After taking a day to recover from
the wedding, we flew off Monday
morning to Disney World.
We only had five days at Disney and we figured that we
wouldn't even have enough time to do everything we wanted just within
Disney World. Because of this we decided to stay on the
property. Originally we considered staying at the Grand Floridian
(Ok, it was more me than Melissa). The phrase "It *is* our
honeymoon" was used repeatedly. In the end we decided that since
the resort in St. Lucia was going to be fairly up-scale and since we
didn't expect to spend much time in the hotel at Disney we opted
for a "fun" place. This led us to the Animal Kingdom
Lodge. Although it shares the name with the Animal Kingdom, they
are not really attached. However, the great thing about this hotel
is that it's surrounded by animals! See the Animal Kingdom Lodge
page for more info.
With the Animal Kingdom Lodge as our base of operations we
travelled to the four Disney World parks: The Magic Kingdom, Epcot, The
Animal Kingdom and MGM. We had a great time everywhere although
MGM was probably our least favorite. On the other hand, Melissa
got a picture with Minnie Mouse there.
One of the great things about staying on the property was
the ease of getting from place to place. There is a bus system
that goes between all the parks and almost all the hotels (some hotels
require a boat ride!). We took these busses (and boats) everywhere
so we didn't need a car and we never needed a cab. The only
downside is that to get to another hotel you need to first go to one of
the parks then wait there for a bus to the other hotel. We only
did this once, and it turned out we needed a boat, not a bus! It
worked out pretty well.
We chose to go with a package at Disney. I believe it
was called the Bronze Package. From what we hear they change the
names every year, so it doesn't matter too much anyway. The
important thing is what it gives you. We chose this package
because it gave us two "wishes" per person per day. A Wish is
basically a prepaid virtual coupon. The wishes can be used to pay
for any number of things including meals, some merchandise, Cirque du
Soleil tickets, and other things. We chose to use them almost
exclusively for meals. For a meal this gives you an appetizer,
entree and dessert. Let me tell you, that is a LOT of food!
Some restaurants are one wish, some are two. One of the best meals
we had was at Artist's Point and it was two points. We
figure that a point is worth somewhere around $25 to $30. Also
with our package was one coupon for a limit list of things. One of
the things on this list was for a Leave a Legacy tile at Epcot. We
decided to do this (and got suckered into buying a second tile, of
course). We thought that was pretty cool. For the next
twenty years you can see our faces and reference to our honeymoon at
Epcot. You can find our two tiles at: East 2-B-28-10-34 and East
2-B-28-10-35. If you go there and see them, let us know!
You can read our experiences and thoughts on all the places
we visited on the pages to the left, but here are our general
recommendations:
Recommended
The Animal Kingdom : This was our
favorite park of the four. We both really like animals, so your
milage may vary.
Maharajah Jungle Trek : This is in Asia at the Animal Kingdom.
It's just a walking tour along animal enclosures. It was the
best way to see animals at the Park. This is also where the
tigers are.
The Animal Kingdom
Lodge : It's really cool having the
animals right off your balcony. Be careful on room choice!
We're fairly sure that the best rooms are those that point inward as
this is the largest savannah.
Fast Pass : Without this our lives would have been
miserable. At certain rides and attractions you can scan your
ticket and it gives you a pass to the ride or attraction for a specific
time range. Depending on how busy it is the time range can be
sooner or later. These special passes then allow you to come back
to the attraction during the specified time period and go into a special
line which was rarely longer than ten people for us. You then
get to bypass all those poor suckers waiting in the normal line!
You can only hold one fast pass ticket at a time, and the ticket tells
you when you can next get a fast pass. Use it wisely!
Artist's Point : This is the "upscale" restaurant at the
Wilderness Lodge. This was our best meal at Disney.
Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger
Spin: This is a ride in Tomorrowland at the Magic
Kingdom. It's sort of a ride/video game. We went on it
three times.
Marrakesh: This is the restaurant in
Morroco at Epcot. The food was good, the place was not crowded
(no reservations necessary, unlike at Mexico which is always packed),
and our waitress was very nice (especially after we let it slip we
were on our honeymoon). They have live belly dancing as
well!
McDonald's: You would not believe how
good McDonald's french fries taste after sweating all day. We
particularly enjoyed the one at Epcot. All they serve are
McNuggets and french fries, but that was awesome!
Visit other Disney hotels: Each hotel
offers something unique. We didn't do this much, but with our
experience of Artist's Point we would certainly recommend branching
out.
Aerosmith Rockin' Rollercoaster: Don't
eat before going on it, but even us rollercoaster wimps really enjoyed
it.
MGM Animation Tour: This tour gives you a
peek into how Disney makes their animate movies.
Boma for brunch: Boma was one of the
restaurants at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. We only ate there for
brunch one day but they put on a great spread. They had typical
American breakfast foods as well as what they claimed were African
foods (never having been there I can't verify that!). I got one
of my curry fixes there.
Bug spray and umbrella: Melissa wanted me
to mention the bug spray (I didn't have a problem) but the umbrella
saved us a few times!
Discouraged
Innoventions:
Innoventions makes up two of the pavilions at Epcot. This is
corporate sponsorship gone awry. It's basically a bunch of
companies trying to display their new stuff. This would be ok if
it was more fun. The only thing we did here that was any fun was
a video game where you had to dance on a pad on the floor according to
what the screen told you to do. Yes folks, that was the
highpoint.
Imagination: Imagination is another
pavilion at Epcot. I honestly can't even tell you what was in
there. It does have some cool fountains outside though.
Mostly I remember as a kid wanting to spend more time there, but
having gone back I was really disappointed.
Alien Encounter: This "ride" is in
Tomorrowland at The Magic Kingdom. A friend of mine raved about
this so I had to do it. Kids (not too young!) might find it
interesting, but we found it boring. It would certainly frighten
any young children.