USRoadTripper

Funny that the only person replying to this thread that I agree with is Kevin But yeah, Hunchback of Notre Dame at Disney-MGM Stuidos was definitely my favorite ever, with Doug Live coming in a very close second. And Scott...I thought Summer Spectacular SUCKED! Whoever thought putting a 9/11 montage into a theme park night time show was a good idea is off their rocker. It did have it's good moments though, like the Time Warp! -Julie

Dude! The flume ride looks just like Big Thunder Mountain with the Splash Mountain drop coming out of it! -Julie

When I lived near Orlando, the house I was in had a satelite dish. And every time it would rain, without fail, the tv would go out, and would stay out usually until the rain cleared up (which can sometimes be hours, or even full days!). When it's storming is when I want to watch weather on tv! I personally would never get a dish. -Julie

That looks perfect! Thanks for the help! -Julie

Right, but that is directing me to an entire page of posts. I want to be able to link to a specific post inside that page. That way when you click the link, that post will automatically show up at the top of the page, and not make people scroll through replies to find the post I am directing them to. -Julie

Is there any easy way to make a link that will direct you to a certain post within a thread? I wanna create links to all my posts in my WDW TR, but am not sure how to do it. Wanting to do something like what Robb did with the first page of his Europe TR thread. -Julie

So I guess "Tidy up the apartment" isn't high on the list of things to do before going to Japan, huh? hahaha Kidding, of course!!! -Julie (who always figured that those "Elissa has a large penis" jokes were true)

Completely agreed Kev! I've been to Disney World dozens of times and I hazard to say that this was my favorite trip out of all of them! The company makes all the difference, and I had fantastic company on this trip. Thank *you* for making it one of my favorites too! I think Robb and Elissa will be very lucky if they get out of TPR what we have gotten out of RADP. -Julie

*sniff* This is my last entry for this trip report! December 8th Whispering Canyon Cafe breakfast, and going home On my and Kevin's last morning in Florida, we'd decided to have a nice breakfast at Whispering Canyon Cafe. We all decided on the Canyon Skillet all you can eat breakfast, which came with eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, gravy, potatoes and waffles. It was fantastic, and we all left almost as stuffed as the night before! I was dropping Kevin off at the airport, and we still had a bit of time to kill before leaving, so we all went to Downtown Disney and shopped in World of Disney for a bit. I think we all got a couple of little things, then it was time to say goodbye. I never know if I'm gonna get to see any of my friends throughout the year, so any time I say goodbye it's usually a "See ya next December!" I dropped Kevin off at the airport, then started the drive back home. It seems to take only minutes to get from home to Florida, but seems to take years to get from Florida to home! When I got home, my cats had thoroughly trashed my apartment! Probably had one of those cat parties like in the cat litter commercials. Thanks a lot guys, just what I love coming home to. Well, thanks to everyone for reading my trip report! Any and all comments are welcome! And I will make sure to post again in this thread when I have my text trip reports done. This was dinner. CiCis makes the best spinach pizza! And am I the only person that finds it strange that I have filled up a frequent diner card to a restaurant that, the only reason I go to that one, is that it's on the way home from Disney? At about 7:00, I stopped in McDonough, GA at this CiCis for dinner. I eat at this CiCis almost every time I drive home, and on this trip, I managed to fill up the last spot on my frequent diner card! Next trip, my dinner is free! Round about lunch time, I decided I should eat again, so I could have dinner at the CiCis I normally eat in. I had a grilled stuft burrito from Taco Bell, and almost didn't finish it because I was still so full from breakfast. Me with Susan and Tony after breakfast. If I had the money, I'd stay at Wilderness Lodge on every trip. It's my favorite of the Disney hotels. Mmm...who wouldn't want to find this under their tree on Christmas morning? Here is what is left of our skillet after four ravenous RADPers attacked it. Susan contructs a beautiful log cabin from Lincoln Logs. She also told us how she always asked for Lincoln Logs when she was a kid, but didn't get them until she was a teenager! Whispering Canyon Cafe. At least this year we decided to have a nice "last meal" before going home.

