I took tons of photos, and could write in a lot more detail but I'm only going to hit the highlights here - hopefully I'll have time to do some more in-depth reviews later.

There's new snowflake designs over the entrance turnstiles - they look even better at night.

First thing we did at park opening, of course, was hot foot it back to "it's a small world". There was a short line, but we didn't wait long. It really does look shiny and new!

Here's one of the new boats - I think they are narrower than the old ones. The rows seat 2-3 maximum - the older boats could get 4 in the middle rows.

From what I could tell the attraction, at least in its holiday configuration, hasn't changed very much. The Disney characters have not yet been added - I think that is supposed to take place after the holidays. There are a number of small changes throughout, but maybe I'll get to that in a later blog.

I only noticed two big changes:

The first was in the Hawaii/Polynesia/Australia room, where the rainforest scene has been added to the end. This link will take you to a larger picture.

The second was in the final room, where there's a huge sun at the end of the room.

When we exited, the line was still fairly short, so we went again - we knew it would just get longer as the day went on! The clock went off while we were waiting in line the second time - wow. The figures look brand new - so bright and shiny!

They seemed to be having a slight problem with the water flow - at the same point in both of our rides (going into the last room, I think?) we really slowed down to a crawl - and neither of our boats was overloaded at all.

And then we continued on our holiday tour around the rest of the park...Toontown is once again decorated for the holidays.

And Santa's Reindeer Roundup is back at Big Thunder Ranch. The reindeer (all 8 of them!) were looking groomed and beautiful. We arrived during a performance of a magic show in the stage and watched the rest of that - lots of sleight of hand and prestidigitation. A number of audience members, both kids and adults, were called on stage to participate. It was a lot of fun.

The decorations are up in New Orleans Square also - that's always one of my favorites. And of course Haunted Mansion Holiday is still running - we took a ride on that.

Critter Country is also looking its usual festive self - I'm always a little surprised they do as much decorating there as they do, since it's not as popular as most other areas of the park. We stopped into Pooh Corner to see what kind of holiday treats they might have there - really not too much, actually. A candy apple snowman and chocolate-covered snowman marshmallow on a stick was about it.

The castle has its icicles and dusting of snow - never mind that it was almost 80 degrees. :-)

We headed over to DCA for a while. The candy-cane striped "California" letters are back in front of the entrance, and the wreaths and garland adorn the Golden Gate Bridge. But what happened to Santa's Beach Blast??? Sunshine Plaza looks strangely bereft and unadorned. That wasn't the only thing missing - the garlands that normally adorns P.T. Flea and the Farmer's Market was also gone, as was any kind of decoration on the buildings in the San Francisco area, though the building-formerly-known-as-Golden-Dreams was decorated.

The tree is in its usual spot near the entrance to Paradise Pier.

The city sidewalks, busy sidewalks, were dressed in holiday style in the Hollywood Studios area.

And Flik's Fun Fair had the normal oversized ornaments and lights, though the Santa "pencil eraser" was gone.

We went back over to Disneyland to see the first showing of the Christmas Fantasy parade - got a nice spot on the curb in Town Square, where we were almost at the end of the parade route. It's pretty much the same, though there's a new Toy Factory float this year, replacing the previous one. It goes along with the building block theme they have for Buzz and Woody's floats.

The Times Guide, which covers Friday through next Thursday, actually has NO times listed for the castle lighting, tree lighting, or "it's a small world" lighting. We asked a Cast Member, who had times in his guide for the "small world" lighting (4:57 p.m.) and the tree lighting (5:00), but nothing for the castle. Hmmm. We went back to "small world" for its lighting ceremony - there was an annoucement on the street and a short countdown, and all of the lights went on. Ooooh...ahhhhhh. :-)

I think the colored lights on the topiary animals are new - or at least I'd never notice them before.

We waited there another 20 minutes to see the holiday projection sequence - the first one of those was about 5:20 - they take place about 5 minutes after the clock chimes each quarter hour.

We went back to Main Street to see if the castle was lighted yet - nope. Asked another CM, who thought it might not be until after the fireworks (which started at 9:25), but then we heard a passing guest say 5:30. So we waited a few more minutes, and sure enough - the lights started twinkling and coming on at 5:30. There was a very short soundtrack that went with it - a conversation between a mother and child about snow. It's still really beautiful this year! I think there are some additional effects on the buildings on Main Street, but we didn't see those - did see the trees behind us in the hub light up, though.

That was the end of our day and we headed home. It was another great day!

Favorites:
Laura: Lamb slider (New Zealand), Chilaquiles (Mexico)

Lee: Chorizo Quesadilla and Chilaquiles (Mexico), Kielbasa with Potato Pierogi (Poland)

Sherry: Wild Mushroom Soup (Poland), Boston Crab Cake (Sam Adams), Pot Stickers (China)

Jim: Beer, Leek and Goat Cheese Quiche (France), beer, Seafood Gumbo (Louisiana) (and did he mention the beer?)

What we tried:

Cheddar Cheese Soup - This is one of Lee's favorites every year, and Sherry enjoyed it, too. A little too rich for me, and a small serving for the price ($3.25).

Maple Glazed Salmon with Roasted Corn and Arugula - Another offering that Lee has every year. I find the smell of the salmon cooking as you walk by to be unpleasant. The roasted corn and arugula salad served with it was good.

Boston Crab Cake with corn and barley salad - Lee and Sherry enjoyed these - lots of crab and not so much cake (which is why I *don't* like them!).

New England Lobster Roll - Expensive at $7, but it's pretty good-sized. Sherry and Jim enjoyed it.

Cajun Crawfish Etoufee - Jim said this was quite good, and a bit spicy. (He got and ate this while Sherry and I were watching Serveur Amusant, so I didn't get a picture.)

Seafood Gumbo (shrimp, crab and catfish stew) - ditto.

Praline Bread Pudding with Bourbon Caramel Sauce - Lee loves bread pudding, and he enjoyed this. (Ditto on the no picture explanation.)

Grilled Beef with Chimichurri sauce - Lee also enjoyed this last year. I can't eat the beef, but the potatoes that come with it are good.

Spicy Beef Empanada - I think Lee had these two different times.

Chilaquiles (baked tortillas with chicken and cheese) - A perennial favorite! Very tasty (I like the mildly spicy green sauce) and a generous serving for $4.00. We all enjoyed this one.

Quesadilla con Chorizo (spicy sausage and cheese tortilla) - Lee enjoyed this one, too.

Quiche au Fromage de Chevre et poireaux (goat cheese and leek quiche) - I liked this one - it had the nice goat cheese tang. I couldn't taste the leeks, though.

Creme Brulee Chocolat au Lait (milk chocolate creme brulee) - Chocolate? WHAT chocolate??? I couldn't taste any - this was very disappointing.

Apple Strudel - You'd think for $2.75 they could give you something a little bigger.

Spanakopita - Sherry and I tried these - she liked it, but it was a little too "spinachy" for me. Too much spana, not enough kopita. ;-) (And no picture because it was the first thing Sherry and I had that first evening, and we were starving!)

Boxty with bacon chips and Kerrygold garlic and fresh herb butter - Basically a potato pancake with onions cooked in butter. LOTS of butter. I think this has no redeeming qualities whatsoever - but it was really good.

Irish Cheese Selection (Reserve Irish Cheddar, Dubliner and Ivernia Cheese) with Apple Chutney and Brown Bread - These were excellent - I couldn't tell you which cheese was which, but Sherry seemed to know - she and Jim especially enjoyed the Dubliner. I thought they were all good!

Cream Puff with Mascarpone and Gianduja Chocolate - Sherry tried this and said it was very good - so good that I don't think she even offered to share... :-)

Chilled Tomato and Garlic Soup - Pretty much like the description. Not bad, but there are other things I enjoyed a lot more.

Creamy Wild Mushroom Soup - Sherry tried this and said it was good, even though it doesn't look very appetizing!

Kielbasa with Potato Pierogies with caramelized onions and sour creme - I think we all tried and enjoyed these - we had them at least twice. I ate the pierogi and onions and gave the kielbasa to Lee.

