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Day 3: Disney Hollywood Studios January 29th 2008 Our day at DHS really set the tone for the rest week. After experiencing unexpected heavy crowds the day before, I was really worried that we weren’t going to have the light crowds that were expected for the last week in January. Our goal was to get to the park at opening so we could walk on to Tower of Terror and Rock N’ Roller Coaster then grab some fast passes and start on the rest of the park before the crowds came. We didn’t quite make the rope drop but we were in the park by 9:30 and still we were able to walk-on to both rides. After that we used our fast pass for TOT and realized that we didn’t even need it! We then walked over and grabbed a fast pass for Rock N’ Roller Coaster where there was a posted 30 minute wait. We were able to do the rest of the park with minimum waits and were even shocked that we were able to walk right up and order counter service! This was the case the rest of the day which was a great relief. Rock N’ Roller Coaster kept a 30 minute wait all day, but Tower of Terror never got over 20 minutes. In fact, there was absolutely no line whatsoever at 5:00 P.M.! (Picture evidence to follow) On top of the great crowds, the weather was perfect! I believe the temperature stayed in the 70’s all day with a heavy cloud cover and no humidity. Perfect! A few reviews: Rock N’ Roller Coaster: They were building this the last time I came to MGM, so this was a new credit for me. I had heard that the ride was really rough but I found it to be smooth. The only hint of head banging I experienced was on the corkscrew. We rode it once near the front and once in the backseat. The backseat ride actually made my eyes tear up. It is definitely a good addition to the park. Maybe it doesn’t run that smooth consistently but it sure was on this day. Tower of Terror: My favorite ride at DHS and easily top 5 for Walt Disney World. I only got to ride it once back in 99’ and was really looking forward to multiple rides on this trip. I kept the ride somewhat secretive to Candace, because I wanted that element of surprise for her first ride. Needless to say, she loved it! Muppets in 3D: Best 3D show in Florida in my opinion. Backlot Tram Tour: I think it is time to do something else with this area. It just seems like it is half the ride it was 10 years ago. The only real “backlot” area we saw was a bunch of seamstresses sewing costumes. There was also an area where they had parts laying around for the Splash Mountain refurbishment. The tour is basically one soundstage, the boneyard, and Catastrophe Canyon. Maybe my memory is failing me but I thought there used to be a lot more to this. Overall: I love this park but there just isn’t enough to do. The Pixar Studios area will help, but they just don’t have enough land to expand on without taking out the soundstages. I would of liked to have seen Fastasmic but is was closed that week. Pictures: Here I am. I look confounded in all these pictures for some reason. Candace went to the real thing the month before our trip and was wondering where all the steam was. I like the fake New York themed area in Universal better. Not much to do here. Screw Mickey's Sorcerer's Hat, this is the true symbol of MGM! Here is the personal plane of Walt Disney himself. This would be very useful for the Around the World Disney TPR trip! "If you are sitting to the right of our driver you may get a little wet." "That's okay because if you are sitting to the left of our driver you are going to get soaked!" Terrible things are happening all around us. The problem is its just old and boring. Here we are at Catastrophe Canyon. Here we are on the wrong side of the tram for photos. This prop was used in a brilliant film sequence! The Backlot Tram Tour goes through the boneyard of DHS. I am pretty sure this was one of the planes used in the movie Pearl Harbor. You are the best 3D show in Florida. It was time to go to the rest of the park where you have to pass this dinosaur who doesn't seem out of place at all. Here I am after enjoying a rather smooth ride. Candace is a Vekoma fan girl now. I guess she hasn't ridden enough to know any better. We have ride photos! And a great ride at that! I am assuming this is an abomination like the wand was? Here we are at MGM. I mean DHS. Its going to take a while for that to sink in. Notice the lack of crowds.

^^Agreed. They reminded me more of the Las Vegas time-share people with their in your face attitude.

We noticed the timeshare people at Universal. After my experience with the timeshare people in Las Vegas, I was expecting the worse from them, but they never really bothered us. One guy kind of got in our way but we just pretended like we couldn't hear him and ignored him. We go amusement parks for the rides and a little advertising certaintly isn't going to be what affect how good of a time we have.

