

Our first stop was the Canada booth, where we tried the Maple Glazed Salmon with Roasted Corn and Arugula and the Cheddar Cheese Soup. Both very tasty, but not really new to us. That had a long wait because there had been a salmon run (pun intended) and they were grilling more. While we were waiting, one of the Cast Members asked us questions about Canada, and gave a glass of wine to the adult who answered first. I knew the Canadian dollar was called the "Loonie", so I won a glass of the Mission Hill SLC Chardonnay. This must have been aged in steel barrels instead of oak because it didn't have that dry buttery flavor so many chardonnays have which I dislike so much and I thought it was pretty good - especially for the price! :-) I made the mistake of giving it to Lee so he could take a couple of sips, and he finished it!

The Dominican Republic booth was new this year, and we'd heard good reviews on the Pastelon de Platanos Amarillos, and we also tried the Mofungo. I couldn't really detect any banana flavor in the Pastelon - it was a veggie-type casserole topped with cheese and guacamole - and was quite tasty, though I couldn't really tell you what flavors were in it! The Mofungo was mashed yucca with pork cracklings, served with two shrimp. It had a very interesting flavor and I liked it - it was also quite filling. The shrimp were only so-so - a bit overcooked, I think.

Lee tried the Beef Empanada at Argentina - this is another item that hadgotten really good reviews. He said it was quite good. (Quite a few of the highly rated F&W selections this year are some kind of beef, which unfortunately I can't eat, so Lee sacrifices himself and tries them for me. :-) )

Mexico again has Chilaquiles this year - something we both really enjoyed two years ago, and it's just as good this year. It's basically a chicken enchilada casserole with green (tomatillo) sauce. Really yummy, and still ranks as one of my favorites, and it's also a fairly generous serving. We also had the Conga Juice, and Lee had a Dos Equis.

At Ireland we pretty much said "give us one of everything!". And it was all good. The Boxty is a potato pancake topped with bacon bits, caramelized onions and garlic butter. Very tasty. The Potato Leek SoupIrish Cheese Plate came with three slices of Irish cheese, some apple chutney and brown bread. The cheese was good, but we didn't think it worked with the chutney. The brown bread was more like pound cake than bread - LOTS of butter. We tried the Meade Honey Wine - and that was delicious - sweet but not syrupy.

We tried the "one of everything" tactic again at India - but they were out of Samosas, so we had to content ourselves with the Curried Butternut Squash soup and the Coconut Indian Rice Pudding. The soup had a little bit of a kick to it but was quite tasty, and Lee really liked the rice pudding. I'm not much of a rice pudding fan but I enjoyed it also - it had some little bits of pineapple in it, too.

It was getting close to time for Illuminations, but we wanted some dessert, so we tried the Apple Strudel with Vanilla Sauce at (where else?) Germany. I also had a glass of the wine recommended as a pairing with the strudel - the S.A. Prum Riesling Spatlese It was a bit sweet (but I like sweet!) and I enjoyed it.

Stay tuned - there's lots more Food & Wine Festival eating to come! Though we have been doing some other things, too...

New to us, that is - since we haven't been here since last December. That's one of the things we really enjoy about Walt Disney World - it seems like every time we're here there's always something that's new, whether it's a new attraction or exhibit or live entertainment group.

Contrary to what you might think we aren't just eating around the world, though in the first four days of our trip it seems like that's about all we did (well, there was that little 8 mile run on Saturday night...) We did actually get out into the parks and try a few new things that weren't food-related.

Our first night here was Extra Magic Hours at Epcot, so in addition to eating, we had the opportunity to see all the new (to us) things at Epcot. First was the Gran Fiesta Tour in the Mexico pavilion. While I don't miss the annoying street vendors at all, I do miss the narration in the first section when you were floating by the pyramid, and they talked about the ancient civilizations. Now it's basically "it's a small mexico" with the Three Caballeros. My favorite part was something Lee pointed out to me - the "it's a small mexico" kids whacking away at a Donald Duck-shaped pinata. :-) I'm not sure it's really an improvement over the previous version, but in any case it's not something we'll be in a hurry to do again any time soon.

We also visited the Epcot 25th Anniversary Gallery behind Club Cool. (We recognized the room - it's where they originally held the Segway Training sessions!) We had the exhibit all to ourselves, and enjoyed seeing the concept art and the original costumes and the various models. If you're interested in more information, as well as lots of photos, see Linda Mac's excellent blog entry on the Gallery, which is HERE.

At The Seas with Nemo and Friends we rode the clam-mobiles. We had done this before, but I hadn't seen it since I'd ridden the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage at Disneyland, which employs similar technology in producing the visuals of Nemo and Friends in their underwater environment. I think it's much better here at Epcot - especially the section where the Nemo gang appears to be out in the tank with the *real* fish. The clam-mobiles are also a lot more comfortable than those cramped submarines!

What was new since our last visit was the new (and much bigger) theater for Turtle Talk with Crush, though the show itself isn't very different. We lucked out and arrived just as they were loading the theater for a show. Crush always makes us smile. Awesome, dude. :-)

At Disney-MGM Studios (or is it now Disney Hollywood Studios?) we did a couple of new things - saw the Jedi Training Academy on its new and permanent stage - though it was the same Jedi Master we'd seen 2-1/2 years ago. And we watched Mulch, Sweat, and Shears on the Streets of America. They're a "Rake n' Roll" band working as landscapers while they wait for their big break. They put on a good show, performing songs by the Rolling Stones, Eagles, etc.

During Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party on Tuesday night we had a chance to do the two new things at the Magic Kingdom - and we were glad for the excuse to get out of the rain, too. I'm not enough of a Haunted Mansion aficionado to recognize many of the changes that were made during its recent rehab, but we noticed the creaking of the stretch room as it starts to stretch, the glowing eyes in the wallpaper, the glowing footprints overhead, and Madame Leota's floating crystal ball. And of course the creepy bride in the attic, with the husbands disappearing from the wedding portraits. Nicely done.

The Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor Comedy Club was fun - I'd heard some not-too-positive reviews of it, but we enjoyed it. (I have to say that there were members of the audience who seemed to be enjoying it a little TOO much, though - both kids and adults. At any other park I'd blame it on alcohol, but since it was Magic Kingdom during the Halloween party I'll attribute it to sugar overload.) Like Turtle Talk With Crush, this show also features real-time animated characters who can interact with the audience. (Disney is getting a lot of mileage out of that technology!) Most of the jokes are pretty corny but it was fun - and part of the fun is laughing with the audience members that they pick on and show up on the big screen. There are some truly awful puns, though.

Today (Wednesday) we finally made it to Animal Kingdom. The only new thing that I'm aware of there is a new spiel for Kilimanjaro Safaris - I'd heard they eliminated at least some of the annoying elements. The entire "Warden Wilson Matua" recording is different - it sounds like it could be the same voice, but I can't tell. That silly Miss Jobson, who doesn't realize that Thompson's gazelles are called "Tommies", is gone, though - as is the whole "Tommie" thing, which I always thought made Wilson sound like an idiot. No more Big Red and Little Red either - just a baby elephant that the wardens found which had gotten separated from his mother. But Wilson is still chasing poachers, and towards the end our mission (which we weren't even given a choice to accept!) was to help drive the poachers towards him. I have to say that it was less annoying than the original, but I still wish they would offer a poacher-free safari. We DID learn something new from our driver, though - elephants frequent the red clay pits because they rub their tusks in the red clay and then eat it - it gives them extra minerals, apparently.

Coming up...More Food and Wine Festival, our thoughts on our first stay at Animal Kingdom Villas, and Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party - not necessarily in that order. So many things to write about, so little vacation left!

Thought I'd write a little bit about the conditions here this week.

Crowds: Because of the Food and Wine Festival, World Showcase at Epcot was quite crowded Friday night and Saturday, though lines for the attractions were short. Sunday afternoon and evening were less crowded, though - five minutes before IllumiNations started we walked right up to the railing near Morocco and had a really good view - not blocked by trees or islands. And during the week there's been almost no wait at the Food and Wine booths. This week we've found the waits in the rest of the parks to be quite short as well - less than 10 minutes for Expedition Everest, Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, Haunted Mansion, and Tower of Terror. There's a big group from someplace called Hollister, wherever that is - we've seen groups of them in several parks.

Clouds: The weather has really been a mix of "nice" and "showery". The temperatures have been VERY pleasant - nothing higher than 81 (if that), but most days we've had showers off and on. The only really serious extended rain we had was (unfortunately) during our Halloween party on Tuesday night. According to the Weather Channel there's been some front pushing through Florida that's been bringing all of this wet weather, though it's supposed to improve over the weekend.

Christmas: Christmas has begun here in Central Florida. I knew that the Osborne Lights in the Studios started going up a few weeks ago, but on Tuesday we saw that Hollywood Blvd now has Christmas garland strung across the street and those tinsel Christmas trees on the light poles. There's also Christmas trees back around MuppetVision, and a big Santa climbing the side of a building. Today (Thursday) when we came in the International Gateway at Epcot we noticed Christmas decorations outside the gift shop there, as well as garland around the doorways in the UK pavilion. Once we reached World Showcase Plaza we saw that the Epcot Christmas tree had magically gone up sometime in the last 48 hours. There's also decorations in Guest Relations and over the turnstiles at the front of the park. Come on...Halloween is barely over!!! (And it's not over at the Magic Kingdom, where there is still a Halloween party tonight!)

Speaking of Halloween - they did some fun things here at Animal Kingdom Lodge. When we arrived on Tuesday there was a display of pumpkins set up in the Lobby. They had been carved by Cast Members, and there was a contest for guests to select the best in a number of categories, such as Best Animal Kingdom Lodge Theme, Funniest, Most Frightful, Most Original, etc. We voted, and I should've taken a picture of them, but I didn't get around to it, and they were gone by Thursday morning. There was a trick-or-treat scavenger hunt for the kids on Halloween evening - we saw quite a few kids in costume running around with papers in their hands and getting treats at locations throughout the Lodge. They seemed to be having a fine time. We opted for a "treat" and had dinner at Jiko - and I've never seen it so empty! Our waiter told us it was because of Halloween - people were out someplace with their kids instead of going out to dinner. Worked for us, since Jiko was nice and quiet. :-)

Events: The Food and Wine Festival at Epcot runs through November 11. Festival of the Masters is November 9-11 and Super Soap Weekend is November 10-12. On November 12 there's the first Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party of the season and The Osborne Lights at the Studios light up the night. Epcot's Holidays Around the World begin on November 23.

This was the first time we've ever had the opportunity to attend one of the Halloween parties at the Magic Kingdom. We've gone to the Mickey's Halloween Treat party at Disney's California Adventure the last three years, and wanted to see how different it was here. (Not so different in most ways, much different in others, but more on that later.) Besides, we'd heard the Halloween party is a lot of fun - better than the Christmas party, which did not impress us.

We attended the party on Tuesday, October 30. After donning our costumes we took the bus from Animal Kingdom Lodge to the Magic Kingdom, arriving just about 7:00 when the party was officially starting. The lines for bag check weren't bad at all, and we received our orange wristbands. (That's wristband #3 for this trip - the other two were for Extra Magic Hours at Epcot and the Tower of Terror 13K.)