Ohana and Adventurer's Club We left Busch Gardens relatively early since we'd done everything, and we both grabbed a snack at KFC on the way back to Orlando. Our friend Susan was arriving that night, and we had plans with her, Tony and Kim at Ohana. Kevin headed off to Magic Kingdom for an hour or so while I stayed at the hotel, showered and met up with Susan. Dinner was at 8:00, and we arrived just in time to watch Wishes from the restaurant. We were told we had "the best seat in the house" which was great! But it was the fantastic service during this meal that absolutely floored me and the rest of the group! After Wishes, the waiter came by to explain the menu changes. They used to have grilled skewered shrimp as part of the entree, but that had been replaced by a shrimp dish that I believe was now boiled, tossed with pineapple and some other stuff. I mentioned that I am allergic to the pineapple, and was hoping to get just a bowl of plain shrimp instead. The waiter said he'd see what he could do, and asked if I had any other allergies. Since he asked, I mentioned my aspartame allergy also, and asked if he could be extra careful in making sure I get regular soda (everyone else had ordered diet). He said no problem, but that he would send out the chef to speak with us and tell me about all the dishes that had pineapple. So a few minutes later the chef comes out, which wasn't necessary I didn't think. But he told me about the shrimp having pineapple in it, and the sausage having a pineapple glaze, and the bread pudding with vanilla ice cream for dessert having pineapple in it. To me, had I been able to get a bowl of plain shrimp, and a bowl of vanilla ice cream for dessert, that would have been a more than reasonable accomodation, and I would have been very happy. But the chef suggested that he could make a special shrimp dish for me with other ingredients, so I wouldn't have to eat it plain. Great! Then he offered me some type of banana dessert from the Kona Cafe menu, and I said I didn't care for bananas and that plain ice cream would be fine. He said something about that not being good enough, and offered me a molten chocolate torte for dessert. Wow! And completely at no extra charge! Well, my shrimp was FANTASTIC! I'm not sure what was on it, but it was incredible, and I got a big bowl of it (which I ended up sharing since there was so much of it)! The new cheesy potatoes were incredible also...I could have eaten an entire dish of them had there not been so much other food paraded by us! When the skewers came by, to my surprise, the chef had had a skewer of turkey cooked on it's own, without the sausage next to it. That could have been because I mentioned that I don't eat pork, could have been to avoid the pineapple glaze touching the turkey, I dunno, but either way, I appreciated it! Kim had mentioned to the chef when he was at our table that she wished that they still made the grilled shrimp, as that was her favorite item in the dinner. She wasn't even asking him to make her grilled shrimp, but the chef offered that too! So she was very happy that she got to have her favorite item for dinner also! He brough out two huge skewers of it for her, and left both of them for our table (I guess so the other tables wouldn't start going "But they got grilled shrimp! I want grilled shrimp!"). So at this point we had three different shrimp dishes, plus pork-free turkey! When dessert arrived, the other four people dove into the bread pudding, and I got a special foo foo chocolate dessert *and* a bowl of ice cream! I swear, we all ate so much, and it was all so fabulous! When dinner was done, we asked our waiter Blas to bring out his manager so we could thank him for the extra attention everyone had given us. The manager was very happy to hear that we'd enjoyed the meal so much, and we ended up talking to him for quite a while about the restuarant. We found out that the menu changes had been made because someone high up in Disney had come in for dinner and not been happy with the quality of the food. Turns out that the quality had gone down because of budget cut after budget cut. So Disney decided to take a little bit of profit loss and give them more money so they could buy better ingredients, and make a better overall meal. I don't think that profit loss will be very much though, because he told us that Ohana makes around 30 MILLION DOLLARS IN PROFIT ever year!!! And that they work at 18-20% food cost (18-20% of what you pay goes to pay for the ingredients). The manager even joked about breakfast, saying "I can't believe how much we charge for bacon and eggs, and people pay it!" hahaha So overall, dinner was one of the best I've had, and probably the best example I have personally expeirenced of how Disney will go out of their way to make their guests happy. I never expected that I would get a specially cooked shrimp dish, turkey cooked by itsself, and a foo-foo dessert! And Kim certainly didn't expect to get grilled shirmp! And the next time I go, I won't expect that much either. But it was very nice to get! After dinner, Kim went home, Tony went back to his hotel, and Kevin, Susan and I finished out our last evening at the Adventurer's Club. It was also pouring down rain the entire time! During the Hoopla (Hoopla!) at the Adventurer's Club, they had people act out The Twelve Days of Christmas. Kevin was chosen to be the partridge in a pear tree. Here was our little dinner group. Susan teaches college Biology and wasn't able to make it for the whole week, but at least we got to hang with her for a day! Left to right, we've got Susan, Tony, Kim, Kevin and yours truly. Here is my foo foo chocolate dessert. *drooling* OMG it was fantastic. Unfortunately after stuffing myself silly with shrimp, turkey and potatoes, Susan and I combined couldn't finish it off! Here is some of dinner...turkey in the front, potatoes at 10:00, and my special shrimp at 2:00. See that plate in the center at the top? That's a whole plate of shrimp shells from the shrimp I'd eaten before the turkey came! The Ohana fire pit. This is what makes the entire restaurant, nay, the entire lobby smell incredible.