Pastelon de Amarillo (beef and yellow plantain casserole) - Jim and Lee enjoyed this, and at $2.75 for a very generous serving it was a bargain!

Cheese: Asiago Pressato, Italy, Manchego, Spain - Not as good as the Irish cheeses, but still tasty.

Durban Spiced Chicken on a Skewer with coconut milk-infused root vegetables - They were a little skimpy on the chicken, but it came with a nice serving of the root vegetables. I didn't taste any coconut milk, though.

Samosa with Tamarind Sauce (spicy pea and potato pastry) - A little bit of a kick, but very tasty!

Shrimp in a red curry sauce over rice - Jim and Sherry tried this - good, but nothing they raved about.

Mango Mousse - Lee ate most of this one...mostly what I remember about it is that it was very sweet.

Spicy Tuna Roll - Sherry enjoyed this.

Chicken Sha Cha - It seemed like a larger serving than I remembered in past years, and was flavorful and not dry.

Pork Pot Stickers - Sherry especially liked these.

Bay Scallops with baby greens and cranberry vinaigrette - This was not quite what Lee and Sherry were expecting from the description - it was a salad with pieces of scallops. The salad part was good, and it's always nice to see something green for a change!

Lamb Slider in a brioche roll - One of my favorites every year. They were fairly generous with the lamb this time.

Pepperberry Prawns on the barbie with sweet potato hash - Lee and I enjoyed this - the prawns had a nice flavor and the hash was good, but there wasn't very much of it.

Overall Impressions:

It was nice to see the food booths spruced up and painted a little bit differently this year, to go with the Cities in Wonderland theme. (And if you click on that link you'll hear our friend Paul do his "Tables in Wonderland" line. :-) )

I thought the prices were fairly unchanged from last year, and there were definitely several items that provided large servings at a low price. (Of course there were also a few I felt were overpriced.)

The food quality seemed quite good to me - in previous years we've gotten chicken and other items that were dry from sitting around too long, but we didn't have that issue this year.

I was disappointed in the dessert offerings - there was nothing that wowed me. Most of the desserts I didn't even try because they weren't appealing. And the milk chocolate creme brulee was especially disappointing.

That's about it - we're already looking forward to eating our way around the world next year!

(Note to self: For future reference do NOT write about food before lunchtime...I'm starving!!!)

So Tuesday we started our day at Animal Kingdom. A cold front had moved in and the weather had turned chilly, even though it was sunny - the high was 63 that day, and it was breezy, so it felt very cool.

We sent Lee to get Fastpasses for the Safari while Jim, Sherry and I had breakfast at Pizzafari. It's not Tusker House but it's not bad - and they still have the giganto cinnamon rolls that Tusker House used to have. It was nice and warm in there, too. :-)

After breakfast, once again we headed off from Harambe on our two week safari. And once again those blasted poachers messed it up for us. Sigh.

We had a really excellent safari, though - Jim and Sherry were really good luck on this trip! A great variety of animals and many of them available for photographs. We saw this mama and baby elephant...awwww.

Lots of animals on the savanna, too, and several rhinos, and we could even see three cheetahs! I've never seen them sitting up the way they were - unfortunately I was on the wrong side of the jeep and didn't get a photo. But we also saw the lion posing majestically - he was actually awake!

Our friend Kenny collected our Fastpasses when we went through the line for Expedition Everest - it was fun to see him. Sherry and Jim were sitting behind Lee and me, and Sherry saw us with our arms up and yelled "You're crazy!!!" :-) She managed to keep her eyes open on the second ride, though.

We said goodbye to Animal Kingdom and went back to the Boardwalk and on to Epcot for a last day of eating around the world. I think it's really best to visit the Food and Wine Festival during the day on weekdays - it's not nearly as crowded, as you can see from this photo.

Sherry had requested another meeting with Crush, so we headed off to the Seas pavilion. Went in through the gift shop so we didn't have to do the clamshell ride again. We had to wait a few minutes for the show - Sherry amused herself by playing one of Mr. Ray's quizzes. The show was fun - I think this Crush didn't have the accent down quite as well, but was a little better at the improvisation. He went over to a little girl and asked her name, which apparently freaked her out and she started crying and went to find her parents. He looked up and said "I totally did not mean for that to happen". Duuuuuuuude. :-)

I wanted to visit the Festival Center (over in the old Wonders of Life pavilion) so we went over there. It's sad to see everything shutdown in there.

We wandered around looking at the gift shop items, and I had a glass of the Prosecco (a mildly fizzy wine - not as bubbly as champagne). It was a little dry for me - I prefer the Martini and Rossi version.

There were no food or wine demonstrations going on while we were there - in fact there were no food demos at all that day. They had some nice areas set up for them, but with everything so close together I can see where it would get noisy, as Deb Koma and others have commented.

Outside one of the demo areas they had this paper display set up - I thought it looked neat.

Oh, one thing that struck us...before we left we went to the restrooms...notice anything different about this sink?

If you said "You have to turn it on yourself!", DING, DING, DING - give yourself 10 points! It was very odd to see that - I hadn't had to turn on a sink in a public restroom all week - even the airport restrooms are automatic now. Speaking of which...Disney should find out who supplies the automatic faucets for the Atlanta airport and change over to those - they put out a really nice stream that doesn't splash all over the place like too many of the Disney ones do.

Let's see...we took Jim and Sherry into Club Cool, but we couldn't get them to try Beverly. Lee even tried saying how good it was, but they read the description, and got to "bitter" and said "No thanks!" :-)

So then it was time to do some more eating around the world again. Lee tried the Spicy Beef Empanada from Chile, and he enjoyed that.

Then we popped into the Mexico pavilion to take a ride on "it's a small mexico"...I mean the Gran Fiesta Tour. We'd warned Jim and Sherry that it was pretty lame - they vaguely remembered the old version from their trip 18 years ago. Apparently it was a much rougher voyage than usual, because someone in the boat in front of us got seasick - we got stuck and had to wait within sight of the dock for about 5 minutes while they cleaned that up. That boat was taken out of service! Ewwww.

We kind of wandered around World Showcase trying various things - some that we'd had before, and some that were new. I tried the Durban Spiced Chicken on a Skewer with coconut milk-infused root vegetables, which was pretty good - though I can't say I tasted the coconut milk!

I wanted to try the three-cheese plate at The Mouse Catch, but they were out of the Dorothea cheese from Holland, so I had the Asiago from Italy and the Manchego from Spain instead. (They had these same cheese selections in the Festival Center - but they were more expensive there!)

Since it was still a chilly day, Jim thought the idea of something warm, like the Seafood Gumbo sounded good. Warm *and* spicy. :-)

I got another lamb slider from New Zealand - that was one of my favorites. Lee and Jim had some more beer from the Sam Adams booth. We saw Miyuki, the candy artist in Japan. She wasn't nearly as animated as usual - it looked like she wasn't feeling well. :-( Her creations were still beautiful, though.

It was still chilly, and the sun was going down so we headed inside to see The American Adventure. Always a good show. For dinner we went to the fish and chips place at the UK, though I had to go to the beer place next to Rose and Crown to get my favorite Woodpecker Hard Cider. British Invasion was performing and lots of people were watching so there was no place to sit - we walked down to Off Kilter's stage and used the benches there, since they weren't performing that day.

Jim and Sherry decided to head back to the room after that to get out of the chill, while Lee and I made another trip around World Showcase. I wanted to try the Milk Chocolate Creme Brulee in France. They had a chocolate creme brulee several years ago that was awesome. Unfortunately this one didn't measure up - I couldn't taste any chocolate in it at all. Very disappointing.

On our way around World Showcase I also bought a cheese plate from Ireland - it comes covered with plastic wrap, and I thought that would make good airplane food the next day (and it did, though I took out the chutney before I traveled with it!).