There was a cloud of mist around the Main Street Train Station, and a glowing Mickey pumpkin at the big floral Mickey. Pumpkin-headed scarecrows were placed around Town Square, and lots of jack-o-lanterns flickered in the windows on Main Street. The castle was spookily (is that a word?) lit.

One thing we quickly noticed was that the Treat Stations had HUGE lines - much longer than anything we ever saw at Mickey's Halloween Treat. The lines for the attractions were short, though - we waited oh, all of maybe a minute at Haunted Mansion before walking into the Stretch Room. All of the hosts and hostesses were wearing ghastly makeup, some with cobwebs in their hair - they looked great! And on the lawn outside the Mansion (before you go through the turnstiles) was one of the Happy Haunts, surrounded by mist, and ghostly lit, sitting on a bench and talking to herself. Very cool.

It had been drizzling off and on all evening, but it had mostly stopped when we came out of Haunted Mansion. We met our friends Paul and Ilene near Country Bear Playhouse and waited for the start of the first parade. It started raining hard enough that we huddled under our umbrellas for a while, but fortunately by the time the parade started it had stopped. The wet street meant that the Headless Horseman went by at a trot instead of a gallop, though. Which was actually very nice since it was a lot easier to see him!

I loved the Boo to You parade. Lots of characters (some in costume) and great floats, especially the pirates and the villains. Though my favorite was the Haunted Mansion sequence - starting with the gravedigger and his bloodhound...so cute!!! And then the ghostly dancers, the HM float, and following it the zombie gravedigging drill team with their shovels. Terrific stuff! The pumpkin-headed guys on the whirling spheres were great, too - normally the creepy SpectroMagic dudes ride those - the pumpkin guys were a lot better.

The treat lines were still really long, but they were giving out bags of Kissables at the entrance to Pirates of the Caribbean, and we practically walked right onto a boat. I guess everyone was in the Treat lines!

About 9:10 we went to the Hub to stake out a spot for the 9:30 Hallowishes fireworks show - and it started to rain. And this wasn't just drizzle, either. We got back under our umbrella, but since Lee was holding it the back of my skirt was getting pretty wet. Unfortunately the rain did not let up very much during the fireworks. A lot of people left, or sought cover, so it wasn't really that crowded - I was surprised.

The show itself was great - lots of interesting projections on the castle like jack-o-lanterns, flying spooks, and glowing eyes. I particularly liked the one in this picture, though I think it was a colorful pattern and not any particular image, though to me it looks like the face of the Wicked Queen from Snow White is superimposed on the highest tower - looks like a face wearing a crown with that high collar behind it. Or maybe it's just my imagination. :-)

The effect of the fireworks going on 180 degrees around you is very cool.

After the show we ducked for cover into the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor Comedy Club, then stayed under cover to get to Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin (no line), and then quickly ran to the Tomorrowland Transit Authority where we went around twice, since it was raining pretty hard and there was no one waiting to get on.

We'd planned to see the second parade, but missed it because of the rain...it must have been really miserable for the Cast Members.

By the time we'd made our second round on the TTA the rain had just about stopped - or was at least not much more than a drizzle. By the time we did the Fantasyland attractions, Winnie the Pooh, Snow White, Peter Pan, and Mickey's Philharmagic, it was midnight and the party was over. And of course by then it had stopped raining completely and turned into a lovely night. Sigh. Oh well, if I had to choose between it raining the night of the party or raining the night of the race I would have chosen rain on the party. Running in the rain is not a lot of fun, though it's standing around in the rain waiting for a race to start that is the worst part.

So what did I think of Mickey's Halloween Treat (MHT) at Disney's California Adventure vs. Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party at the Magic Kingdom? I'm so glad you asked. :-)

I think I have to give it to MHT as far as decorating goes. In general the park has a lot more Halloween decorations than Magic Kingdom, and they add lots of spooky projections and many more ghost Mickey and pumpkin Mickey lights than I saw at MNSSHP. At MHT there's also lots of characters just out wandering around - now maybe that's normally true at MNSSHP, and we missed out on it because of the weather.

There's a lot more people at MNSSHP, and the treat lines are MUCH longer. Though the candy is a lot better at MNSSHP! We didn't get a whole lot of candy, but what we got was chocolate and not that yucky Willy Wonka Laffy Taffy and Now&Later-type stuff that we got at MHT. Lee thinks there are more treat stops at MHT, though I think they are about the same.

A lot of the Cast Members are in costume at MHT - other than the characters in the Parade we saw no Cast Members in costume at MNSSHP - just those wearing the MNSSHP t-shirts.

Even though there's more people at MNSSHP, the attraction lines were shorter. No 30 minute waits for anything like we had for Tower of Terror at MHT - almost everything we did was a walk-on. Now again, some of that might have been because of the rain.

MHT has the Tower of Terror, MNSSHP has the Haunted Mansion - you can't do a Halloween party without SOME kind of spooky ride! Though I have to say the Haunted Mansion gets the edge here.

Parade and Fireworks - MNSSHP does this far, far, better than MHT, which doesn't have a fireworks show, and has a fairly pathetic parade. I loved the Boo to You parade - I really wish we could've seen it again. And the Hallowishes fireworks show was frightfully good. :-)

I'm looking forward to attending the MNSSHP again some year - though hopefully without the rain next time!

To finish this off, here we are in our costumes - you've heard of Disney's upcoming movie, haven't you? Beauty and the Jedi? :-)

Lee and I took advantage of a Friday off work to spend the afternoon/evening at Disneyland. It was a gorgeous day, though chilly by southern Californian standards - only in the upper 50s. You may have heard about the freak winter storm that hit southern California on Thursday, bringing cold air that dropped the snow level to about 1000'. There were still some signs of that at Disneyland. :-)

The floral Mickey just inside the entrance was re-done earlier this year - though you can't see it in the photo, there are also sparkling lights, which of course look more impressive at night. And the Tinker Bell figure was added, too.

