A Week with Fay (Searching Disney with Steve)

Tropical Storm Fay visited central Florida on Tuesday, August 19, crossing (west to east) south of Orlando. She stuck around the east coast a few days and then on August 21 crossed Florida again (east to west) north of Orlando. I checked out the Magic Kingdom late afternoon of August 21. As you can see in the photo, lots of guests were there, although the MK seemed a bit less crowded than usual. The cloudy sky drizzled rain and mist much of the day, and gusts of wind blew hats off. It was a good poncho sales day for WDW!

Magic Kingdom

I stopped by the Polynesian Resort to check out a Hidden Mickey sighting. Andrew and Matthew Nypower wrote to me about a classic Mickey image on the back of the Tiki statue outside the Tiki Boutique shop on the first floor. Many folks stop here for photos with the smiling Tiki guy. Sure enough, on his back is a cool (slightly distorted) classic Mickey!

The next day, Fay lightened up a bit. There were fewer ponchos in evidence at Epcot in the United Kingdom pavilion, although the walking paths were still moist.

Louise Herrick had informed me last year, along with a few other folks, that the classic Mickey on the Asepso box (along the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail in Disney's Animal Kingdom) had returned. It's still there, thank goodness. The reason I mention Louise is that she wrote me a story about her 6 year old son, who had a great time searching for Hidden Mickeys at WDW. One night, while Louise and her family were comfortably asleep in their Disney resort, her son yelled out in his sleep: "I've found a Hidden Mickey!" Actually, that happens on occasion to me, too!

A while back, I wrote about the tree grove classic Mickey near WDW. Several people have asked me for more information about this amazing classic Mickey image. A friend of mine, Jim, researched its history. This tree grove Mickey was not present before 1990; it appeared sometime between January 23, 1990 and March 5, 1994. It is 7.7 miles northwest from the center of the Magic Kingdom, and it's in Lake County on private property (not officially on Disney property).