It was getting too cold for me, too, so we also headed back to the Boardwalk. Since I'd been so disappointed with the chocolate creme brulee, I consoled myself with a piece of chocolate mousse cake from the Boardwalk Bakery. That was MUCH better! :-)

Wednesday morning we had to get up and get to the airport early enough that going to a park was out of the question. We thought we'd have a nice breakfast at Spoodles instead, since we'd enjoyed the one earlier in the week. We had a pretty awful server, though. First we didn't see him for almost 10 minutes, and then once he showed up at our table he put his pad down on the edge and basically said "Whaddaya want?" (He didn't actually say that, but that's pretty close.) No "good morning, sorry for the wait" or any kind of pleasantry. We had to point out to him that we only had two coffee cups on the table and he sort of stomped off to get two more. Now, he *did* have several tables at once and he seemed a bit overwhelmed, but still.

Fortunately the kitchen was efficient (and fortunately it was not our server in charge of delivering our food to the table!), so that part went ok. And once the people at two of his other tables left he was a little more attentive and pleasant. Still not Mr. Personality, though. I had the waffle and Lee had the French toast, and I think Sherry also had the waffle and Jim had "The Italian" - two poached eggs on top of toasted focaccia with Italian sausage, tomatoes, peppers, onions, parmesan cheese, diced potatoes and fresh tomato sauce.

One our way back to the Boardwalk we stopped at the lobby to get our boarding passes - unfortunately they weren't able to give Jim and Sherry the passes for the third leg of their flight, but we got ours ok. It would have been very easy to check our bags, too, but we weren't quite finished packing by then, but we'll keep that in mind for the future - it would be very nice to go to the airport and just head straight for security. Especially since I've seen the bag check lines be *really* long. Fortunately we didn't have that problem this time.

Our flight was about an hour earlier than Jim and Sherry's, so we said goodbye to them at the Delta counter where they were still trying to get their boarding passes straightened out, and went to our gate. We had a good flight home - we had a newer 757 on the Atlanta->San Diego flight, and I was able to play trivia again. I didn't have much competition this time, though, so after posting several high scores I retired. :-)

It was a great trip - we survived the Tower of Terror 13K, got to do Toy Story Mania 4 times, ate our way around the world, had a great time at Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, had two animal-filled safaris, had great dinners at Jiko and Marrakesh, enjoyed at lot of good wines at City Tastes - Spain, Soared over California, talked with a turtle, and had a blast sharing a place we enjoy so much with good friends.

Oh, by the way, I found my watch - it turned out that it was in my trick-or-treat bag! When stuff started flying out of the basket and the bag towards the end of Space Mountain I was grabbing in the dark and throwing what I thought was candy into the bag. Well, obviously I grabbed my watch and an AA battery and threw them in the bag, but didn't find them until I opened up the candy bag a couple days after we got home. :-)

This year, since we were going to be there at race time, we decided to run it again (I say "we", but it was Lee's idea!). And I have to say that they made a number of improvements and changes this year, and we enjoyed it much more than last year.

Package pickup was held in the brightly-lit rooms of the Coronado Springs Convention
Center, rather than in the much smaller, and quite dark, Pleasure Island Club like last year. It was very well-organized, with lots of helpful volunteers to point you in the right direction if you couldn't figure things out. I *did* think it was odd to have the pickup there rather than in the Boardwalk, which was one of the event's "official" hotels. Disney provided bus service to Coronado Springs from the official hotels, though we had our own car and didn't use that. (This year there were three Disney hotels where Disney provided transportation to/from the race - unlike last year where runners were told they had to provide their own transportation, which greatly contributed to the traffic problems before the race.)

While we were at pickup we spoke for a while to a man who is very involved with staging the race. He told us that they had addressed a number of guest comments/complaints this year, like transportation problems and lack of entertainment.

We relaxed that afternoon and picked up a couple of sandwiches at the Boardwalk Bakery that we could eat as an early dinner. We finally left the room about 9:00 (the race started at 10:00), since all we had to do was walk over to the race area from the Boardwalk - no bus or car transportation required!

They had a lot more theming in the pre-race area this year - to enter the area you went through this tent-covered red carpet entry. That was fun.

There were several large "Guest Register" signs set up where you could sign your name.

They were giving out some kind of "room key", but we didn't arrive in time to get that - I'm not sure what it was. If anyone out there knows, please let me know!

Another fun thing they had were temporary tattoos of the race logo. I got one on my arm. It's actually held up very well - as I'm writing this it is the following Friday (the race was Saturday) and it still looks good and hasn't peeled off at all. (I had co-workers looking strangely at my arm when I got back to work yesterday, though - you could just see a little bit of the tattoo under my short-sleeved shirt. I was happy to show it off, though. :-) )

The bag check area was called "Luggage Services". This year Disney Security was actually checking all of the bags that were being checked - something they did not do last year. I think people probably brought alcohol in to the party last year and they were looking for that.

There was a DJ dressed as a bellhop that was providing entertainment in the pre-race area.

There was no 6.5K this year - just the 13K, so there were fewer people in the starting area. The race had ~3500 entrants, with 2725 finishers. There were no start corrals, and we were supposed to line up according to pace at the signs provided, but unless you got there early you couldn't actually get to any of the faster paces. We were stuck out by the 15 minute/mile pace group, even though we run a 10-11 minute/mile pace.

Like last year, the starting line entertainment was a couple of bellhops, but even with the big screen we could barely see them, much less hear them. The music was a LOT better this year - last year it was pretty harsh stuff. I couldn't tell you what it was they played this year, but it was better! :-)

The weather conditions were also a huge improvement over last year - the temperature was about 70-72, but there was a bit of a breeze and the humidity was way lower than last year - I think last year it had to be close to 100%, but I'm guessing it was in the 60-70% range this time. Still warmer and more humid than I like it, but at least this year it didn't feel like I was trying to breathe underwater!

There were no race delays this year, and the race started right on time. As usual, we spent the first couple of miles dodging around walkers and slower-paced runners, but after that the congestion eased up.

Like last year, part of the course was on a dirt road (which we found out was part of the cross-country trail at Wide World of Sports), but unlike last year it was well-lit and dry. They had obviously dumped some gravel/dirt on it recently and that helped with the footing. They also abandoned the "insane asylum escapees" portion that they had there last year. Though they had some other surprises, like these scary-looking "twins" near Mile 3 in the Wide World of Sports complex.

We got to take most of a lap on the cushy running track, where there were unseen spectators (spectral spectators?) in the stands cheering as we ran by.

There were three water stations - approximately Mile 2, Mile 4, and Mile 6. All were well-staffed with plenty of volunteers.

We were on a boring section of road after coming out of the Wide World of Sports complex between miles four and five, when we came upon the Disney characters. And even better, Disney Villains!!!! This was one of my main complaints last year, so I was really happy to see that someone had gotten that message!

In addition to the characters, there was other entertainment along the course - a couple of bellhop DJs, go-go dancers, plus Dr. Bones. :-)

The course was basically the same as last year, so we came back into the Studios at about mile 6.5 and went down Hollywood Boulevard and onto the Streets of America, then back into the Lights, Motors, Action stage, where they had the camera on us so we could see ourselves on the big screen. From there we were on part of the Backlot Tour route, including the section that goes through the costuming "tunnel" - whew, it was really hot and smelled like diesel fumes in there! We were both getting pretty tired and having to push it in this last mile, but we made it down Sunset Boulevard and back behind the Tower of Terror and then on to the finish. We bested last year's time by two minutes - finished in 1:27:27 this year, despite the stop for character photos. We were both glad it was over, though!

The finish area didn't seem to be quite a congested this year - or maybe it's because there were fewer people (since there was no 6.5K this year). After we got the timing chips cut off our shoes, got our Tower of Terror medals, and got our photo taken, they gave us bottles of PowerAde and water, plus a Halloween-themed cellophane bag containing a banana, an orange slice, a couple of hard candies, and a blueberry muffin.

We claimed our bags and had something to eat. Like last year, this post-race area was backstage behind Rock'n'Roller Coaster, but this year it wasn't such a struggle to get out of there. We'd brought clean clothes to change into, and that felt pretty good. The temperature outside was still quite pleasant for t-shirt and shorts.