During the month of February Disneyland is celebrating the Lunar New Year, and there's a special display set up in Town Square. Mickey and Minnie, wearing Chinese attire in honor of the Chinese Year of the Mouse (really the year of the rat, but "rat, schmat" to quote our Muppet friend Rizzo) greet guests, and there's a large sign which describes the new year celebrations of Korean, Chinese, and Vietnamese families. My favorite part is that at the top of the sign there's a "What Year Are You?" timeline from 1919 to the present, where they represent the twelve different "year of the <whatever> animals with a different Disney character. Mickey of course represents the Year of the Mouse, there's Thumper for Rabbit, Mushu for Dragon, Abu for Monkey, Tramp for Dog, etc. I don't recognize the choices for Ox and Sheep...I think Horse is Prince Philip's horse from Sleeping Beauty, though. (I'm a Mouse/Rat, myself.)

It was the Friday before a long weekend and the park was fairly crowded - lines for the major attractions were an hour (or more) - way too long for us. The food lines were insane - 15-20 people deep for things like Dole Whips, the Corn Dog Wagon, the ice cream, shop, and even McDonald's French Fries. So we wandered around enjoying other aspects of the park instead. Like these colorful tulips planted around the Partners Statue:

Since lines were long we decided to enjoy some of the live entertainment...and we weren't the only ones listening to the ragtime pianist outside the Refreshment Corner!

The Disneyland Band was performing in Town Square - in addition to marches and patriotic music, they also performed medleys of songs from Lady and the Tramp and the musical Oklahoma.

We had an interesting surprise on our way out of the park - Cinderella, the Fairy Godmother, Aurora, and Belle were sitting around one of the planters just inside the park entrance and Cinderella was telling her story to the kids crowded around them. It was really very cute. After a few minutes Cinderella finished her story and told the audience that she and the others had to go and get ready for the parade. A nice way for them to pass the time while waiting for the parade to start!

We had lunch at La Brea Bakery Cafe (yum!) and dinner at Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen - I'll have reviews of those later.

I had a new experience last Friday - I got to tour Disneyland with a fellow All Ears staff member - All Ears Picture This! blogger Lisa Berton. We hit both parks, all three resorts and Downtown Disney.

It was a beautiful southern California day - they don't get much better. Lisa was taking lots of pictures, since she's going to try to fill in a lot of the things that we don't currently have in the Disneyland section of AllEars. Let me tell you that it was a real treat for me NOT to be taking photographs - it was great to leave it in the hands of a professional.

There were a lot of characters out and about and many of them are total hams when it comes to getting their picture taken. Pluto kept striking all kinds of different poses for Lisa, and putting his ears in various positions. My favorite was when he rolled them into round Mickey Mouse ears. :-) I was surprised to see the Mad Hatter over in DCA outside the Animation Building - I guess they'd let him escape from Disneyland for the afternoon!

I've found another fan of the Orange Stinger - Lisa enjoys flying around on it, too, so we had fun doing that. And we checked out the S.S. Rustworthy play area. They've cut waaay back on the water effects (no more water cannons - and I don't think that's such a bad thing!), so it's pretty hard to get wet these days. But you can try "surfing", or steering the ship, or ringing the ship's bell, or pushing buttons for the foghorn, dropping the anchor chain, and throwing a life preserver.

We caught a bit of High School Musical 2 before heading over to the Paradise Pier for dinner. At this point we REALLY wished that the back entrance that Paradise Pier guests used to be able to use to enter DCA was still open! We used the Grand Californian's egress instead.

We had a very nice dinner at the PCH Grill at the Paradise Pier - but I'll write more about that later.

After dinner we went back to Disneyland - by way of the Disneyland Hotel and Downtown Disney. Last month I wrote about the new floral Mickey inside the entrance, and how it has new sparkling lights that show up better at night. Of course just as we walked up the lights *stopped* twinkling. We waited for a few minutes but no luck - we think Tinker Bell was mocking us. Eventually we gave up and went into the park and found a spot in the hub for the Remember...Dreams Come True fireworks.

Though we had a good view of the castle and a great view of the Matterhorn, we had an obstructed view of the fireworks - they were off to the left of the castle, and mostly blocked by some trees. I'm beginning to wonder if there is any spot where you get a good view of *everything*. The show proceeded just fine until Tinker Bell's flight...the spotlight went on her and she flew about 50 feet...and then she stopped. And kind of swung in place. Eventually they turned the spotlight off and the rest of the show continued, but she was stuck there for at least 5 minutes before they were able to get her apparatus moving again and she finished her descent. Normally she makes a return appearance near the end of the show - not that night! The rest of the show appeared to be unaffected.

On our way out of the park we checked the floral Mickey again - sure enough, it stopped twinkling just as we arrived. Guess that's my new mission in life!

Out-of-town friends gave me the excuse to play hooky from work one afternoon last week and spend some time at Disney's California Adventure and Disneyland. And I thought I'd share a few observations.

My friend AK and I attended the Miner Family Wine Tasting Seminar at DCA's Food and Wine Festival. I was pleased to see that even on a Thursday afternoon the tasting area was about 3/4 full! There was also a very good turnout for the cooking demonstration, though we didn't attend, so I don't know if it was full. (By the way, the Miner Family Rosato is still a very nice wine!)

When we went over to Disneyland, AK suggested that we ask about using the "Observation Oupost" viewing area at the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. The Cast Members weren't as organized/helpful with this as they could have been, but eventually we got in there. The CM at the end of the Nemo line told us we needed to go to the exit, rather than waiting in the 45-minute line, so that was nice. So we walked in the Exit...and then stood there for several minutes while various CMs walked by and ignored us. We finally got the attention of one, and explained we wanted to use the viewing room, and he said, sure, but someone was in it (the light outside was red), but when the light turned green someone would come and get us.

