Jennifer's Disney Adventure ReportDates: 9/30-10/2 (three day trip) Adventurers:
Transportation: Northwest Airlines (from Detroit) and Tiffany Town Car Resort: Coronado Springs Resort Parks: Epcot, Disney-MGM Studios, Magic Kingdom, Downtown Disney/Pleasure Island, Disney's Animal Kingdom, Typhoon Lagoon Restaurants/Eateries: Le Cellier, Wolfgang Puck's, Gifts of Cuisine (food court at Millennium Village), The Missing Link, Flame Tree Barbecue, and Maya Grill Other: RADP Millennium Village Meet on 10/1/99, pin trading/collecting, start of the Millennium Celebration Updated 11/21/03
Copyright 1999-2006 |
Our Third Day: Friday,
October 2, 1999 Last days are never fun. This one isn't as bad as the others, though, as we know we'll be returning in two weeks. I can't wait. We pack up our bags, call bell services, and get a lift to El Centro. We instruct bell services to hold our bags until we return to the resort later in the day. From there we take the bus to Animal Kingdom for some lunch and research. We ate at Flame Tree Barbecue and then separated for research. We checked out FASTPASS at Countdown to Extinction, Kali River Rapids, and Kilimanjaro Safaris (active at all three). For those wondering, the FASTPASS pass is about 2” x 3”. On the front is the name of the attraction, the entry time period for which the pass is valid, the date, and the time. On the back are directions and notes for using FASTPASS. I'll include these in our FASTPASS Q&A page for those interested. After Animal Kingdom, we headed for our trip reward: Typhoon Lagoon. We took the bus to the Transportation and Ticket Center, then changed to a Downtown Disney/Typhoon Lagoon bus. We got there about about 1:00 pm, got a locker and some towels, and hit Castaway Creek for a float around in the tubes. It was wonderful—laid-back, relaxing, cool, and quiet. Just what we needed. After going around twice, we hung out in the wave pool for a bit and then dried off, changed, and got back on the bus to Coronado Springs. We got to Coronado Springs at 5:00, just in time for a 5:10 dinner at Maya Grill. We were very impressed with Maya Grill. The atmosphere was quite pleasant, the service good, and the food delicious. I thought it might almost be too upscale for a moderate resort (and the prices seemed a touch high too), but Dave pointed out that this was also a convention resort and that made more sense. It should be noted that families may find this restaurant a bit more formal and upscale than they would expect. We got copies of their menus and made many notes, which we plan to present in a detailed report later. With our bellies full, we went out to greet our Tiffany Town Car driver who would take us back to the airport. This time it was Mohammed, who had been on driver once before on a previous trip. Mohammed knew who we were immediately, as he'd heard the drivers talking about us on the radio. Even more amazing, he'd driven a family earlier in the week and they'd told him about PassPorter during the drive. So we talked about PassPorter all the way to the airport. The flight home was unremarkable. Upon returning to our car, we noticed we'd left the window rolled down the whole time. Ugh! Someone (I'm not naming names here) must have rolled the window down to get the parking receipt and forgotten to roll it up. The seat was a bit damp, but everything was intact. We drove back and promptly sat down at our desks to on catch up on all the work we'd missed while we were way. I didn't last long, though, and fell asleep soon after.
As I've mentioned throughout the report, we plan to report on various attractions and restaurants when we have more time. Please watch for more updates, which will be announced in our mailing list and on the front page of our Web site. Thanks for coming along on my adventure!
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