There were a number of attractions open at the Studios during the post-race party, but the only one we really cared about was Toy Story Mania! We had <10 minutes to wait the first time, and immediately got in line again, and waited ~15 minutes the second time. After two rides in fairly short order our right arms were really tired (rapidly pulling the string on the gun apparently uses muscles we don't normally use!) and the line was even longer, so we decided to head back to the hotel. It was about 12:45 by then. The post-race party at the Sorcerer's Hat had already wound down, even though the park was open until 2 a.m. They had posted the results there, but we knew we could check them on-line the next morning, so we didn't bother taking a look.

It was kind of a long walk back to the Boardwalk - our legs were pretty tired!

Overall this was a much better experience than last year - much more enjoyable. I appreciated the thought they put into adding some activities and interest to the pre-race area. And I know people enjoyed the tattoos - I saw them on legs, faces, arms, and even on the back of a bald guy's head!

Loved, loved having the villains on the course! That was a very unexpected surprise, and SO appropriate for the theme of the race. The three lady face characters (Evil Queen, Cruella, and Maleficent) were all appropriately haughty and snarly and pleasantly unpleasant. One thing that *was* missing was a Disney Cast Member to take photos, so we don't have any of the two of us with the characters.

Being able to ride Toy Story Mania during the post-race party was a lot of fun, though the lines were longer than I would have liked - probably means they were correspondingly shorter at Rock'n'Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror, which we didn't ride during the party.

I would've liked them to do a better job separating the runners from the walkers - the pace group idea didn't work. I thought that last year they asked walkers to stay near the back for the start, but if they did that this year I couldn't hear it - and obviously lots of walkers didn't hear it, either.

Disney made a lot of improvements in the race this year and I think it was a much better event - it had more of the "Disney touch" that was missing last year. And I want to say a huge thank you to the tremendous volunteers - so many came out to hand out water, point us in the right direction, cheer us on, hand out food or medals, cut timing chips off shoes, and a whole myriad of other tasks that were required to make it safe and fun for the participants. Thanks to all of you!

]]> http://land.allears.net/blogs/lauragilbreath/2008/11/2008_tower_of_terror_13k_race.html http://land.allears.net/blogs/lauragilbreath/2008/11/2008_tower_of_terror_13k_race.html Tower of Terror 13K Tower of Terror 13K Sun, 02 Nov 2008 05:00:33 -0500 Considering our late night Sunday night we got up fairly early on Monday, since we wanted to be at the Studios when it opened to try to get a couple of rides on Toy Story Mania.

It was another absolutely gorgeous day - clear and sunny, but a little bit cool - most of us were wearing jackets in the morning, but didn't need them the rest of the day.

We arrived on Hollywood Blvd just as the park was opening. As expected, most everyone headed for Toy Story Mania. We went straight to the Fastpass machines, which had pretty long lines...in the time we waited, the return time went from 9:45 to 10:15! Unfortunately Toy Story Mania was not yet up and running, so we couldn't ride it then. :-(

We wandered into One Man's Dream instead. The video on some of the exhibits wasn't working, and some of the sound in the movie was really awful - and the worst of it was Julie Andrews' narration - which was not something recorded over 40 years ago like the various excerpts of Walt's voice.

Over at the ABC Commissary we had breakfast. The last time we did that they were still serving stuff like eggs, bacon, french toast, etc., but they have really cut down on the menu - there was a bagel sandwich, hot or cold cereal, fruit, yogurt, and pastries available. Which was actually ok for us, but anyone wanting a more substantial breakfast would have been very disappointed!

The next Voyages of the Little Mermaid show was seating when we went by so we went into that - Lee and I hadn't seen that in a couple of years - not because we don't enjoy it, but mostly because the queueing and pre-show areas are so unpleasant - they pack you in like sardines. Which I guess is appropriate giving the theme of the show, but still. Anyway...this show was not full, and we walked straight into the pre-show area, and didn't have too long a wait before the doors opened. I really enjoy the puppetry, especially in the "Under the Sea" song. I think whoever plays Eric must have one of the easiest jobs in the parks, though - he's on stage for what, 3 minutes maybe?

By then it was time to use our Toy Story Mania Fastpasses - fortunately it was up and running by then. We had a longer wait in the Fastpass line than we did the other day, but it still beat the 60 minute standby line.

Lee had read some tips on the web the night before on how to score higher on the ride by cooperating, so we tried those - we were successful with one but not with the other. Overall it hurt our scores, though, and we didn't score as high as we did the other night.

Prince Caspian was hanging out in his meet and greet spot when we walked by - he wasn't too busy, so he was spending a lot of time with the kids (including the not-so-little girls!) that came to see him.

We went over to Epcot after that to eat around the world again and do a little sightseeing. We saw Serveur Amusant in France - or Sherry and I saw it, at least - Lee doesn't like it - he says it makes him nervous - and Jim was off getting some Crawfish Etoufee from the Louisiana booth. They have changed the chair-stacking routine a bit since we last saw it. The guy who actually does the balancing used to appear to be a tourist who was pulled out of the audience, and now he is one of the "waiters", and obviously a part of the show.

Ran into an AllEars.net reader at the Tokyo booth - she saw my AllEars hat and asked about it. I'm sorry I didn't get your name, but if you're reading this, it was nice talking to you!

I was very disappointed to look at the entertainment schedule and find that Voices of Liberty was not performing at all. :-( That's one of my very favorite things at Epcot. Lee and Jim and Sherry consoled themselves with food (and beer) from the Hops and Barley booth, and then they went to the Beer School, which they enjoyed. While they did that I saw a cooking demonstration down at Italy - the chefs were making petate - the Italian version of fried dough balls. They looked pretty good, but unfortunately we didn't get to taste them. :-(

As we ate our way around the world we explored a couple of the other entertainment options, like the two Circle-Vision films in China and Canada. I've only seen the Canada film a couple of times since it started showing - Martin Short's narration is fairly amusing.

Things we tried on our eating adventure around the World:

Goat Cheese and Leek Quiche - France

Crawfish Etoufee and Pecan Praline Bread Pudding - Louisiana
Lamb Slider and Bay Scallops -New Zealand

Spicy Tuna Roll - Japan

Lobster Roll and Crabcake - Hops and Barley

Boxty and Cheese Plate - Ireland

It was a bit after 4:00 by then, and we had a 5:30 reservation at Jiko so we made our way back to the room to get a chance for a short nap before dinner. Lee set his alarm for 5:00 - good thing, because otherwise we would have all slept too long!

We still arrived at Animal Kingdom Lodge in plenty of time. Something that was new to us - when we went through the guard shack the guard gave us a parking pass on which he had written "Jiko". So I guess they are cracking down on parking a bit more now? Since we had some time we wandered around the lobby a little, and down to the Arusha Savanna - saw some birds and a zebra, but that was all.

At Jiko we were quickly seated at a nice table next to the window. And we had a wonderful dinner. Jiko has changed their menu quite a bit since we were last here a year ago, and I think it's even better. We shared two appetizers - the BBQ chicken flatbread and the vegetable samosas. Both were great - the samosas were especially good. We'd had samosas at the Food and Wine Festival and at Tusker House the day before, but these were SO much better!

Our waiter had recommended a wine made from South Africa's pinotage grape and we shared that bottle. It was also really good.

For entrees, Jim and I had the maize crusted halibut, served with vegetables of the moment, and that was wonderful. Lee had our server's favorite - the beef short ribs with crushed potatoes and garlic. He'd told Lee it was so tender it would fall off the bone, and that's exactly what happened. Sherry had the Swahili Curry Shrimp with coconut rice - we all got to try some of her shrimp. Lee, Jim, and I cleaned our plates - our server told us he was going to show the chef how clean how plates were. :-)

We were pretty full, so we decided to split two of the desserts - again, we went with our server's recommendations and had the Pistachio Creme Brulee and the Tanzanian Chocolate Cheesecake. They were both quite good. The cheesecake had a great chocolatey flavor but was not too rich. It was served with lavender ice cream, though we really couldn't taste any lavender.

It was really a great meal - definitely the best of our trip. Jiko made a good impression on Jim and Sherry - whew. :-) (Yeah, because they have been SO hard to please this week...NOT!)