Day 2 Cont'd: Magic Kingdom at Night The majority of this update covers the Spectromagic Parade and the Wishes fireworks show. So, lets go right to the pictures. And we close with my favorite picture of the entire trip! Disney Hollywood Studios up next! The top of the castle explodes for the finale. Just speechless! Crowd shot! I really like these next two. I think Candace took around 200 photos of these fireworks no joke! We've made it the fireworks! Fish. I thought I was making a comeback with that last comment, but alas I've got nothing again. Evidently, NBC was a sponsor for this parade. I really got nothing tonight with these captions. Stupid bronchitis! Chip and Dale. Check. Nice house. Probably the coolest float in the show On to Spectromagic I didn't ride you, but you look pretty tonight as well! Makes Purple Castle! Mixed with Red Castle Blue Castle Although she not as sexy as Spaceship Earth at night, she sure is pretty! I made sure I was properly dressed. However, it wasn't nearly as cold as it was the previous night at Epcot. The lovely Candace with the lovely castle in the background.

tax rebate signed It doesn't say in that article but the tax rebate will be an advance on a tax credit for next year. Basically, the rebate will not be taken out of your tax refund in 2009. The only effect this will have on someone is if they have a change in dependents this year. So, if you have a new child in 2008, you will get $300 more next year. However, if you have claimed a dependent in 2007, and then this year, you no longer claim that depedent (i.e. they go to college), you will not be penalized. I still do not know if this tax rebate will be taxable or not.

^^Candace beat me to it. Candace (cherryblossom) took the majority of the pictures and I agree that she is amazing at it!

I'll just take a montage video of all the old attractions. (Horizons, Figment, e.g.) Perhaps Boyz II Men's "Its So Hard To Say Goodbye" could be edited over it?

Thanks! Illuminations is a great show. It's definitely worth seeing at least once. I recommend viewing it from the England side of the lake, especially if you can get V.I.P. seating passes. I'm not sure if they just give those out to anyone or if you have to call ahead and reserve it. Maybe they weren't full and gave us the passes because we looked lost. Well, it wasn't a huge deal. It might have stood out a little more because we were having to play "dodge the people who are stopping in the middle of the walkways" all day. Maybe the last time I rode it, we were one of the first ones out of the room, who knows. The ride was awesome regardless! Thanks for reading!

Day 2: Magic Kingdom January 28th After a great day at Epcot, we were hoping for a good day with similar crowds at Magic Kingdom. We got off to a good start in Tomorrowland but the same can not be said for the rest of the park. We saw several posted waits of 40 minutes or more, with the longer waits being in Fantasyland. Still with Fastpass, the longest wait all day (and for the entire trip) was 30 minutes for Peter Pan. I guess I was a little disappointed with this day because I hadn't expected there to be so many kids at the end of January. There was also a lot of international travelers which was no doubt aided by the dollar being so low right now. A couple of reviews: I liked Monsters Inc. a lot. I was pretty impressed by the interactive technology the show used. I can't say I laughed out loud but it was good for chuckle or too. Stitch's Great Escape: Having read everyone's distaste for this ride made me curious enough to actually go on it. All I can say is that there wasn't anything good or bad about the ride. The smell wasn't that bad although it didn't make me want to run out and buy a chili dog. Haunted Mansion: I didn't really like the crowd control after the stretching room. I don't remember ever having a problem before, but it was like a 10 lane highway all of the sudden merging into two lanes. Besides that, the ride is great and the rehab was money well spent. Pictures now: Since I feel bad because there have been so few ride pictures and obviously no roller coaster pictures, I'll throw you guys a little something. MK at night is next! One more of Mickey for good measure. Meh. Having a little problem navigating that handrail there buddy? Smoke a tad too much wacky tobaccy huh? You aren't helping things by being closed either! While were on the topic, same question for you too Pooh! Why do you have 60 minute waits all the time? And its officially a rodent-friendly trip report. A side profile of Goofy to accenuate the snoz. Donald is my favorite Disney character. Discuss. No wait...evidently its hula hoop time! Candace thought this girl was cute so she took a bunch of pictures of her. Its parade time! Its Mickey time! Cinderella's Castle aka "transition shot" I look pretty happy to be on Tom Sawyer's Island. Probably because its awesome. It's so photogenic! The new and improved Haunted Mansion. The wait was about 20 minutes. One more of Jack. Looks like he is nice and 'rum'ed up in this scene I love the tribute to this scene in the first movie. Pretty humorous way to introduce Jack. This is my favorite original scene on the ride. Not sure why exactly. Whats a pirate's favorite U.S. holiday? Arrrrbor Day! I would love to ride the Disneyland version some time again soon. This one's okay. We did get several shots on Pirates. Captain Barbosa makes his grand appearance. I was expecting to see an apple somewhere on his person. This is seriously the only shot of Tomorrowland we have. I promise next Disney trip we will get more ride shots. And were here! And so was most of Brazil. A little bit closer now. We start this edition with a rarely used shot of Cinderella's Castle. You can see from this picture that the park was going to be crowded. Edit: Just realized we have a monorail picture after all!

