Anita Talk

AllEars Team Member Anita Answer files this report:
Just back from a quick Mothers' Day weekend trip to the World, and wanted to share a couple of things:

New Fastpasses: Saw them at the Safari and Everest. They're about 1/3 bigger, on heavier stock. The issue date is BIG now, so no cheating! The new FPs also reference the pass you used to get them, and have a ref number printed at the bottom as well as bar code on the sides. I think this foreshadows some other changes coming to the FP system in the near future, but I'm not really sure yet what they may be.

New Show at the Safari: First ride on the Safari on Sunday morning was the old show (Miss Jobson, Wilson, Big Red, Little Red, Shifty- eyed Crocodiles, etc.) I asked an area coordinator when the new show was starting as I thought it already had. He said there are 3 shows right now as they phase the new one in: The old one, the new one with a recorded spiel, and one where the driver does the whole thing. He asked if we wanted to check out the new show (Uh, let me think...YEAH!) and he back-doored us back onto the ride and made sure we got a truck with the new show. By the way, the trucks now have 2 extra rows on the back and a canvas roof. Anyway, back to the new show. Miss Jobson has been made redundant, Wilson has had a voice transplant and now sounds like Mr. Bean imitating Wilson. I was on the floor of the truck I was laughing so hard. It's unintentionally hilarious. What can I say? I'm easily amused.

In the new show, the driver handles most of the spiel now, and the poacher/dead elephant story has been relegated to the back page, with more emphasis on the animals now. Bottom line, the old show was silly and probabably needed some work. The new show is just...blah. The animals are spectacular as usual. Several times during the ride, we were eye to eye with rhinos, giraffes, and ostriches.

Saw the new Monsters, Inc. show. It was not an E Ticket, but not as bad as I had been led to believe. I thought it was cute. The audience interaction was very funny and entertaining.

Saw the new Three Caballeros ride at Mexico. Also cute and well done, but the boat goes too fast for you to catch on to what's going on in the story. You may have to ride it a few times to figure it out.

New queueing in Rock 'n' Roller. The queue is completely different from the entrance to the load zone now. There are three lines: Stand- by, Fastpass and Single Rider. The pre-show area has been rebuilt. The upper tier is now much smaller and for Fastpass guests. The lower tier is larger, and for Stand-By guests.

I rode Everest 12 times on Sunday. This is not my personal best, however, which is 29 times in one day during the first day of previews.

Saw the Nemo show again, and they've changed Crush's human's costume. I liked the old one better (dreds, board shorts, sandals). Now he wears one of those body suits the other puppeteers wear, and it's kind of a washed-out mottled khaki. Now it looks like there's another turtle riding on Crush's back. I thought it looked odd. Bring back the original costume, please?

Went to have lunch with friends yesterday (May 15) at the Yacht Club Galley and found it closed and under rehab! The hostess told me they had only found out at 2:30 on Friday they were closing. They'll re-open on May 23. Meanwhile, lunch is being served at the Yachtsman Steakhouse. The menu is the same. Lots of changes happening to the World's restaurants these days!

Stayed at Shades of Green for the first time and it was pretty much a bust. Although the resort is absolutely gorgeous and the rooms are huge, pretty and spotless, the restaurants were awful, and the guest service was worse. I started my stay on Saturday at lunch in Evergreens where I had an entire glass of iced coffee dumped on me by the server. Did she apologize? No. Did she offer to get me a towel to clean up? No. She didn't offer a free drink to replace the one I was now wearing, and in fact I had to ask for a replacement drink four times from two servers before I got it. Some of my clothing was ruined and my capris were soaked through to my skivvies.We didn't have a room yet, so it made for an uncomfortably damp coffee-scented afternoon. It did not set a good tone for our stay.

Although SoG is located right next to the Poly, it's impossible to get anywhere easily without a car. It's also impossible to park at the TTC and try to get back to SoG without going about 20 miles (slight exaggeration...) out of your way unless you know the Super Secret exit that will not put you on World Drive going south. I knew it was there, but could not find it at 1:00 am Sunday morning in the dark. After three loops around the parking lot, I gave up and went all the way down World Drive and turned around and came back. Frustrating, since you can see the
resort, but you can't get to it! By the way, it costs $5 a day to park at SoG, and your park parking is not covered. Parking is also in a garage, and the rows are so narrow you can't back out without doing a five-point turn.

Yesterday, they left our bill on our door. We opened it and noted that they had charged the wrong rate. We also noted that there was a room service charge we did not make. Then we noted we had been given the next room's bill! So...downstairs my friend goes, which was ok since she had to pick up a package we had delivered from Epcot. The front desk was less than helpful and had to be begged for a new printed copy of the bill. The desk clerk seemed unconcerned about privacy and identity security issues (at a military hotel!? ) and told her not to worry about who might have her bill. The the clerk then rolled her eyes at my friend as if it was all her fault!