After dinner we went outside to see if there were any animals visible on the Uzima Savanna (the one next to the pool) but we didn't see any.

We headed back to the room after that - it was after 8:00 by the time we got back. We were all pretty tired after a couple of late nights, so no one was interested in trying to go to Illuminations or Downtown Disney.

After our late night at the Tower of Terror 13K, we didn't get up very early on Sunday morning. It was almost 10:00 by the time we got moving - we thought we'd go to the Boardwalk Bakery for breakfast, but the line was huge, so then we thought we'd try the Bellevue Room in the hotel, but all they had left were 3 muffins, a banana, and a few containers of Sugar Pops.

Sooo...we headed to Animal Kingdom, hoping we'd get there in time for breakfast. Just outside the park entrance Jim spotted the coffee/pastry stand, which had NO line, and we picked up some coffee beverages and some pastries. They had a really nice cinnamon roll.

Jim and Sherry wanted to see It's Tough to be a Bug - it's been a LONG time since I've seen a line for this, but we were backed up a ways into the queue. We still got into the next show, and they enjoyed it - Sherry didn't even scream too much. :-)

Next we took them back to Kilimanjaro Safaris, and had one of the best safaris we've ever had - there were lots and lots of animals. One of the giraffes was *right* next to the road. The driver turned the sound way down on the "Warden Wilson" stuff, too, and downplayed the poacher stuff, which we really appreciated.

After the Safari we caught one of the gorillas taking a nap. :-)

And took a quick turn into Pangani Forest Trail, where the keepers were doing a training session with the Colobus monkeys. They were presenting different body parts to the keepers on command, and getting rewarded with various treats. It was pretty interesting to watch.

We had a late lunch at Tusker House - we had not been here since it was converted from a counter service restaurant to a buffet. When we saw Jack the other day he'd told us it was "Boma without the soups", and since Boma is one of our favorites, we were hoping it would measure up.

And we all really enjoyed it. I thought the variety of food was actually better than I've seen at Boma the last few times I've been there. The Marrakesh couscous with roasted vegetables was outstanding - I had two servings of that. Lee and Jim really enjoyed the prime rib.

I *was* disappointed in the desserts, though - they had a chocolate lava cake, but it wasn't very good at all - tasted like a boxed cake mix with Hershey syrup. The coconut macaroon was not bad, and Sherry and Lee enjoyed the pecan bar.

Still, overall it was an excellent meal, our favorite of the trip so far.

We wandered over to Dinosaur to use our Fastpasses - the ride stopped for a while but eventually we got on. They thought that was fun, too.

We were going to the Halloween party at the Magic Kingdom later that day, and Sherry had decided to get her face painted as part of her costume, and found a place in Dinoland to do it. (We wanted to do Primeval Whirl, but it was closed for rehab! :-( )
The lady did a really nice job - I've never seen anyone do the face painting before - it was fun to watch the process. And it actually held up VERY well, and still looked great 9 hours later!

We left Animal Kingdom and I came back to the room to do finish some laundry, iron my costume, and take a short nap, while the other three went into Epcot to deal with some last-minute costume details for Jim and Sherry. That plus Jim and Lee needed a Samuel Adams beer fix. I think they are determined to try every beer at the Sam Adams booth before we leave.

The Mickey's Not So Scary Party started at the Magic Kingdom at 7:00 - we left the room about 6:30, and only waited a couple of minutes for the bus, so that worked out well.

Don't we look cute in our costumes???

Once inside the park we got our wristbands (and they WERE checked by CMs several times early in the evening) and trick-or-treat bags and headed off for the Haunted Mansion. All of the CMs get to wear ghastly makeup for the party, and they look really cool. Sitting outside the Mansion on the lawn was one of the guests from Master Gracey's ball inside - she said she needed some air. :-)

We hadn't had dinner yet, so we grabbed a quick bite at Pecos Bill's. It was nice to have additional tomatoes from the toppings bar to add to my chicken wrap! It was ok, but a little too much dressing - and waaay too much wrap and not enough filling.

Just down from Pecos Bill's we found an excellent front-row spot to watch the Boo to You parade. I really love this parade - after Tapestry of Nations, I think it's my favorite Disney parade ever. I used the movie mode of my camera, and was able to get a fairly reasonable photo of the Headless Horseman - he goes by so fast!

There's just so much fun stuff in this parade, like the characters in costume, and the chicken "singing" Ghostriders in the Sky, and especially the Haunted Mansion segment, with the caretaker and his bloodhound, and the ghostly dancers, and, my very favorite, the zombie gravediggers shovel and drill team.

Love the Villains, too - "It's Good to be Bad" is a very catchy little tune!

Speaking of the Villains...after the parade we rode Big Thunder Mountain (always way more fun at night!) and hit a couple of treat stops on our way to the Villains Mix and Mingle show at the castle. That was a rather surprising show - the music and the dancing were rather more, uhhh...suggestive, than we expect from Disney. Lee had the best line about the show: "Who knew that Maleficent had boy toys?" :-) Whew...is it hot in here???

Since it IS a Halloween party, it was nice to see the Villains get their due, and this particular show had elements to appeal to the big boys and girls, too!!!

Quick break at Mrs. Pott's Cupboard for ice cream (where Lee's root beer float truly ranneth over - we'd never seen a root beer eruption but that's what happened as the ice cream sank down into it! :-) ) And then it was time to scope out a spot for the fireworks. Which it turned out we really didn't need to do very early - even when the fireworks started there was plenty of empty space. (I think this party was NOT sold out, and not as busy as the one we attended last year, which was very nice! It also didn't rain on us at all like it did last year.)

What can I say, I LOVE the fireworks show, too.

Next up was Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. After doing Toy Story Mania, this ride, with all the little red dots that look all alike so that you can't tell which one is yours, was a lot more challenging, but we still enjoyed it.

Since Sherry was made up as Tigger, we HAD to go on the Pooh ride. And hit a few more treat stops on our way back to Frontierland to see the second parade. (See? I like the parade so much I wanted to see it again!)

It was just as much fun the second time. We went to Pirates of the Caribbean after the parade, and then over to Space Mountain. Space Mountain turned out not to be a good idea...the ride had stopped and the line was fairly long so we ended up waiting a lot longer than I'd planned. Towards the end of the ride some of the stuff I was carrying in my basket came out - I thought I'd gotten it all before I got out, but on the way out of the ride I realized my watch was missing. Told a CM and they checked for it but didn't find it. So now I have a Lost and Found report out on it...hopefully it'll turn up.

Unfortunately between the long wait for the ride and then me losing my watch it was after midnight and the party was over. We were pretty tired, though, and ready to head back. Just outside the park there were CMs with treat bags handing out Ghirardelli chocolate squares - I got in two different lines to get those. :-)

Fortunately the bus was already at the bus stop when we got there, and it wasn't packed as we drove back to the hotel.

A few random observations about the Halloween party.

This is my favorite of the Disney parties that I've attended. It's such a fun atmosphere - the Cast Members seem to be having a wonderful time themselves. We saw a lot of guests in costume this year - there were some very elaborate ones, too! We saw a Cinderella in a beautiful ballgown, and a really excellent Jasmine and Aladdin, and even Clopin (from Hunchback of Notre Dame) complete with the puppet on his hand.

I mentioned the CMs in makeup at the Haunted Mansion earlier - there were also other "ghostly" surprises...like some ghostly singing miners in Frontierland, and a ghostly river pilot on the riverboat (which is not called the Mark Twain here, but I don't remember the name.) I have photos, but I'll have to get post them later.

The party was a lot less crowded than the one we attended last year - even though the weather was a lot better this year (it rained on us last year and we missed the second parade). I'm guessing it's partly because our party did not have a discounted advance purchase price, making it a little less attractive to local residents. It was great for us, though - shorter lines for the attractions and at the treat stations.

While I think the Halloween Party at Disney's California Adventure has better decorations, Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party has the parade and the special fireworks show that make it really an outstanding event. We all had a wonderful time.