So after a few minutes the light turned green, but no one came out of the room, and no CMs paid any more attention to us. We finally asked another one who looked over, saw the green light was on, and took us over there and got the experience going for us. (It turns out the exit is on the opposite side of the room, which is why we didn't see anyone come out.)

I must say that with that high-definition large-screen TV, I think the viewing is actually better in the room than it is when you're looking out of the tiny little porthole. The narration at the beginning and the end is a little different, since the sub captain welcomed us as those joining them from the remote marine observation post. But once the sub leaves the docks, the narration and sights are the same.

Marine Observation Outpost logo

Back over at DCA I watched the Pixar Play Parade with my friends Randi and Rick. I hadn't seen the parade since opening day on March 14 - the following week the "bug's life" float failed during the parade (one of the "flower swings" actually detached from the float, but fortunately no one was hurt), and the parade was on hiatus for almost a week while they ran safety checks. There are a few differences in the new version. The "bug's life" segment has not returned - instead they've added this weird "TinkerToy" creation that precedes the Toy Story section. (I'm sorry these photos are not of great quality - I wasn't expecting to have any reason to take any!)

Lightning McQueen, who originally led off the parade, and Mater, who closed it, were both missing, too. And in the Ratatouille section, the chefs who lead it out weren't on stilts...and the rats weren't bungee-jumping. In my original blog on the parade (HERE) I noted this: "I found the Ratatouille float a little bit creepy - the jumping rats were ok, but there were several rats hanging upside down in some ropes looking rather lifeless. It just looked odd." Apparently I'm not the only person who thought so, because the upside-down rats are gone.

Original Ratatouille float - note the "hanging rats"
on the front and on the spoon.

New Ratatouille float - the rat on the front
is now perched in the mouth of the pitcher
and the one on the spoon is hanging by his tail

On the Toy Story float the acrobatic cowboys and cowgirls who used to swing on the high bar were also MIA - now there's several large "Barrel of Monkeys" monkeys hanging on the bar.

Now, for all I know a few of these things, especially the more acrobatic components like the bar performers and the stiltwalkers, could depend on the availability of cast, and are still part of the parade during its busier weekend performances. But I thought it was interesting that the parade had changed so much in just its first month!

After the three of us had dinner at the Wine Country Trattoria (review to come, which will also include comments from acclaimed food critic "Cheap Rick") we took a quick trip through Monstropolis and then used our Tower of Terror fastpasses. Maybe after seeing the Pixar Play Parade we were on a monkey theme, since Rick suggested posing for the photo in the classic "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" poses. That was fun, and the photo turned out well. After another drive through Monstropolis (where Roz said the same thing to us she had the first time), it was 8:00 and DCA was closing, and I headed home, since it was a "school night" for me. Though it was a short trip, I really enjoyed my time with AK, Randi and Rick - nice of them to give me the excuse to get away from work for the afternoon. :-)

Lee got up bright and early at 7:00 (which is VERY early when you just came from the west coast!) and kissed me goodbye when he left for his conference. I'm trying not to gloat too much about this whole "you're working and I'm not" thing... :-)

I actually got up not too long after he left and went out for a walk around the resort area - it was a very *bright* morning, but really comfortable for walking. I brought my runner's GPS with me on this trip, and I know that I walked 3.5 miles (you can walk a lot of miles on all of those serpentine paths in the Alligator Bayou area.

It was really a very nice walk - I saw a fair number of joggers on the main paths, and lots of bunnies and ducks. And I enjoyed the reflections in the Sassagoula River.

I walked down to Port Orleans French Quarter, also - I'd never noticed King Neptune riding the sea serpent at the pool before. Of course, that may be because he was hidden by palm fronds...he may be King of the Ocean, but apparently he has no lordship over trees!

I did something this morning that I have never done before - I bought a refillable mug! We're usually at the Boardwalk where it just isn't convenient to use one. We'll see if I get my $12.50 (plus tax) out of this one. So far I've gotten two drinks.

And then I did something else I hardly ever do...took a bus to Epcot! That just seemed so wrong somehow. :-) I waited maybe 10 minutes. Though it was weird that the first three buses that came by were all going to Blizzard Beach and Animal Kingdom. Not too many people riding any of the buses at that time of morning (about 11:30). The Port Orleans bus stop at Epcot is one of the closest ones to Epcot's entrance.

The Flower and Garden Festival has a surf theme this year, and the topiaries inside the front entrance reflect that. And I loved the background music - it's all Beach Boys songs! I couldn't help singing long as I walked through there - and I wasn't the only one.

At Epcot I did something else I've never done - got a Fastpass for Mission:Space - I'd never ridden it before. I had about 50 minutes to kill so I rode Test Track using the Singles line - I walked right into the briefing room (briefing was almost over) and then had just two other Singles in front of me, so that certainly didn't take long. I was watching the speed indicator on my GPS, which was kind of freaking out during the speed loop. :-) It thinks that my fastest pace today was a 51 second/mile pace - so that's pretty consistent with the 64 mph maximum speed you supposedly get on the ride.

I visited Minnie's Butterfly Garden, which is always one of my Festival favorites. Not too many really colorful/unusual butterflies were out at this time, though.

After I rode Journey into your Imagination it was time to use my Mission:Space fastpass. Interestingly enough, it was the first time for all four of us inside my pod - two other ladies were a bit nervous about it, but we all worked together and it was a successful mission. I was the Navigator. I really enjoyed the ride - even without the spinning the motion simulator sensations were interesting.