The only one I can think of where I could tell a difference was Kennywood's Jackrabbit. Because the fixed position lap bar has a notch in it to allow people to get in and out of the train easier, the right side of the train has a little less lap bar in front of it. Not a huge difference, but there *was* a difference (better when sitting on the right). -Julie

More BGT photos And here's what it tasted like to me. Looks like six drug test cups. Psst! I don't think that far right one is gonna come back clean! Here is what the beer sampling tasted like to most people. For whatever reason, I really wanted to go to beer school. I actually did learn a little about beer, but it didn't give me enough appreciation to make me want to drink very much of it I did learn that I prefer ales to lagers though! Last coaster stop for the day was to get my Gwazi Lion credit. *insert never ending stream of expletives here* I needed a restroom break, so Kevin told me that he would be "waiting on that gorilla" for me when I was done. This is what I found when I came out of the bathroom! He was very calm and let us pet him easily. Who needs horses when you could have a donkey instead?! The donkey was the last animal you meet as you walk through the barns. He was so cute! Next up was the Clydesdale barn. We were more interested in the Budweiser donkey than the horses though. Hey, thinking of you again Mike! In fact, I love it so much that I wanna rub my ass all over the support too. The last coaster of the day, and of my season, was Montu. *sigh* I love Montu. I love it so much that I wanna hug the support. Busch Gardens Tampa is an Elissa-freindly park too (as if we didn't know that already!) Uh...what inconvenience? Is this just a catch all apology for anything that may have gone wrong during your day? Like "Remember that thing earlier that you weren't happy about? Yeah, sorry 'bout that." Next it was time for a lovely sleigh ride pulled by a zebra that we named Flank (the woman on the train kept talking about how you can distinguish certain animals by the markings on their flanks, and we thought it was funny). It had stopped raining by the time the train ride was over. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, a hippo head appears and bites my butt! It was starting to rain a bit at this point, so we went on a round trip train ride. I can't decide which is more beautiful, the giraffe or the B&M. Eh, I'll go with the B&M!! Nope, we just got out of a freakin' 4D movie! I'd never been this soaked leaving a movie in my life! We decided that the 4th D must stand for "drenched"! Geez Kevin, you're all wet. Did you just get off of the log flume? After Scorpion, we both got our Cheetah Chase credit, then I grabbed a bite to eat. You are now looking at three of my four favorite foods. If I'd washed this all down with chocolate milk, it would have been a perfect meal.