(I won't be including all of the events of today because the major event is the Tower of Terror 13K, and that's not until tonight - and I can guarantee I won't be blogging about it right after I get back to the room - the stops will be shower and bed - in that order!)

We all agreed last night that we were going to sleep in this morning and get up whenever. So it was quite a leisurely morning - we finally got out of here about 10:30 and went to Coronado Springs, where Lee and I needed to pick up our registration packets for the 13K.

First we had breakfast at the Pepper Market, though. It was almost 10:45 when we arrived and there was a short line to get in, and they stopped serving breakfast at 11:00. So they were trying to finish up breakfast while they were trying to set up for lunch - it was kind of a mess. And there were quite a few other people who were also breakfasting late!

Pepper Market is kind of a food court idea, with different stations serving different foods. Only instead of paying as you exit out towards the seating area, instead you pay as you exit the seating area after you've eaten. To do that they give each party a ticket, and at each station they stamp your ticket to show what you got. Of course a problem with this is when you want to get things from different stations, but you only have the one ticket - we ran into that.

It's an interesting concept...but I don't think it works very well. The permanent signage is all for their regular lunch/dinner menu, and even though they gave us a menu which showed which stations had which breakfast items, we didn't have that with us when we actually went to get food. They had breakfast signs for some items, but not for others. We were milling around trying to figure it out, and so were a lot of other people. Since it was late, they had run out of some breakfast items (like bacon) and had shut down others (like eggs cooked to order). And as I mentioned earlier, they were trying to switch over from breakfast to lunch, and that made things even more chaotic. Though the breakfast/lunch thing worked out well for Jim - instead of breakfast food he was able to order Kung Pao Shrimp! It looked very good - very nicely cooked and presented.

Another thing they do that I don't like is they tack a 10% gratuity onto your bill, even though YOU are the ones doing all the work getting your food - the servers simply take and serve your drink orders. (Though ours had to work a little harder because I spilled a puddle of syrup on the table - she was very nice about it, though.)

As for the breakfast...it was ok, but I was surprised at how expensive it was - we paid more for breakfast this morning than we did for our table service breakfast at Spoodles on Thursday - AND the food was better at Spoodles. AND we got a 20% discount there with the Disney Dining Experience card - or "Tables in Wonderland" as I understand it is now called. (When we were at Spoodles with Paul and Ilene the other morning, Paul, in his very best announcer voice, called it "Tables in WONderland" and I still crack up when I think about that.)

The packet pickup for the race was just down the hall from the restaurant in the convention center - it was a much nicer set-up than they had for it last year when it was at one of the clubs at Pleasure Island. They had plenty of very nice volunteers to help - it really wasn't very busy at all. We spoke to a man who is involved in staging the race, and he said they took at least some of last year's guest comments into consideration this year - though apparently adding character presence to the race wasn't one of them. :-( So sounds like it'll still be a rather boring race. Oh well.

(Does the carpeting in the Coronado Springs convention center area mess with any one else's eyes like it does mine? That small reddish-orange pattern starts moving if I look at it very long...)

After that we were off to Animal Kingdom - we were planning a short day since we (or I) wanted to rest up this afternoon and NOT be on my feet all day, and we wanted to show Jim and Sherry something different. They had never been to Animal Kingdom before since it wasn't built when they were last here in 1990.

A Festival of the Lion King show was due to start in about 15 minutes so we went there. Had no problems getting a seat, though the theater was well over 3/4 full. I hadn't seen that in a while, and had forgotten how good it is. The Tumble Monkeys are still my favorites, though Lee and I both thought that the pair of "bird" dancers were the best we'd ever seen. (The guy is the same one we've seen for years, but his partner was either better or they worked better together.)

It had turned into a beautiful sunny day, but had really started to warm up a little too much for my comfort. We wandered around a bit in the shade of the Tree of Life to show Jim and Sherry some of the animals on the tree and some of the (real) animals that live around it.

Over in Asia we walked the Maharajah Jungle Trek - there were quite a few more people than we usually see, but not too many animals, though we did see three sleeping tigers. And we learned a lot about bats from the CM at the bat exhibit - like the fact that bats have no ankles so they can't stand up. So if they fall on the ground they are quite helpless - they can't just stand up and fly away. Instead they have to use their "elbows" to crawl on the ground until they get to something they can climb up to reach a height where they can fly away.

The park seemed fairly crowded to me - lots of congestion on the walkways and standby for Everest was 50 minutes. We went to Everest and asked for our friend Kenny who works there - he hadn't expected to see us there until tomorrow. :-) We had a short visit with him (he WAS working, after all!) and then took a ride on Everest - Jim and Sherry really enjoyed it. I'd warned Sherry in advance that the backwards-in-the-dark thing really messes with your head, and you think you're going upside-down even when you're not. Unfortunately the Yeti wasn't working - we only saw him with the strobe light effect. :-(

We got some ice cream at Anandapur Ice Cream - I'd told Sherry that I thought it was the best soft-serve in the parks. She thought it was very good. Unfortunately because it was so hot it was melting really fast - I didn't get a chance to eat it slowly and savor it as I like to do. And though I was careful I still got a drip on my (black) shorts - though at least the chocolate ice cream missed the white t-shirt! (Lee had a root beer float, so he didn't have the same drip problems.)

We exited the park the long way, going past Dinoland, because we wanted to show Jim and Sherry most of the park (haven't gotten to Africa yet, though!) And now we're back in the room resting up for tonight.

Jim and Sherry are planning to have dinner at the Brown Derby at the Studios. Lee and I are eating light - we picked up a couple of sandwiches at the Boardwalk Bakery (the multi-grain bread they use in the sandwiches is excellent!) and had part of those, and will have a little more later.

Ack! We're not going to get to Epcot at all today!!! We are waaay down on our Eating Around the World quotient for the week...this is day 4 and we've only done it once!

Added Sunday morning: We finished the Tower of Terror 13K in 1:27:27. I was hoping to finish in less than 90 minutes, so that was good. Weather was MUCH better than last year, and not so humid or warm, though still warmer than I like. And there were characters!!! Between miles 4 and 5 we had lots of villains - Frollo and the Evil Queen, Maleficent and Cruella, Smee, and Captain Hook. That was fun! There was a little more entertainment along the way - it was definitely an improvement over last year. We're glad it's over, though. :-)

It rained most of the night and was still raining this morning, so we put off going to the Studios until about 10:00 when it mostly stopped - we had a few occasional showers after that.

Got Fastpasses for Toy Story Midway Mania at 10:30 - the return time was already 3:55! And then got in line for Narnia - where they were handing out lanyards for a Dream Extra Hour Event in the Studios tonight. We knew we wouldn't be able to make it because we were going to City Tastes at Epcot, but figured we'd give them to a nice family before we left. I was the only one who had seen the movie, but they show enough of it in the exhibit that you get a pretty good idea!

Terrorized Sherry on the Tower of Terror - she screamed most of the ride. But I think she still enjoyed it. Hard to tell from this photo. :-)

Lee had to leave for the Apple store, to replace his iPhone which apparently got drowned in last night's downpour, even though it was in his pocket. :-(

Jim, Sherry and I went to watch High School Musical 3, which premiered today. Found my friend Kenny, who helped us get a terrific spot to see the 12:00 show center stage. (The 10:00 had been rained out, and it had been showering a bit so we were concerned about the 12:00 show, but it came off ok. I liked it - I can't say I'm a huge fan, but of the three shows I think I like this one the best. Here's a link to lots more photos of Hight School Musical 3!

We got Fastpasses for Rock 'n' Roller Coaster and had lunch at Rosie's - the Studios is probably my least favorite park to eat in. Then went to see the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular - good timing, since it was raining a bit by then. We tried to get Sherry volunteered for the show, but that didn't work. :-( Some of the stunt sequences got left out because of the wet stage/sets.

Saw the Jedi Training Academy, which was cute (though this Jedi Master was not as good as the rest I've seen), and then went to see MuppetVision. It was fun - that show has held up pretty well for something almost 20 years old!