I think my favorite is Six Flags Over Texas. Those captions throughout the brochure are just priceless! "I want to do everything first!" "Its the fastest double-loop coaster in the whole world." "How can I be going up, when I am sitting down?" Yep, priceless!

Thanks for the explanation. With there being no wait for the ride, I didn't take the time to stop and read what those pictures were all about. Just noticed a big honking picture of Robin Williams and I've never seen Flubber so I didn't make that connection either.

Indeed! I just thought of a question that I meant to ask earlier. What is Robin William's role in the Imagination Pavilion? There is a large picture of him along with Rick Moranis and that other guy in the line for Figment. I never saw the relevance of Robin Williams in the whole pavilion. Maybe I missed something?

Epcot at Night As night fell on our first day, so did the temperatures. We had left cold weather behind in Tennessee, so when the forecast called for lower 50's for the first night, I figured I could get by without a long sleeve shirt. Yeah, I was wrong! I managed to make it through Illuminations, but the next day I made sure to bring a long sleeve shirt! On to pictures: Good night Epcot! Magic Kingdom is next! Well worth the cold! BIG BOOM! little boom Fireworks. Yep. China from across the lake. We lucked into a great spot to watch the show. We were scouting a spot between France and England, when two Park Employees gave us special passes to watch the show. It was behind the fish restaurant in England. And now for the reason I was freezing my butt off, IllumiNations! This is best Beatles cover band Ive ever seen at Epcot. Waiting for Illuminations to begin. I am hiding it pretty well, but I was freezing in this picture. This is pretty much all the attention we gave the U.S.A Pavilion. I am pretty sure something was being refurbished anyway. Lets give Morocco a little love shall we. I really loved the Teppanyaki Restaurant when I came last time but I just didn't feel like making reservations for this trip. I kind of wish we had tried the new restaurant though. We've got some Japan night shots of course. More of France at night. This was Candace's first chance to try out some night shots on her new camera. The France Pavilion can not be fully appreciated until it turns dark. Eric wasn't! Candace was smart enough to dress properly for the weather.

With Google Earth (the pay version I think) you can get the boat's exact coordinate system. Start memorizing! I must of visited Odyssey when I was a toddler. I felt some strange attachment to the building. Maybe because it was the closest restroom that I found leaving Test Track, who knows. More pictures coming tonight!

Right outside of Mexico on the shore closest to Odyssey. This is a great TR so far! I look forward to seeing the rest of your update! You win! Whatever happenend to Odyssey and why is the building just sitting there? I glanced in there that evening and it looked like they had had some sort of banquet/meeting in there. Another sad reminder of the past.

I'll take it! Thanks, we've actually been married since August '06, but just were now able to use the wedding present. I assumed it was Germany by the background but didn't want to be sending out any false information. Thanks for reading guys!

Day One Cont'd Because this was Candace's first visit to WDW since she was 2 and first visit ever to Epcot, I was really anxious to see how she would like it. She loved the World Showcase but thought Future World was okay. I think the main reason why I love Epcot so well, is because I came here as a child. There is a lot of nostalgia here. She never got to experience Horizons, good Figments, or the Wonders of Life. Although I enjoyed the new additions to the park, it may me kind of sad to see some of the older rides gone or just sitting there. Unfortunately, Candace isn't an enthusiast (yet), we didn't get any more shots of the rides in Future World. Here are some photos featuring the World Showcase. Candace: Can we hurry up and go to Japan?! We shall end Part 1 with an artsy shot. Next up, Epcot at night! I constantly look back at Spaceship Earth when I am in the World Showcase. Just love looking at it! Another ride I remember fondly as a child. We didn't get to eat in the restaurant. A lady was nice enough to take our picture here. She however didn't realize Candace's camera had no auto focus and focused on the building behind us. We completely look photoshopped in the picture as a result! Back to Mexico and me. Can't remember where this is. Anyone? WTF?! We caught the end of the Chinese Acrobats. I don't quite remember what this room was but I think I remember something about these guys being the original lawn ornament. People found them to look way too serious though. I think they are far less scarier than the garden gnome. Candace liked China a lot too. Just not as much as Japan. More temple pictures and a caption filler. There really wasn't a lot to do in the pavilion though besides take pictures. If you hadn't figured out yet, Candace LOVES Japan! Fortunately, Senor Donald came along to end our fight. We can't argue around you Senor Donald! Candace: Grrrrr! There! Me: I don't see it. Is it over there somewhere? Candace: No! There! Over There! Me: Where Candace? You want to go where? Over there in Canada?

