Seeing the parks through Walt’s eyes and another late night at the
Magic Kingdom
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Today was one of the days we had really looked forward to. We had to
get up early as we had signed up for the “Through Walt’s Eyes” tour.
While I was in the shower Tom prepared some breakfast and we had
sandwiches, tea and some sweets out of the fridge. By 8am we were
out of the villa and on our way over to Epcot. |
We got a parking spot really close to the park entrance, went
through bag check and over to the Tour Garden. We were the first
people to sign in for the tour, got nametags and listening devices
and talked to the guides for a while until the rest of the group
showed up and signed in. Once everyone was there we walked over to
the bus parking lot and got on a bus that was taking us to Disney’s
Hollywood Studios. |
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There we walked to the area where Fairfax Fair is and even though we
had been there lots of times before, the guide pointed out a lot of
war related items that had influenced Walt Disney. The guide was
really knowledgeable about anything Walt and was able to tell lots
of interesting stories. We than walked towards the hat and there he
spoke about Hidden Mickeys and had anyone heard about Hidden
Mortimers. |
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He then proceeded to show us one! Back we went on the bus to drive
to an area where the warehouses are and we looked into a workshop
where they keep and repair props. It was quite a walk through it all
and not all that interesting, since we had been taken there before
on other tours. Our next and last stop was the Magic Kingdom, where
we used the entrance behind Main Street and our guide took us into
the Utilidors. Another visit we had already made on other tours. We
then walked along Main Street and our guide pointed out a lot of the
windows on Main Street and who the people were and how they had
worked and influenced Walt. Even though our guide was very
knowledgeable there was not really much new information on Walt we
could gather, but then we have taken a lot of tours and have already
seen a lot. In the end we went back to our bus, which took us back
to Epcot, where we were given a commemorative pin and a rain poncho
as it looked a lot like rain. |
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We were even asked to pick another bottle of water out of the cooler
they had. Tom and I were hungry by then, having had breakfast very
early in the day. So we got into our car and drove over to the
Polynesian resort to have some lunch. We walked up to the kiosks and
placed our order. We ordered the
Pulled pork Flatbread,
which was the Flatbread of the Day and an
Aloha Pork Sandwich, that
came with Polynesian Chips. |
While our order was prepared, we got two Diet Cokes and our
desserts. Tom got a Fruit cup
and I had a Pineapple cup.
We walked over to the seating area and who should walk up than two
of the people who were on the tour with us. They pretended not to
know us, so we pretended not to know them either. We sat there for a
while eating our lunch and having a laugh because one of the chips
really looked like a crown. |
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After we had finished our lunch we decided to hop over to the Magic
Kingdom, but when we were out at the Monorail Station we could see
that it was going to rain soon, so we just walked down to the car
and drove back to Old Key West. We barely made it in the door before
a storm broke. It was raining cats and dogs and we were happy we had
made the right decision in going back to Old Key West. |
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I did a load of laundry while Tom was working on the internet and
then we just spent some time in front of the TV.We snacked a little
on the Muffin Sandwich
and the Bread Pudding we
still had from Earl of Sandwich. After a few hours the rain stopped
and by early evening we left our villa again to drive over to the
Polynesian Resort again for some dinner. We checked in at the Kona
Café, were given a buzzer and told that it would be a 15 minute
wait. |
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There were lots of walk ups and the people signing in ahead of us
were walk-ups too. We expected to be seated next, but no, Kona Café
obviously doesn’t honour ADRs, so we had to wait our time, which
didn’t sit well with me. Finally we were led to our table, a tiny
two top next to a column and our server introduced himself, then
leaving us to check the menu. While we were still studying the menu
our server brought out the
Soft Bread and Macadamia
Nut Butter. We then ordered our main courses. |
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Tom had the Teriyaki-style
New York Strip, a sirloin strip grilled with pineapple teriyaki
glaze served with mashed Yukon gold potatoes and stir-fried
broccolini and I ordered the
Coconut Almond Chicken - sauteed chicken breast served with
Asian greens tossed with honey-lime dressing, golden pineapple,
strawberries, and toasted almonds. We munched on the bread until our
main courses were served. After we had finished our entrees we were
quite full, but ordered a dessert, since we were on the Disney
Dining Plan. Tom got the No
Sugar Added Apple Stacker - with cinnamon, sour cream and crisp
won tons served with sugar free vanilla ice cream and I thought I
might give the
Banana-Chocolate Creme Brulee - with a chocolate spiral another
try. It took ages for our server to bring the bill, but then we
finally made our way over to the Magic Kingdom. There were still a
lot of people at the bag check and the turnstiles, but we finally
made it inside the park. |
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We were right on time for the Main Street Electrical Parade, which
we both love, so we stopped and watched it. After the Parade we
walked towards the Haunted Mansion, but the line was still too long,
so we walked through Fantasyland and saw that they were still
distributing Fast Passes for Peter Pan’s Flight, so we got one. |
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We then walked back towards the Christmas store and over to
Adventureland and when we saw that there was literally no line for
the Jungle Cruise we jumped on board. We just love to ride the
Jungle Cruise at night as the skippers tend to be more relaxed and
crack a lot more jokes than during the day. So we had a fun cruise
and a lot of laughter. Next we hopped on another cruise, the one of
the Pirates of the Caribbean. Again the line was pretty short, so we
were off and on the ride in no time. |
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When
we got off we realized that the park had gotten far less crowded, so
we walked over to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad to have a look at
how long the line was there. It was only a 5 minute wait, so we got
in line and literally walked on the line, even though we asked to
sit in the back of the train. Fun ride was over far too soon, so
when we got back we just walked around one more time and rode again. |
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By then it was nearly time to go and ride Peter Pan and on the way
there we just had a look at the line for the Haunted Mansion and
since there was none, we visited the 999 Happy Haunts residing
there, too. By then our Fast Pass was valid and we hopped in line
and were on the ride in no time. We watched out for the Hidden
Mickey in the ride and were off just in time to catch the next
performance of Mickey’s Philharmagic. |
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We only waited for about 5 minutes before we were led into the
theatre. The show was fun as always and we still had about 20
minutes of Extra Magic Hours left, so we headed over to Space
Mountain and since they let us, we got in line. It said 20 minutes
and it WAS a 20 minute wait. Since we were in the Stand by line we
had lots of time to enjoy the ride area and found Disney's "newest"
and "furthest" off resort, The Hyperion Resort! There were still
lots of people with Fastpasses walking on, but around the time the
park officially closed we had finally gotten close to boarding our
ride vehicle. Once we made it to the boarding area we were filling
in the last two seats of a ride car. We had a lot of fun sitting
there, screaming through space. It was time to leave the park, so we
strolled towards the exit, got in line for the Monorail and picked
up our car. It was way past our bedtime when we finally made it back
to our villa, where we fell into bed. |