Now it was time to get the package...which they had lost. Nowhere to be found. They said if they found it they would call and she could come get it! Uh, no! Shouldn't they mail it at their expense since they lost it? They finally found it and called, shortly before we were due to leave for the airport. "It was sent over to Saratoga Springs. You can pick it up there." Why did they send it to SSR? Needless to say, we both agreed that no matter how inexpensive it was to stay there or how lovely the resort was, we would never ever- did I mention NEVER?- ever stay there again. DND (Definitely Not Disney). It remains to be seen if the package ever makes it home.

The Flower and Garden Festival has certainly been pared down this year! The grounds are stunning this year, but the "Festival" part is lacking. The Odyssey Festival Center contained a demo area, a display of arrangements and about 3 vendors. We kept asking if we were missing the rest somehow, but were assured this was pretty much all there was. Outside, there were some kiosks along World Showcase Plaza, and that was about it. They extended the show, and then got rid of 1/3 of it? That didn't make sense to me, but I'm not in charge of Epcot Special Events either.

Yak & Yeti - Second floor is taking shape, but still no roof. I don't think they're going to make that July 2007 deadline for opening. Had a "Farewell To Tusker House" breakfast on Sunday. Goodbye, old friend...

The Magic Kingdom Noodle Station is open 5pm to 9 pm daily. El Pirata in the Magic Kingdom has been open for lunch.

Apparently, the exhorbitant shipping costs did not go over well with guests and shipping costs are back to normal again. I didn't experience this personally, and I'm just repeating what my friend told me she learned when she bought something at Downtown Disney and had it shipped home. YMMV.

Saw the Animal Kingdom Lodge models and chatted with the sales people. I loved the layout, and especially the master bathroom in the new bigger 1 br. (there are two full bathrooms and the unit sleeps 5!) I did not like the general decor, however. Animal prints and dark woods are not to my taste. By the way, the dining table only seats 4, but the unit sleeps 5. Guess someone didn't think that one through?

Saw Davy Jones on Sunday! We were so close to the stage we could almost touch him. Woohoo! For a 61 year old man, he sure looks good! He can also sing and dance just as well as he could when he was 21. Amazing. Can you believe the Monkees TV show is 40 years old? Special guest was his sister Hazel, sitting two rows behind me. He sang a Swing song for her, and a young couple began swing dancing near the back. He called them up on stage, but they didn't hear him as they were concentrating on their dancing. He walked all the way out into the audience and brought them onstage, then brought his sister out of the audience to dance with him. It was a really nice moment, and nice way to end my Epcot visit.

Now it's back to reality until my next trip.

Anita
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My last story left off in the late 1970s. After my 1975 trip, I wouldn't be able to get back to the World until 1986. It sat at the back of my mind to make a return trip, but things got in the way, like college, jobs, layoffs, moves, lack of funds and the like.

By the very early 80's, I had met Mr. Answer, and after a few years, we decided to get married. We originally wanted to go to Hawaii for our honeymoon, but just starting out, we didn't have much money, and Hawaii is expensive. We sat down with a travel agent to explore our [meager] options. "Well, how about Disney World?" he asked.YES!! Why didn't I think of that?

He set us up with a package that included 5 nights at the Howard Johnson on Hotel Plaza Boulevard, tickets, including the new park that had opened in 1982, EPCOT Center (Woohoo! A NEW PARK!), Discovery Island, and River Country, plus one lunch.

We couldn't afford to stay at any of the Disney resorts, which then consisted of the Contemporary, Polynesian Village, Fort Wilderness, the Disney Inn and the Village Resort. The Grand Floridian and Disney's first moderately priced hotel, the Caribbean Beach, were still under construction. As our wedding date approached, we found we were far more excited about the honeymoon trip than we were about the wedding and reception!

Finally, after months of planning, it was time to go to the World! Mr. Answer had never been, but was a fan of Disney's films, and of their technology and innovative techniques. We were both anxious to see them in action at EPCOT Center.

EPCOT stood for "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow". Walt Disney's original concept was to build an actual community, but when all was said and done, EPCOT became more of a permanent World's Fair than anything else.

The "community" was built nearby in what was then called Lake Buena Vista Village. Model homes, townhomes, unique Treehouses, and apartments were built, but due to politics that I won't get into here, the homes were never sold or used for personal dwellings. Instead, for the first couple of years, they were rented out to corporate entities, and they later became The Disney Village Resort and were rented to guests.

Anyway, back to our first look at EPCOT. Entering the turnstiles, we were both completely blown away by what lay before us. The beautiful geosphere that towered over us! The fountains and gardens! The clean modern architectural lines!