Busch Gardens Tampa December 7th, 2005 This was my first trip to Busch Gardens since the summer of 2002. I'd had a less than stellar visit last time due to oppressive heat, huge lines and a friend who obviously didn't want to be there with me. So I figured I'd give it another go with better company at a better time of year. So let me say this...there was almost no one in the park! A few hundred at best is my guess. This was good because we didn't have to wait to get on the coasters, but it was bad because I got almost no coaster photos since they weren't running the trains empty! It was taking forever to see any dispatches because there was just no one there to ride the rides. There were tons of great pictures I wish I could have taken, but I wasn't about to stand and wait 10 minutes for the next train to be dispatched! I wish the park had had at least double the number of people there...there still would have been no lines, but there would have been enough people to run the coasters consistantly. I'd missed the Gwazi Lion credit last time I was there. I wasn't looking forward to riding it, but did want to pick up the credit this time. More on that below. And into the break run. Thank you for experiencing "Kevin's ride on the Scorpion." Please take small children by the hand and exit to the right of the forum. Careening into the home stretch. Kevin navigates this twisty bit with ease. And into the vertical loop. So I could get pictures of at least one coaster in action, Kevin rode Scorpion while I took photos of it. I am now pleased to present "Kevin's ride on the Scorpion." Here is the lift hill. While Kevin ate, I played one of those "catch a ping pong ball in a net" games and won a stuffed duck. I won a large parrot playing the one at Universal the day before, but didn't have as good of luck this time. We headed over to Timbuktu next, where Kevin decided to grab a corn dog. I *heart* Kumba, the coaster and the cat (Yes, I named one of my cats after this ride). This is one absolutely awesome coaster...I wish Hulk was more like it. Kumba could really use a new coat of paint though. It was looking terrible. On our way over to Kumba, we rode the Python. I can't tell you how long it took me to get this picture. They weren't cycling the train at all since there was no one there to ride it! Kevin says "Where are all the people that should be rushing to Sheikra at park opening?" We got in two rides, and we didn't even have to undo our restraints for the second ride. Could have stayed on again if we'd wanted to. Here is the obligatory "Hey guys, stop and lemme get a group picture!" picture. And these were the people waiting to get in at park open. Yep, you can see them all in this pic! Park was completely dead. This was our parking spot. My guess is that there weren't 20 other cars in the lot at park opening time.

Universal Studios Florida And here is party host Charlotte with Donna. Jan and Charlotte gave everyone Mickey mardi gras beads also. I'm not sure what they did with all the leftover food, but I'm certain they didn't go hungry the next day! Kevin and Jack show off the week's nice pictures to each other. We celebrated Erica's (Jack's daughter) birthday during the party, and also watched a DVD of Kevin's latest play from back home. When I left, I headed to Old Key West, to a party thrown by Jan and Charlotte. They spent the whole day cooking and there was SO MUCH FOOD! We could have all come back the next day, eaten our fill and still had leftovers! Yep, check me out...solo ride! This is why I love Orlando in December! My score. PATHETIC for me (I'm usually well above 400K) but can still kick the ass of a lot of people. I got to see "the last suit I'll ever wear" because of my score. Men in Black : Alien Attack is my favorite ride in Orlando. It's also the only ride I've had a full scale evac from. Kim left at this point so she could pick up a cake for a party later in the evening, and I headed back over to Men in Black to see if I could catch a ride. It was open, so I hit the single rider line. We tried to get on Men in Black, but it was closed temporarily, so we went over to ET instead. I love the smell of the ET building...I've never smelled anything like it anywhere! When we entered the park, I stopped and bought a Coke. Thinking it would be fine, I wedged it between the seat and my back when we rode Mummy. Well, I hit the first drop and the Coke went flying. Rats. Universal Studios...home to two of the best rides in Orlando. We only had about an hour to spend in the park, so we were gonna hit the best three rides, then head out.