I always enjoy playing the Space Race game in the post-ride area, and a game was just starting when I got off the ride. I uploaded 19 fixes, which I think is a new record for me - I came within about a second of getting to 20. My team, Orion, won the race. :-)

I had about 20 minutes to get from there to the American Adventure pavilion, where I wanted to see Voices of Liberty at 2:00. Which reminds me...The weather was really great today - it was supposed to be 90, but I don't think it got higher than 85, and it wasn't very humid. I made it with 5 minutes to spare - even stopped to take a few pictures on the way.

And the crowds were fairly minimal, too - 20 minute standby lines for Test Track and Mission:Space, though of course Soarin' had a 60 minute wait, and Spaceship Earth, since it was still morning, was 35 minutes.

The Voices of Liberty performed America the Beautiful, Yankee Doodle, Oh Susanna, and, one that I'd never heard from them before, Old Man River. Oh my...that was awesome, and gave me chills. About half the singers were new to me, including the bass who sang the solo on Old Man River. Incredible voice.

I did something else I'd never done - ate at the Liberty Inn. I had the Vegetable Wrap with apple slices - and I threw on some more tomato slices and lettuce from the topping bar. It was pretty tasty - it was lettuce, chopped tomatoes and cucumbers, shredded carrots, a big slice of zucchini, and mild roasted red peppers wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla. It needed some dressing, though...I put some mustard in mine.

The Spirit of America Fife & Drum Corps was just starting their set as I was finishing eating. In addition to some other patriotic tunes they played a medley of all four of the military service anthems - The Caissons Go Rolling Along (Army), From the halls of Montezuma (Marine Corps), Anchors Aweigh (Navy), and Wild Blue Yonder (Air Force).

By then it was 2:40, and I had planned to see the Block Party Bash parade over at the Studios at 3:00. Not even I can make it from the American Adventure to the Studios (over 1.5 miles) in 20 minutes - but I did it in about 25.

Unlike any of the other Studios parades that I remember, this one starts from the end of Hollywood Blvd near Sid Cahuenga's, rather than from Star Tours. So it effectively blocks the entrance for people trying to come into the park. They were routing people over to Sunset Boulevard via the super-secret gate by Oscar's Gas Station (normally used by people who have the Fantasmic! dinner package).

People were lined up at least 2-3 deep all around the parade route - I never saw it that crowded at DCA (which is where it came from), even when it was new. Nice to see people in Florida enjoying it. I think it was pretty much the same as the version in California, though it seemed a little shorter, but I couldn't tell you why.

One cool thing I noticed before the parade - Cast Members had different activities set up along the parade route before it started to entertain the kids - I saw hopscotch, a limbo contest, and bubble blowing, among other things.

Lisa Berton called me as I was on my way to the bus stop - she'd also seen the Block Party Bash, so I just missed her at the Studios. We're going to try to meet up tomorrow, and for sure plan to get together on Thursday.

I took a short break back in the room - downloaded photos and worked on this blog entry mostly. Lee's conference had a private party at Animal Kingdom tonight, but he came back to the room to change clothes and drop stuff off. On the way to Animal Kingdom he dropped me at the Boardwalk and I walked back to Epcot from there. It's almost exactly 1/3 of a mile from the Boardwalk lobby to the International Gateway.

I arrived at the America Gardens theater about 10 minutes before The Tokens took the stage - there were still PLENTY of seats left. And who are The Tokens, you might ask? I wondered that, too. They are best known for "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", a song they recorded about 40 years ago! They really put on a good show, though most of the songs they performed were hits they produced for *other* artists, like The Chiffons (He's so Fine and One Fine Day) and Tony Orlando and Dawn (Candida). They did a really fun version of Wipeout (pictured) where they all put on surfer shirts. The show was 30 minutes long, but didn't seem that long at all - I wish they could have played longer.

While I was walking up towards Future World I took this sunset photo...

Dinner was from Sunshine Seasons - I had the rotisserie chicken dinner, and picked up some chocolate mousse cake and a chocolate brownie that Lee and I can share later.

According to my GPS I walked about 11 miles...It was One Fine Day!

Warning: This is going to be a rambling collection of various observations.

On Friday, September 26, the first official day of Disney's HalloweenTime, I made a day trip to DL with my friend Kristin(e). (Spelled Kristin, but pronounced Kristine - got that?)

Weather was beautiful and the crowds were minimal - the longest line we waited in all day was 20 minutes for Toy Story Mania. We practically walked onto Space Mountain at 11:30 that morning. And even Soarin' and Grizzly Rapids had less than 15 minute standby lines - we really didn't need Fastpasses, though we used them a few times. (Since it was Friday, I'm sure crowds at Disneyland picked up in the afternoon/evening, but we left at 6:00, so we missed that.)

Disneyland continues to have big problems with the Indiana Jones attraction - it was down when I was there last month, and it was down when we walked by it just after park opening. We went back later and it was up, and we got as far as getting into our jeep and belted in - and then it stopped. And after a few minutes the lights came on. And then they started sending Cast Members into the attraction to walk people out of it (which would have been really cool, but we weren't in the attraction at all!) They gave us a Fastpass to return later, which didn't end up happening, but Kristin gave it to a group of very nice young teenage boys who rode Grizzly Rapids with us. Anyway...seems like Indy is in major need of an extended rehab.

Haunted Mansion Holiday is back, and still a lot of fun, though I didn't notice any new additions to it this year. But I took a few movies inside (movie mode on my camera handles low light a lot better than still photography!) and noticed something I'd never noticed before: the gingerbread coffin on the table in the ballroom scene has a lid that opens and closes, with a gingerbread man corpse that sits up then lays back down! The scent of gingerbread in the air is a nice touch.

Other things that have returned in Disney's HalloweenTime:

The Halloween displays along the tram route.

The huge pumpkins over the Disneyland park entrance, and the large Mickey pumpkin in Town Square.