Planned to go to One Man's Dream after that, but it was 3:15 and it closed at 3:00. :-( We had 15 minutes to slowly walk back to Rock'n'Roller Coaster to use our Fastpasses. I called Lee, who had gotten his new phone and was on his way back.

Sherry screamed throughout most of Rock'n'Roller Coaster, but she and Jim both enjoyed it.

Went back to Toy Story Midway Mania, where Lee had arrived just a few minutes before, and we used our Fastpasses. The Standby line was 100 minutes!!! Sorry, but there's NO ride I'm going to wait 100 minutes to ride!!! It was great fun, even though Lee beat me this time (first time that has happened!) Still more fun than a barrel of monkeys! :-)

On our way out of the park we gave our Dream Event passes to a nice family with two teen aged sons. They were very happy to get them. So I hope they had a good time!

Had a short break back in the room to get ready for City Tastes - Spain over at Epcot. We really weren't sure WHAT this was going to be - very little in Disney's description. Sounded sort of like Party for the Senses on a smaller scale. We were about half right. It was mostly a wine-tasting event - the guide they gave us called it "Great Match Wine & Tapas 08". It was sponsored by Wines from Spain. They must have had over 200 wines from over 30 Spanish wineries. Some very good wines, too! Not much in the way of food choices, though, and NO desserts, which I found VERY disappointing. Nice entertainment, though - a Spanish guitar group and a pair of flamenco dancers and their guitarist.

One of the best parts (for us) is that the event was quite *under* attended and not at all crowded - there were actually some empty tables. That meant the people pouring the wines could give us a lot of extra attention. One of them, from Grupo Faustino, became Lee's New Best Friend - I think Lee sampled just about everything he had (and most of it was pretty good!)

I'll be writing a lot more detail in a report that will be published on AllEars.Net - once I have time to write it!

We all really enjoyed it, though I wish we'd known a bit more about it before hand.

It was Extra Magic Hours at Epcot, so we decided to stick around for that and do some attractions that Jim and Sherry hadn't yet experienced. Test Track first, though the line ended up being a lot longer than we expected. Tried to do Soarin' but Standby was 40 minutes, so we went back and did Ellen's Energy Adventure instead, then headed back to the room. I was surprised how many people were still in the park at 11:30.

Not sure about tomorrow...we need to go pick up our Tower of Terror race packets, and then we'll see what else we want to do - Lee and I should try to stay off our feet a bit tomorrow! The rain is supposed to subside by the afternoon...I hope so. I wouldn't have wanted to run in the weather we had tonight (it rained, though we were only out in it once).

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.

The restaurant offers entertainment while you're dining - belly dancer accompanied by two musicians. We were there for about 2 hours, so we saw them twice. I think the guys enjoyed her act more than Sherry and I did. :-) Don't get me wrong, she was very talented and graceful, but just didn't have quite the same appeal to me. :-)

We saw people coming into the restaurant who were wearing ponchos, so it looked as though the rain had arrived while we were eating. But it had stopped before we left the restaurant, so we started making our way to Future World to use our Soarin' Fastpasses. We got to the UK, and it started raining, so we broke out the umbrella (mine) and rain jackets (everyone else). And then it started to REALLY rain...we all ended up with squishy shoes and wet shorts/jeans, though it stopped raining just before we got to the Land.

At that point I'm not even sure we needed Fastpasses - looked like Soarin' was almost a walk-on. Jim and Sherry had never ridden this before, so I requested top row, center section - might as well maximize their first experience, right? :-) I think it was a little bit more exciting than Sherry expected - I heard a lot of gasps and screams out of her, and I think she had a death grip on the handles beside her seat. :-) She still enjoyed it and wants to do it again, though!

The rain had not restarted while we were inside and Illuminations was over, so people were streaming out of the park. Since we were headed back towards the International Gateway we were going opposite most everyone else, and felt like salmon swimming upstream until we got past Canada.

Jim and Lee went to Big River Grill to have a beer, while Sherry and I came back to the room to finish drying out. It started raining again about 20 minutes later...and rained for over an hour, though it sounds like it has stopped now. I hope it gets it out of its system tonight!

It was a great day, though, if you can believe it, Sherry doesn't seem to have gotten this whole "ride" thing out of her system, and wants to go on MORE rides tomorrow!!! :-) I think we're going to the Studios tomorrow, and tomorrow night we'll be attending a Food and Wine Festival event, City Tastes - Spain over in the World Showplace.

October 16th, Blue Sky Cellar opened its doors to Annual Passholders and Cast Members in Disney's California Adventure, taking the place of the old Seasons of the Vine attraction. It is, in essence, a preview center for the new changes planned to update the oft-dissed park into something more suitable for Disneyland's second gate.

On entering, we were held in a pen outside (despite the fact that there was no one else around) so that a cast member (CM) could come and orient us in a group. Apparently they are expecting bigger crowds than were there while I was there. The CM eventually explained the "Blue Sky" concept, and seemed to make a point of emphasizing that not everything shown within would necessarily come to fruition.

Once inside, the decor seems fairly unchanged from its origins as the Golden Vine Winery, with a heavy emphasis on barrels and crates. The idea is supposed to be that the Imagineers were using this empty space as a spare office, and you're touring their papers and diagrams just as they left them on their desks or bulletin boards.

One of the first boards you come to is that of Concept Development, which is covered with drawings and notes on the new overlay that will come to the current Orange Stinger swing ride. It will be refashioned into the Silly Symphony Swings and themed around the animated short "The Band Concert." It is scheduled to open in the Spring of 2010.

Interspersed between a lot of the development art, is an abundance of Toy Story Midway Mania concept art - possibly to give the onlooker hope for the completion of all the projects, since this one was actually finished.

Under Show Ideas, they have a great deal of art and planning for the proposed lagoon show World of Color, which looks to be the next generation of Fantasmic! It will utilize some of the same water projection technology, along with light/fire/pyro effects showcasing scenes from Finding Nemo, Toy Story, Pocahontas, etc. To accommodate viewers, a lot of landscaping changes will have to be made to the surrounding area, including more foliage and giving it more of a park-like feel. This is also predicted to open in the Spring of 2010, and the CMs said they might start draining the lagoon to work on it any day now.

Another small board shows the beginning drawings for the Little Mermaid ride, currently planned to go into the now-vacant Golden Dreams theater, and the new overlay for Mulholland Madness, Goofy's Sky Skool. It doesn't seem as though it would take that long to just change out the billboards on the tiny roller coaster, so it's almost encouraging that they're taking their time with the overlay. Perhaps the changes will be more substantive.

On another side of the room, two large casks have been converted into makeshift desks displaying mostly art and sketches of the cosmetic changes coming to the Paradise Pier area, always the sparsest in the way of theming. The pictures on the wall above show how the current carnival-style games will get retooled with various animated characters - Casey at the Bat, Dumbo Bucket Brigade, Goofy About Fishin', and Bullseye Stallion Stampede are all scheduled to reopen in the Spring of 2009. One change already taking effect is the replacement of the Sun face in the middle of the Sun Wheel with that of the pie-eyed Mickey face, bringing it more into the time frame of the rest of the area.

In the middle of the room are various display cases with maquettes of the current Toy Story Midway Mania ride vehicles showing the wheelchair accessibility available, and also of the entire Paradise Pier area, as they envision it when finished.

Another case shows miniature models of the carnival games with their new 1920's exterior, and mock-ups of the inside character theming.

Another wall is covered with wine barrels and a few computer displays which allow you to take a quiz on various aspects of Disney Imagineering and California history. They give you five multiple-choice questions which change with repeated testing.

Anyone can get over 400,000 in Toy Story Mania - but just try getting 5 out of 5 on the quiz!

The back half of the room is arranged with a video screen that shows a short film on all the projects displayed in the room, with an enthusiastic John Lasseter describing some of the new attractions. There isn't much seating - about the size of 3 large couches, so it's a good thing the film is as brief as it is, to allow for frequent audience turnover.

On the wall adjacent to the video screen is a large map of the projected new Disney's California Adventure. The new entrance with the Studios-esque Pan Pacific Auditorium facade and the central hub transformed by the Carthay Circle Theater and matching 1920's architecture can all be seen.