We explored Futureworld pavilion by pavilion, savoring every detail. Somewhere, I had gotten a copy of a guide (Birnbaum's?) that advised us to tour the parks clockwise; and when given the choice, to always choose the left-hand queue. To this day I still tend to follow that advice, but now that I've shared it with all of you, everyone will do it and I'll have to learn to tour counter-clockwise and choose the right-hand queue. I'll have to break 25 years of habitual veering to the left.

My lasting impression of that first trip to EPCOT Center was how absolutely visually stunning the park was. It was artful and modern in Future World, yet tempered with gorgeous plants, trees, fountains and lagoons.

Spaceship Earth was majestic. It truly was an icon, so beautiful when seen from anywhere in the park. Now that the Millennium Wand is finally down, I can't tell you how happy I wias to see it a couple of weeks ago in it's original pristine state, and to view it the way it was meant to be viewed. Unfortunately, the granite monoliths will still stand in what was originally a more wide-open area blocking that wonderful fountain beckoning you to move toward it and into Future World. I hope against hope that someday, the plaza will be returned to something like it originally was, with that lovely plexiglass sculpture in the middle of the fountain and with flower beds instead of boulders which interrupt the entire flow of the plaza.

I think I miss the rows of palm trees that framed the geosphere the most, but I did read recently that the oak trees surrounding Spaceship Earth will be removed and replaced with palms. These days, the plaza is most definitely lacking in Feng Shui and sports a rather cold and uninviting look. Removing the Leave a Legacy kiosk at the bottom of Spaceship Earth, and the sales/photo area on the west side of the plaza is a huge start toward restoring it to it's original beauty and flow. With Epcot's 25th birthday coming on October 1, 2007, it looks like this park will finally be getting some much-needed attention,along with a re-dedication ceremony.

But that is now, and I want to talk about the early days. Besides the name and the entrance plaza being different in 1986, there were some other things that made the park differ from the Epcot of today.

For instance, Innoventions didn't exist. Those buildings were known as Communicore East and West. Spaceship Earth had a different show and a different narrator. The Universe of Energy also had a different show: There were dinosaurs, but no Ellen. The Wonders of Life didn't exist yet. I guess that pavilion has come full circle, since it pretty much doesn't exist today, either.

A pavilion called Horizons, featuring a trip through the possibilities of the future where you could choose your own ending, was located where Mission:SPACE now stands. In the space station area of the queue in Mission:SPACE, you can still see the Horizons logo.

The World Of Motion, a great "dark ride" about transportation with a track that went up the outside of the show building and a catchy theme song, stood where Test Track is today.

That strange looking building perched on the lagoon between Test Track and the Mexico Pavilion didn't used to be just a bathroom and first aid stop--It used to be a counter service restaurant called The Odyssey.

Meanwhile over in Future World West, a brand new pavilion called The Living Seas had a ride called the "Sea Cabs" that took you on a slow, very short ride around the aquariums. No one had yet found Nemo.

Next door at the Land, there was a fun show called Kitchen Kabaret, with an earworm theme song called "Veggie Veggie Fruit Fruit". Yes, my friend Flo and I can still do the entire show complete with song, even though it closed in 1994, when it was replaced by "Food Rocks". Flo, this one is for you: "He won't forget the lickin' he got from that big chicken, so now he gets his poultry from the store..." The Kitchen Kabaret theatre used to be where Soarin's queue is now.

And last, but by no means least, was my favorite Future World pavilion and ride, Journey Into Imagination.

Why in the world the original ride was gutted and destroyed is beyond me. The original ride with DreamFinder and Figment was such a wonderful sensory experience, filled with sounds, smells, and colors. The White Room featured an incredibly beautiful glass wall. When you were done with the ride, you could go upstairs and play in the Image Works. That rainbow neon tunnel was so much fun, as were the pin tables and giant kaleidoscopes.

As if that wasn't enough, you could then go see a 3D film called Magic Journeys in the attached theater, and then go outside and play in the leapfrog fountains. Today, we're on the third, better by light years than the second, but still lame version of the ride, the ImageWorks is now downstairs and features not much in the way of imagination, the theatre houses Honey, I Shrunk The Audience, which is possibly the strongest of the three attractions, and luckily, the fountains have all survived intact. Phew! The Rumor Mill has been buzzing lately with tales of a major overhaul for the whole pavilion, to which I say, "hurrah!"

Back to 1986. Leaving Futureworld and moving into World Showcase, each pavilion transported us to those far-away places we had not yet even dreamed of visiting. The only time I had been outside of the US was a car trip to Canada around the Niagara Falls area. Since then, I've been lots of places including Mexico, China, England, France and Canada, and World Showcase turns out to be a pretty darned good representation of these countries!

World Showcase in 1986, like Future World, was different from the one we know today. The Norway pavilion wouldn't debut until 1988. My favorite pavilion, Morocco, with its incredibly intricate tile work, had just opened in 1984.