The Dapper Dans on Main Street in their orange and black striped vests

Woody's Halloween Roundup in the Big Thunder Ranch area, with live shows featuring Woody, Jessie, and Bullseye - and your host, Tex Tumbleweed (and sponsored by Cowboy Crunchies!)

Free coloring crafts for kids at Woody's Roundup, or there are bat and pumpkin-shaped Halloween cookies available to purchase and decorate.

The pumpkin carver at the Roundup

Special menu and food items - especially sweets like Halloween-decorated apples and cookies.

Lots of Halloween merchandise - both quite a collection of Nightmare Before Christmas stuff and Disney Halloween plush, pins, Mickey ears, etc.

Goofy's Candy Corn Acres at DCA, which features character greetings and "corny" shows.

Over at DCA, one thing that is NOT back this year is the Halloween decorations around the Tower of Terror - the last couple of years there has been a glowing-eyed bat banner outside, and decayed Halloween party decorations inside, but those were missing this year. Golden Screams has also not returned.

I collected menus from some of the Disneyland and DCA restaurants, and there have been some significant changes in the Blue Bayou lunch, dinner, and kid menus. Price is up, of course. Cafe Orleans also has a few changes, though mostly in their dessert items and the kid's menu. I think the kid's menus were changed just about everywhere that I looked. More "healthy" options - like a turkey dog, or string cheese, fruit, and yogurt, or a turkey wrap. All kid's meals come with fruit (e.g. grapes or apples) though parents can request chips or fries. Prices have gone up slightly - most kid's meals start at $6.99 now - and the price of the Arroz con Pollo Toddler Meal has gone up from $2.99 to $3.99.

Ariel's Grotto had the most significant changes, though - they have completely redone their menu with more of an Italian theme. It actually looks a whole lot more interesting to me - I might actually consider eating there now. They've also changed their pricing - $29.99 if you eat outside, and $31.99 if you eat inside. (Sorry, I didn't get a kid's menu for Ariel's, but maybe someone has one they can photograph and send to me???)

Some of the updated menus:

Blue Bayou Lunch

Blue Bayou Dinner

Blue Bayou Kids

Cafe Orleans

Cafe Orleans Kids

Tomorrowland Terrace (updated kid's menu)

Ariel's Grotto

Wine Country Trattoria Kids

(You can always find all the menus on our Disneyland Menus page.)

We had a very nice lunch at the Wine Country Trattoria at DCA - that's one menu that had NOT changed at all. With the demise of the Vineyard Room, that's my favorite park table service restaurant now. Kristin had the Tuscan Salad and I had the Chicken Bruschetta Salad. They were both really good.

An unexpected surprise - I ran into my IRC friend JD in line at Soarin'. I knew he had an upcoming trip to Disneyland, but thought it was in October. After Soarin' we all went to Grizzly River Run - JD and I got drenched, but Kristin escaped most of the water. It was nice to see JD!

Toy Story Mania continues to be way fun - Kristin had never been on it before but she had a good time, and she scored very well - better than I did my first time!

(If anyone would like to help with All Ears menu updates for Disneyland, please let me know - it can be as simple as taking a picture of a menu and emailing it to me. You can contact me at laurag at allears dot net)

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Hi everyone!

We have left the west coast for a week, and are here at WDW in Florida - mostly doing the Food and Wine Festival, but we'll be visiting all the parks, too, and running the Tower of Terror 13K on Saturday night.

We're here with our friends Jim and Sherry, who haven't been to WDW in 18 years! So we're looking forward to showing them all the things that are new since their last visit - like Animal Kingdom - a whole new theme park!

We have a two bedroom villa at Boardwalk Villas - it's SO nice to be at the Boardwalk during the Food and Wine Festival given its proximity to Epcot.

Today was our travel day, and the travel part actually went quite smoothly! We were on two Boeing 767s for our flights - I'd never been on one of those before. It was really nice - it seemed to have quite a bit more leg room than a lot of the smaller planes. But my favorite part was the personal entertainment units - one of the things passengers can do is play an in-flight trivia game against other passengers. I had a lot of fun with that...and I won a few games. :-)

Jim and Sherry's flight landed not long before ours, and they actually had their bags by the time we met them in Baggage Claim. We landed at 3:50 and were in the rental car headed out of the airport by 4:30.

We checked in and went to our room, and Lee said that they'd given us the wrong room, because for a change it is NOT all the way at the end of the hallway! :-) And fortunately, even though it overlooks the main pool area, we can't see the scary clown that vomits children. The room DOES have the dreaded swans glaring into it, though.

After we unpacked we (what else?) walked to Epcot for our first round of Eating Around the World. The weather was just great - warm enough for shorts, but comfortable if you were wearing jeans, too. I really hope it'll stay like this at least through the race on Saturday. (But there's a high probablilty of thunderstorms the next two days.)

We made it all around World Showcase in a couple of hours, and between the four of us, we tried items from 13 different food/wine/beer booths.

As you can see, sometimes careful study of the menu was required... :-)

Things we tried:

Cheddar Cheese Soup and Maple Glazed Salmon from Canada
Spanakopita from Greece
Kielbasa and Potato Pierogies from Poland
Plantain and Beef Casserole from San Juan, Puerto Rico
Chilaquiles and Chorizo Quesadilla from Mexico
Chilled Tomato and Garlic Soup from Barcelona
Pork Pot Stickers from China
Samosa, Red Curry Shrimp and Mango Mousse from New Delhi
Prawns with Sweet Potato Hash from Melbourne
Spaetzle with Mushroom Ragout and Apple Streudel from Munich
Cream Puff from Bologna, Italy

And the guys had beer from Belgium, Ireland, Mexico, and Australia, and I had wines from Barcelona and Munich.