Glad to have you back Allie! Sucks to hear about the hospital time But glad the rest of the trip was great! Look forward to seeing you in chat in the near future! -Julie

Universal Orlando and Margaritaville! Tuesday was my day to head off to Universal. Kim said she'd join me after lunch time, so I didn't get a very early start to the day. Might as well mention that Pop Century had either no cell service, or one bar of service through my entire trip. Quite inconvenient when you're waiting for a call from someone. I had to keep running out into the courtyard in my jammies when the phone rang! The adventure lives on, as we proceed over to Universal Studios. Our final ride of the park was The Cat in the Hat. By the way, nothing had lines...everything was a complete walk on, even all three coasters. OMG!!! WTF is that?!?! It looks like a bobcat running free in Seuss Landing! It was seriously at least double the size of a normal house cat! Of all the stories, to go home and say you were mauled by a bobcat in Seuss Landing! Me with the Cat in the Hat! I look so thin in this picture The Zamp in the Lamp...my favorite little touch in all of Universal. I couldn't do that today because GOOSE JUICE WAS CLOSED!!! Noooo! Dear God why???? When I am by myself, I will usually buy a Goose Juice and sit in the little waterside area of Seuss Landing and watch Hulk while I drink. And every time someone walks by you hear this say "Q. Q is for Quan. Quan is for Quandry." Finally, to my favorite land, Seuss Landing. Here is a photo for the coaster geek in all of us. This is where Fire is doing the flyover...love it! Airtime on inverted coasters isn't easy to come by, but this one has it! Next up was Dueling Dragons. It took me years to decide, but I definitely prefer Fire over Ice. The flyover Fire does is the best element in either of these coasters. I also like watching the boats come down the Jurassic Park flume, though it's dispatches aren't nearly as quick as Bilge Rat Barges. One of my favorite things to do when it's crowded is to stand on this bridge by Bilge Rat Barges and watch the rafts go under this waterfall. Its infinitely entertaining. Of course we are! Next we took in Kim's favorite ride, Spiderman. I've still never been impressed by this ride. It's good, but it's no shot tower or B&M invert! Next was my favorite ride in the whole park...Dr. Doom! No joke, I love this ride with a passion! And I've never had to wait for it since I always use single rider line. Kim won't ride it though, so it was just one ride for me today. First stop...HULK! As I said, Kim recently lost 140 pounds, and she thought it was wonderful to be able to ride in one of the normal sized seats on Hulk, not the "big girl" seats. The adventure begins. I think Islands of Adventure is one of the nicest parks I've ever been to, and is the third nicest in Orlando (behind Magic Kingdom and Epcot). The park is just beautiful, with fantastic rides! I had the modified version of a Cheeseburger in Paradise. I like mine with tomato and guacamole, french fried potatoes, big kosher pickle and a margarita. Ahh...just what the doctor ordered I got to keep the glass too! I particularly love the margarita volcano that's above one of the bars. It seems to erupt about every hour or so. Lunch was at Margaritaville. Seems like this is the only place I ever eat when I am at Universal anymore! Why go somewhere that's mediocre when I can go here? It had been an entire year since I made it to Universal, so I was very glad to be back!

Exactly my thought! There are plenty of coasters that are better than bad sex! haha Just gotta make sure that good sex is involved before giving up the coasters entirely! Would suck to know that you gave up coasters for the sex equivalent of the SLC for the rest of your life! I posed almost this same question on RADP a few years ago, but it was "Give up Disney or give up sex?" meaning give up everything Disney...all parks, movies, music, plush, photos, home movies...only one person said they'd give up the Disney! Everyone else chose Disney over sex! Myself included! -Julie