The other pavilions have remained much the same, occasionally changing out displays, revamping old rides, updating films, and changing theater seats from lush and comfy to cheap, hard and easily broken. (You guilty pavilions know who you are!!)

Some of the restaurants have undergone changes as well. Le Cellier used to be a "buffeteria," for instance. This is where we chose to have our "free" lunch that came with our package. I had prime rib for lunch. How very decadent! Mostly what I remember about dining on this trip was how bad both the food and service were everywhere around Disney property!

Our best meals were at the HoJo coffee shop in our hotel. One really bad meal stands out for me: We ate dinner at Captain Jack's in the Disney Village. My steamed shrimp had been cooked into oblivion, and were served as tasteless mush. The service was worse than the food. My husband and I joked about how bad the restaurants were on that trip for years after that, even when they had vastly improved. Unfortunately, on our most recent visits, we're seeing a return to the bad food and service of the 80's.

In the entertainment area, there was a nighttime spectacular on World Showcase Lagoon called "Laserphonic Fantasy". This show was actually the third show on the lagoon since the park opened. The first two were "Carnival de Lumiere" and "A New World Fantasy". If we saw Laserphonic Fantasy, I have no recollection of it. I do have vague memories of airplanes trailing colored smoke over World Showcase Lagoon and some bizarre boats on the lagoon during a short-lived daytime spectacular called "Skyleidoscope".

It took us at least two full days to explore all that EPCOT Center had to offer, and I'm sure we still missed a lot. I still recall how much my feet hurt after pounding around the park for hours in flat sandals. What was I thinking?? Since then, I have never gone to the World without at least two pairs of tried and true comfy shoes or sandals. Lesson learned!

Of course, we thoroughly covered the Magic Kingdom as well, since my husband had never been before, but we seemed to concentrate our attention on EPCOT Center. We tried to use our River Country tickets, but the day before, a guest had run his rented boat aground on the berm that separated RC from Bay Lake, so it was closed, darn it! We never did get to RC until the 1990's just prior to its closing. At least we got there.

I don't think we made it over to Discovery Island either, with all there was to do at the bigger parks.

As we flew home from our first Disney adventure together, we mused about the things we had missed, so of course, we'd have to make another trip to see those things! It was then that I knew my husband had fallen in love with the World, much like I had a few years earlier. Our next trip would be in 1989, a few months after the Disney-MGM Studios opened.

Next time, a look at the World of the late 80's.

Anita

Special thanks to Brian Martsolf for the use of his extensive postcard collection!
Postcard Scans are courtesty of Brian Martsolf who has an online guide to WDW Postcards.

The following day, we were to meet some friends at the San Angel Inn in the Mexico Pavilion. We paid cash for this meal and did not use the dining plan, but wanted to share my experiences there.

I have to preface this part with an explanation of how we came to be at the San Angel Inn. The simple explanation is that when our friend Mickey made the ADRs, there was nothing left at Epcot except 9 Dragons and San Angel Inn. Neither of these would have been at the top of any of our culinary must-do lists, but we chose San Angel because it's so pretty in there. I had not eaten there in at approximately 10 years, and I was singularly unimpressed then. Since I live in an area of the country where wonderful Mexican food can be readily found on every street corner, Mexican food is not what I tend to seek out when I travel.

We were seated promptly at our ADR time, and we asked for a table by the "river." We were handed the menus, which I couldn't read because it's so darned dark in there! They should provide a small flashlight at every table!

After my eyes adjusted, I decided on the beef Tacos Al Carbon ($13.99) and a frozen lime Margarita ($8.00.) Tacos Al Carbon are basically beef skirt steak that is seasoned and char-grilled and cut up into small pieces, served in tortillas with grilled onions, pico de gallo, sour cream and/or guacamole.

This is a dish that is very common where I live, and it's one of my favorites. At home, the tacos are always served with a generous side of rice and beans, so imagine my surprise when my three (tiny!) tacos arrived looking very lonely on a plate all by themselves. I'm not sure I've ever seen such small tortillas. "Well," I thought to myself, "I just paid $13.99 for three tiny tacos I could buy at home for $1.50 each at a taqueria stand. Lesson well learned."

The Lonely Tacos weren't very tasty, either. They were overcooked and dry, and the hot peppers they were cooked in completely overwhelmed the beef flavor. No amount of sour cream could make them any more moist.

On top of it all, the service was spotty and slow as well, and we had to beg for tea, softdrink and water refills. The check took forever to come, and our server didn't look pleased that we had a Disney Dining Experience card for the 20% discount. All in all, the food was disappointing at best, the service was below par, and the Margarita was the best part of the meal. Next time, I'll skip the restaurant and get a [bigger] Margarita at the stand outside. San Angel Inn gets a C- for food, C- for service, and an A for atmosphere. I may try it again in another 10 years or so...or not.