A couple of the standouts: the guys really enjoyed the Plantain and Beef Casserole from Puerto Rico - which was also a VERY generous serving for only $2.75!

And one of my perennial favorites, the Chicken Chilaquiles from Mexico, was back again this year. That's also a pretty good-sized serving, for $4.00.

The Kielbasa and Potato Pierogie was another hit, and I really liked the Pepperberry Prawns with Sweet Potato Hash.

We didn't try too many desserts, and nothing was really outstanding, though the Mango Mousse from India was good, and Sherry said the Cream Puff with Mascarpone and Gianduja Chocolate was very good.

Though we made a pretty good start, there's still a lot of booths that we didn't hit at all - good thing we're here for another 6 days! :-)

We ended our evening by watching Illuminations - the park wasn't crowded at all, and we got a great spot in front of Italy only 5 minutes before the show started - there were people in front of us, but they were short enough they didn't block our view.

It was a great day - we're looking forward to tomorrow! Lots more Epcot - not just the Food and Wine Festival - we want to hit Future World, too - there's a number of attractions there that will be new to Jim and Sherry.

Day 2 of our Food and Wine Festival trip.

We got a late start this morning - still on west coast time. I'm actually trying to STAY on west coast time until after the Tower of Terror 13K race Saturday night - my body will be much happier (ok, so "happier" isn't really the right word) running if it thinks it's 7:00 at night than if it thinks it's 10:00 at night.

We made the loooong walk (NOT!) from our room at the Boardwalk Villas to Spoodles at 9:00, where we met our friends Paul and Ilene for breakfast. I hadn't eaten breakfast at Spoodles in years, and then it was a buffet. I think it has a very nice breakfast menu now - frittatas, breakfast flat breads, french toast, etc. You can find the menu on AllEars HERE.

We had a very nice breakfast, and sat around chatting for a long time, until we realized that it was after 11:00! Our server came around a couple of times to check on us and make sure we didn't want anything else. :-)

Eventually we said goodbye to Paul and Ilene and got ourselves together and into Epcot. The forecast for the day was heavy rain, though it was still looking ok at that point, and was actually very pleasant outside! But we brought our rain jackets and umbrellas with us. Jim was the group pack mule today - Lee did it yesterday. :-)

A performance of the World Showcase Players was just starting in the UK as we walked by, so we stopped to watch that. They've changed it a bit since I last saw it - they've included a third tourist in the cast - a woman to play the Evil Wizard Pelham. It was great fun, and the guy who played Galahad did a really good job. They even had a few new, but still bad, jokes. (Lee would have made a MUCH better King Arthur than the one they selected, though!)

Sherry had been asking to go on a ride, so we finally did one - Journey into Imagination. (They only get better from there, right?) After that, we steered them toward The Land pavilion and Spaceship Earth, and Lee and I went back to the UK, where we were meeting one of my long-time RADP IRC friends (and fellow AllEars staffer) Jack and his wife Judy.

We got a few cold beverages and went back into the garden in front of British Invasion's stage to have a nice long chat. It was good to see them, and I'm glad our trips overlapped a little bit!

Back in Future World we met up with Jim and Sherry again - they had just ridden Spaceship Earth and played a few games in Project Tomorrow. Sherry wanted to do the "Power" game, so we had a short wait for that, and Lee did it with her. They had a good time and did pretty well!

We got Fastpasses for Soarin' (not good until 7:51 that night!) and went over to the Seas pavilion. Fortunately the ride through the aquarium, featuring Nemo and friends, was a walk-on, but wow, that is a looong queue!

Our timing was perfect, and when we got off the ride they were just getting ready to let people in to the Turtle Talk with Crush show. Dude! It's so totally awesome!!! (Sherry wants to know how they do that. I wish we could tell her!)

We went upstairs to see the manatees, and talked to one of the Cast Members for a while about them. The two they have now they are still hoping to reintroduce to the wild. They eat romaine lettuce as the main part of their diet, since that mostly closely resembles the nutrients they would be eating in the wild. For treats they get things like apples, carrots, and sweet potatoes.

We wandered around the rest of the aquariums - I noticed this Mickey head on the bottom of one of them.

From there we went over to Mission Space, where we did the "Green" side. (As I did not wish to *turn* green I chose that instead of the orange side!) Since there were 4 of us we were one complete team, and that was fun. (Sherry was our commander, though, so we thought we would be doomed!!!)

As we walked into the Mission Control area they were just starting a Space Race game. We were the crew of the Orion - our four challengers on Team Triton were 4 pre-teen boys, so we figured we were doomed. And we were right - though we only lost by 2% - they had 97% and we had 95%. Which wasn't too bad. I'd never done the crew thing, though I have been one of the Mission Control players a lot of times. It took a little while to get the hang of it, but once we did the crew part was fun, too.

We had a 6:30 reservation for Marrakesh, and it was about 6:00 by then. Lee and Jim wanted beers from the Barley and Hops Market at the American Adventure pavilion, so we took the long way to Morocco. It was still a very nice evening - cloudy, but not raining, and still a comfortable temperature. Crowds were still not bad - none of the food booths seemed to have much of a line at all.

Marrakesh wasn't too busy at that time, and we got a table close to the middle of the restaurant. We all decided to order the Royal Feast, which included Harira Soup and Beef Brewat roll as appetizers, and then Lemon Chicken, Roasted Lamb Meshoui, and Couscous with Seven Vegetables for an entree, with assorted Moroccan pastries (which ended up being three kinds of baklava) for dessert. It was all good. The baklava was quite good - not syrupy sweet like some are. Sherry and I both had a white wine named Ksar with dinner - it was a very nice crisp, clean wine that I really enjoyed. Jim had a Casablanca beer, and Lee had a Marrakesh Express.