Introduction When Candace and I got married, her parents gave us a week exchange through their RCI time share for our wedding/honeymoon gift. Basically, we could pick any RCI resort in the world to stay at for a week for free! We decided that this would be perfect for a trip to WDW since we would be spending so much on park tickets, and having a free place to stay would help a lot with costs. We chose the Summer Bay Resort which is at the end of SR 192 about 7 miles from WDW. I will do a short review later in the trip report, but for now I will get to the parks. Day 1: Epcot Center January 27th We started the vacation with my favorite Disney park. The crowd level for the day was fairly good with 60 min. waits for Soarin and Test Track but most everything else had low waits. With fast pass we never waited more than 15 minutes all day. I absolutely loved Test Track, but I could not figure out why Soarin is one of the most popular rides in WDW. Its great and all but there are SO many more better rides. Enough typing, lets move on to some photos. NOTE: Most of the photos were taken by Candace Can anybody guess where this is? At least I got the monorail track in a couple pics. Does that count? Is the girl in the background competing in a Physical Challenge on Double Dare? This part of the park sure is dead these days. I remember I couldn't get near the fountains when I visited in the early 90's. Hidden Mickey. Check. Seems like there should be more pumpkins. Tisn't the season I guess. I never rode this ride before. With the low crowds, I gave it a shot. Found him. Check. Dolphins always look happy. Almost like they know something we don't. Hmmm... Candace loved dolphins when she was a child. I tolerated them as a child We timed our visit right to catch the Dolphin show. Next up was the Living Seas Pavilion. For some reason, I never spent much time in here on previous visits. We spent over an hour this time! I love the Disney Imagineers vision of the future! I really, really do! They obviously did some work in this room because it smelled like a Home Depot. Candace says these didn't turn out too well. Lets try out the new expensive camera in the dark Candace! The first ride of the day was naturally Spaceship Earth! Yep, everything seems normal in front of Spaceship Earth. These giant plaques are new. The best part of not being to Disney World since 1998 is that everything looks completely unchanged in the front of the park!

Ive already been to: Magic Kingdom Epcot Disney Hollywood Studios Animal Kingdom Universal Studios Islands of Adventures Still to come in 2008: Dollywood Six Flags New England Lake Compounce Six Flags Great Adventure Six Flags America Busch Gardens Europe Kings Dominion Morey's Pier Clementon Amusement Park (maybe) Dutch Wonderland Hersheypark Dorney Park Knoebels I'll hit my 100th credit on the first day of the East Coast trip at Six Flags New England.

^^It comes up for me. Doesn't matter if you type in "Mindbender" or "Mind Bender". It's Mind Bender by the way.

It makes no sense to give us money this year, then turn around and take it off our refund next year. That isn't truly a tax rebate. Thats more like a tax refund loan with no interest. CNN ran a story earlier today which stated that this was the case. When I was forwarding it to a co-worker, CNN had already updated the story and that info was missing. Maybe they jumped the gun or reported incorrect info, who knows. If those are the only two choices, I'd prefer to have it taxed and be a true rebate.

We rode Spaceship Earth last week. For some reason, Candace's picture never showed in the cropped out spot for the cartoon at the end. She was kind of sad about that. It has been too long since I rode this last, so the changes had no impact on me. I did notice that the ink smell was missing at the entrance though.

^ The polar bear is probably related to the research that Dharma was performing on the island. They somehow changed the genetics of polar bears so that they could survive on the island. The polar bears that we see attacking the losties are the ones from the research and they escaped during the "purge".

I am liking where they are taking the show. I really could use a break from the love quadrangle/rhombus and all the soap opera drama. Finally, we had an action-based episode! I am almost willing to take on more mysteries now, if they will finally start getting back to action episodes similar to Season 1. I guess the questions I have after this episode are: 1) Who is this helicoptor pilot and what does it mean that he was supposed to be the pilot of Oceanic Flight 815? 2) Who is the man that Ben has from their boat? Is he an inside man or did Ben kidnap him? 3) In Myles' flashback, who was the son that he found the money with the drugs. 4) Why did Dharma pick four seemingly random people to head the big "rescue" on the island? A physicist, a pilot, a ghost-hunter, and an anthropoligist. Sounds like a cast list for Gilligans Island to me.

The management was Gaylord Entertainment. They also owned Fiesta Texas and we all know they sold that park to Six Flags. There was rumors flying around that Six Flags wanted to buy Opryland. I have no clue if Six Flags buying the park ever went farther than just being a rumor. I can see how some issues with the proximity of the Grand Ole Opry and Opryland Hotel could of played into Gaylord not wanting to sell to an outside company. I am pretty sure they are leasing the land for the mall now. It was obvious that Gaylord liked their hotel more than the theme park because they continued to use remaining land to expand the hotel rather than the theme park.