More MGM photos And again we concluded the evening in the Adventurer's Club. At one point Pamelia said, "If you have a camera, turn it on. If you don't have a camera, dance!" and that's how I got this photo of Catherine and Kevin! We all parted ways after the show, with plans to meet at Adventurer's Club later. I stopped at a Walgreens to get a straightening iron, and grabbed Taco Bell for dinner. Looks bland in the picture, but it was Taco Bell, so it was fabulous! Kevin, Jessie, Erica and I went to see Millionaire, then they watched Playhouse Disney (I didn't get in because I had a drink with me). Then the group reassembled and we all watched Fantasmic together! What can I say, the stunt show was awesome! I'd give anything to know how to spin cars like that. I'd learn to do it but not tell anyone, then do it when they were riding with me and scare the poop out of them. Next on the agenda was the Lights, Motors, Action stunt show, which a bunch of us had not seen. Had to grab this side boob shot on the way in though! Kevin was in a theater production of Narnia a few years ago, so of course he wanted to take advantage of this lovely photo op. I think this is a great picture too! After Muppet*Vision was Great Movie Ride. Would have been a nice picture if more people than just Tony were paying attention! Tony stole Kevin's hat for a bit, and while it didn't fit quite right, the "incredibly good looking" inscription was still appropriate. When lunch was over, we headed en mass over to Muppet*Vision. Today, the part of Miss Piggy will be played by a large turquois rectangle. Suddenly Chatherine burst through the door, helping with the MGM part of the Great Race. When we discovered that the Racers were looking for WDW survey markers, Kevin and I were very glad again not to be running it this year! The waiter wasn't happy with how much of her lunch Pamela had eaten, so he took her leftovers, covered them in ice cream and toppings, and called it a chicken sandwich sundae! Needless to say she didn't eat any of it! He also decided that Pamela needed a bib too...but she doesn't look happy about it at all! The waiter decided, for whatever reason, that Sean needed to wear a bib for the rest of the meal. He didn't seem to mind! Here was my lunch. Mmm, a big turkey sandwich with chips and a pickle. Just what I needed after some other not so healthy meals. Good thing he didn't see her doing that! And our waiter wasn't taking crap from anyone! When he caught Jessie throwing spitballs, he grabbed her by the chair and dragged her into the corner! And he pointed her out to all the people walking by who were being seated! We were steated at a table for 10, and our waiter made us sit boys on one side, girls on the other side. The group reassembled a bit later for lunch at 50s Prime Time. Here are Bruce and Marta again, and this time, they are both making you adjust your monitor's contrast!

RADP day at Disney-MGM Studios Today was the day for meets at Disney-MGM Studios, so Kevin and I were up and out early. I hadn't planned on going to the meets but I ended up waking up early, so I just stayed up. We grabbed breakfast in the food court, then I drove us to the Studios shortly after opening. Kevin must still think I'm trying to get his lucky charms. Next we made a stop in the Indiana Jones gift shop. I forget what we were even talking about, but suddenly we both burst into a knife fight. The Disney-MGM Studios is an Elissa friendly park! Kevin and I broke off from the group for a bit and went to Star Tours. Kevin was given the ever important job of handing off the electronic queue line monitoring card. There was no wait, so was it even necessary? I've now ridden so many other coasters that are so much bigger, faster and taller, but this ride still kicks so much ass. I think it will always be one of my favorites. There were 13 of us that rode Rock N Roller coaster, so at least I am not the only "coaster lover but drop tower hater" in the group! As we head back over to Rock N Roller Coaster, Kevin and Mickey insist on molesting the marble door. Only 8 people rode Tower of Terror at this year's meet, which I am told is the smallest RADP Tower meet ever. They still seemed to have a good time though. Uh oh...this group looks like trouble if I've ever seen it! However the group decides to head to Tower of Terror first. I don't ride tower of Terror, but I waited with everyone, then Pamela and I took the chicken elevator out! I love this picture. Me and Kevin are more than ready to tackle the best Vekoma out there! On RADP, we call this the BAH, or the Big Ass Hat.