The big addition is of course, Cars Land, which will ironically signal the end of the last remaining bit of parking lot on the same side of the street as the parks. The representation of Radiator Springs is planned to include three new rides: Mater's Junkyard Jamboree, Luigi's Flying Tires (modeled after the old Flying Saucer ride in Disneyland's Tomorrowland of yore,) and Radiator Springs Racers, which is described as the "E-ticket ride of the land." There are also spaces designated for both quick service and table service eating, and possibly live entertainment. Cars Land is scheduled to open in 2012 as the last part of the planned rehab.

There's also a small glass building off in the upper right corner - although it's not mentioned anywhere, the CMs believe it may be intended to be a fancy dining establishment, but that's subject to change. Interestingly enough, the map is not even printed, but is a projection on a screen - proof of its impermanence.

The last display before the exit is that of the Red Car Trolley, a throwback to the Pacific Electric Red Car. It is planned to run from the entrance hub up to the Tower of Terror-the only change predicted for the Hollywood area of the park.

Blue Sky Cellar is planned to evolve as the plans for the Disney's California Adventure rehab grow, with updates every six months or so. It's a nice display and one worth checking out if you have any interest in the upcoming construction, or just while you're waiting for that Soarin' fast pass to come through for you. It opened to the public on October 20th.

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.

It looked pretty straightforward, and I like to bake, so I decided to give it a try. So here's a photographic record of my attempt!

Recipe:

Pumpkin Muffins with Cream Cheese Icing

Preheat oven to 325 F.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together pumpkin, sugar, eggs, oil and vanilla until well blended.

Sift together flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg over the pumpkin mixture and whisk until just blended. Overmixing may result in less tender muffins.

Fold in the raisins until consistently distributed.

Portion mixture into muffin pans and bake at 325 F for 25 minutes.

Insert a toothpick into center of muffin and remove. If toothpick is clean, the muffins are ready. If not, allow muffins to cook an additional 1-2 minutes or until toothpick is clean. Allow muffins to cool for 30-60 minutes.

Cream Cheese Icing:
1 cup unsalted butter
1-1/2 cups cream cheese
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Allow cream cheese and butter to soften at room temperature for about an hour.

Mix cream cheese and butter together until smooth.

Add vanilla extract, powdered sugar and cinnamon, and mix until well blended.

Remove from mixer, and cover and refrigerate until needed.

Fill a pastry bag fitted with a star tip with icing.

Poke a hole into the center of each cooled muffin and squeeze icing directly into the middle of the muffin, finishing with a rosette on the top.

Special Tip: The icing recipe makes a generous amount.

Ok, now for MY notes...

The recipe makes 24 regular-sized muffins. I filled the muffin cups about 2/3 full.

I like cinnamon, so I used 1 t. - and even that wasn't enough. I will probably increase the amounts of the cinnamon and cloves the next time - maybe add some ginger, too.

I don't care for raisins, so I used chocolate chips instead! It might sound like a strange combination, but they were really good - and they disappeared at work about 5 minutes after I put them out. :-)

I didn't use the cream cheese icing, either - that's just too sweet for me. And these muffins are so good they don't need it.

The next time I make these I'm going to cut down on the oil - they were a little too moist. I'll probably try using 2T of oil and 1/2C of applesauce instead.

Here's she's smiling with anticipation as we take the tram from the parking structure to the park entrance. :-)

First thing, Kristin had to decide which kind of Annual Pass she wanted. If you live in Southern California you have a choice of 4 different ones. The main difference is the price and the number of blockout days.

Premium Annual Pass: No blockout days, $389 (also includes parking)
Deluxe Annual Pass: 60 blockout days, $269
outhern California Annual Pass: 150 blockout days, $174
Southern California Select Annual Pass: 195 blockout days, $134
(Parking can be added to any non-premium AP for $59 - since parking is $12/day now, if you're going to go to the park more than 5 times a year you'll want the parking feature.)

Kristin chose the So Cal Select - yes, it's quite restrictive, but the days she is likely to go are on Fridays with me, and most Fridays when we would go are open.

She purchased her ticket at the Disneyland Main Entrance Ticket Booth - but she could have gone to the Disneyland.com website and purchased it on-line and printed it out at home. Since it was one of the Southern California-type passes she was required to show proof of residence (Driver's license in her case, though they also accept utility bills, etc.) Another thing to be aware of: if the day we had purchased her AP had been a blockout day for her pass (it wasn't), she still would have been able to get in and activate/use her AP on that very first day.

Once we entered the park we went straight to the Annual Pass Center at the Bank of Main Street so that she could actually get her REAL Annual Pass (unlike WDW, where the ticket they give you at the ticket booth before you enter the park IS your Annual Pass, at Disneyland you must go to the Annual Pass Center to get your permanent AP).

After a brief wait she went up to one of the "teller" windows where they asked various information of her (at this point she would have been able to upgrade her pass if she'd changed her mind and/or add the parking feature):

And then took her photo:

And then handed her her bright, shiny, new AP, customized with her picture on it! They also gave her a nice color blockout day calendar and a copy of the October issue of Backstage Pass, the Disneyland Annual Passholder news magazine that we receive ~quarterly.

After we were finished at the bank we went into the park to Haunted Mansion Holiday where she used her AP for the very first time to get a Fastpass.

And then, as I wrote in this blog entry, we went on to have a wonderful day at Disneyland and DCA - and since she's now got an AP, I look forward to at least one, and hopefully more, fun days at the park with Kristin in the next year!

Other miscellany:

If you're adding parking to an AP, bring your parking receipt with you to the AP Center - they will credit the money you already paid that day to the cost of the parking feature. Note: the parking feature is not valid on your AP's blockout days.

If you want to go to the park on a blockout day you can do that by purchasing a blockout day ticket for $40 at any of the ticket windows. (If you're staying at any of the Disney hotels they are also available for purchase at the Front Desk.) Disney advertises blockout day tickets as "subject to availability", so it's possible that on very busy days you could still be denied entry.

Once you have your AP, you can register it on the AP section of Disneyland's web site: http://www.disneyland.com/ap. This area of the web site lists offers available only to AP holders, such as sneak previews of attractions, hotel and restaurant discounts, etc. You can sign up there to receive special AP-only email from Disney.

Disneyland APs can be renewed either by mail or via the Disneyland.com/ap web site. There is a small discount for doing so, and it also means no standing in line at the AP Center again! In addition you usually receive a 20% off merchandise coupon, plus choice of AP design - the standard one available at the park or a special design available only to renewing passholders.

If you must vist the AP Center, go first thing in the morning right after park opening - the line can get pretty long as the day goes on. Though I have occasionally seen a short line in the afternoon on a not-so-busy day.

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In addition to the new menu, the French Market usually has some special menu items and decorations during the run of Haunted Mansion Holiday. As far as I know, it's the only counter service restaurant that does much decorating. They did a great job again this year - notice the zombie gingerbread man in the window?

And the huge spider web overhead:

One of my complaints about the French Market in the past is that the service is very slow...and unfortunately that hasn't changed. Once you get inside there are two sides to choose from, each offering the same menu items. Cast Members take your order, plate it, and hand you the plate. When we arrived at about 5:30 on a Friday evening only one side was open, and the line was out the door - but it's almost always out the door. They opened the other side and put us in that line, but they weren't quite ready for guests, so it was still slow.

The new menu features items like citrus chicken, four cheese pasta, roast beef, and seafood and chicken jambalaya. Lee wanted to try the jambalaya but was told it wasn't ready, and it would be a 20 minute wait for that. Gee, thanks. (We'd already been in line about 20 minutes to get to that point!) So he had the Herb and Garlic Salmon Creole instead. It was served with wild rice, seasonal vegetables and cheddar corn bread for $13.99. He thought it was fine - not Artist Point quality, but ok.

I had the Four-Cheese Pasta & Vegetable Gratin - A creamy blend of Cheddar, Smoked Gouda, Provolone and Asiago surrounding tender pasta and smooth, subtle bites of Shiitake Mushroom and Cauliflower Florets topped wit