Raglan Road and Adventurer's Club After a day at Magic Kingdom, I, Kevin, Peter and Tony decided to have dinner at Raglan Road, the new Irish Pub in Pleasure Island. I'd seen pictures and seen the menu, and the place looked great, so we decided to give it a try. We headed back to the hotel and freshened up a bit, and changed into nicer clothes for the evening. Of course, once we arrived at PI, we had to have a little fun in the gift shop before dinner. Finally she said she wanted to see some "pelvic action"! Way to go Babylonia! Little did she know that she'd pulled two Imagineers out of the audience to do that! Thus concluded a fantastic night at the Adventurer's Club. Then they had to strike the same pose as Zeus (God with Rod). A little later in the evening, Babylonia pulled Peter and a friend of his out of the audience, saying she wanted to train them to be her body guards. First, they needed to get on their knees and worship her. ...that I wanted a picture with Fletcher Hodges! I have never acted like such a teeny bopper little girl in my life as right after I got this photo! hahaha My favorite photo of the whole trip, and I showed it to everyone who would look! So, I have had this strange school girl crush on Kristian for years now. I know! He's almost twice my age! So this night, Pamelia went around the room asking people what they wanted for Christmas, and I said... Here are my two favorite actors in the club. Karl is Hathaway and Kristian is Fletcher Hodges. This picture was taken right after I twisted my knee chasing Hathaway into the Mask Room! Time to end the night at the Adventurer's Club. This was the first performance of the Christmas radio broadcast, and it was fantastic. Here Emil is having Pamelia help him sing Dominic the Italian Christmas Donkey. Hilarious! This was my dinner. It looks kinda small from the picture, but it wasn't! Overall, we all LOVED Raglan Road, and we all said we'd love to visit again sometime soon. Kevin started dinner with a black and tan, and I started with a cider that was on tap. It was pretty good, but left a strange aftertaste once it was room temperature. I also think this photo is really sexy for whatever reason! "Ah, so yer after me gold are ye? Well, you'll never get me lucky charms!" This is my second favorite picture from the trip! Oh...who knew an oversized comical Guinness hat could be so sexy? Top o' the mornin' to ya!

Nuff said!

Never in my life would I go on one of those water slides like Summit Plummet that drop you nearly vertically. What in God's name is fun about that sort of thing??? I also can't ever see myself doing any normal sort of drop tower. Or Skycoaster. But I've been dying to do a slingshot for years now! -Julie

Sunday, December 4th Magic Kingdom day! Sunday was the RADP day set aside for Magic Kingdom meets. Kevin went to the Splash Mountain meet at park open, but I didn't make it up early enough to make it to that meet. Instead, I wandered around the resort and took pictures while enjoying a frosty frozen Coke. I won a Sylvester figurine!? Each came in a nice plastic ball too. When we rode Space Mountain, I noticed that they added sacks to the insides of the rockets. I liked those, cuz it gave me a place to put my balls. At the meet a few years ago, Rob Steere played Whistlestop forever and never won anything. This day, I played five times and won three times! Eat it Steere! Before our ride, we found a real DDR machine and Kevin gave it another go. This time he did much better, and dare I say that even yours truly could have done well on this one. Woah...I have even impressed myself with this lovely picture of Space Mountain. Well there's your answer! Have you ever wondered why that one part of the TTA track is painted black? BEST...HAIRCUT...EVER!!! Once we arrived in Toontown, we both got drinks then explored Donald's boat. Afterwards, we took the "secret path" over to Tomorrowland. He is also overjoyed to find that the map includes Canada as well! Kevin points out the long journey he has made to attend the meets. Sure you're not still feeling that liter of beer there Kev? Kev says "I have a blister. Lets ride the train to Toontown." Kevin takes in a little more Bench: The Ride on Tom Sawyer's Island, and this one seems to have quite a bit more airtime than most other benches! OMG! Disney World has a tilt house and no one told me about it!!! How has it taken me 8 1/2 years to find out that Disney has a tilt house! I must visit it on every trip now. It's another coaster photo! I had to lay the smack down on a kid in one of the gun rooms in the fort so I could get this photo. Kevin had purchased a new hat the day before, which was very appropriate for him, since he is "incredibly good looking" I'd never really spent much time on Tom Sawyer's Island, but it is a really fun little place! We crossed the barrell bridge to see if we could see anyone from the meet still in line, but we didn't see anyone. Next, the group went en mass to the Haunted Mansion, but the wait was posted at 40 minutes! Everyone decided to stay except me and Kevin, who decided to explore Tom Sawyer's Island. Cinderella's castle. The first meet I attended was at Mickey's Philharmagic, but I didn't take any pictures for some reason. I had a chicken ceasar salad in the food court for lunch, and it was yummy! They also have unlimited refills of frozen Coke and frozen blueberry drinks with a refillable mug! Such a perk, and I took advantage of it every day!

Next, I wanted to introduce everyone to one of my favorite places in Disney World, the Adventurer's Club. I've barely heard it mentioned on this website, which is a shame since it's crazy, funny, kooky and extremely unique. I've never found any other place like it. When I first started on RADP, all the evening meets were held in the Adventurer's Club, so I got to know it when I was only 19. I've had a tough time getting friends my age to appeciate the club since sometimes you can walk in, and nothing is going on at that second. It might look like a place to get a martini and have quiet chat, but it's not! So most of my non-RADP friends give it 30 seconds and decide they don't like it! Generally, the club is improv comedy, though the structure of the night is all scripted. Certain things happen at certain times, but they incorporate the audience and you never know what may come out of it. There have been nights when I have laughed so hard in this club that my stomach was sore the next day. I think that everyone who has Pleasure Island admission should give the Adventurer's Club at least an hour of your time. There is almost always something going on, be it characters wandering around chatting with guests, or shows in the Main Salon, Library, Mask Room, or Treasure Room. The club is geared to older teens and adults, but even kids as young as 9 or 10 should really enjoy it, and it doesn't get so risque that mom and dad would have to worry. When I first heard that the Adventurer's Club might be on the chopping block with the new plans for PI, my initial reaction was "Well that would suck, but progress is progress." But now, after having spent so much time in Adventurer's Club on this trip...I think it's loss would be tragic! Pleasure Island, and really all of Disney World, would never be the same to me if this place were closed. I grew up in this club...made friends for life in this club...and have spent countless evenings whiling away hours on end in this club. I certainly hope Disney sees what a gem they have on their hands here, and decide to keep it around so others can enjoy it too! On to the photos! Here Pamelia leads Hathaway and Emil, as well as Samantha Sterling (another one of the club's adventurer's) in singing Three Little Fishies. Not pictured are the club's ichthyologist Otis T. Wren and club curator Fletcher Hodges. During the Hoopla (Hoopla!) one night, Emil sang a song about Frosty the Snowman, which was hilarious. This actor's name is Karl, and he's my favorite in the club! He plays all the male characters. Here we see Emil and Pamelia during the nightly Rythm Ritual. All the characters assemble in the Zebra Mezzanine, and play drums, cymbals, cowbells and stuff right before the final show of the night, the Hoopla! (Hoopla!) This is Kiki the club's maid. Each actress who plays the maid makes up her own name for her maid character, so Kiki may not be the maid's name when you visit. Here we have Hathaway Brown, the club's aviator and habitual ladies man, on the left. And on the right is Emil Bleehol, Adventurer of the Year, and winner of the Balderdash Cup, from Sandusky, Ohio. On to the characters...this is club president Pamelia Perkins. Inside the library is where the main shows of the night take place. This is the club's organ, Fingers Zambezi. She used to live in the organ loft upstairs, but there was a falling through. The room is covered in artifacts gathered during the adventures of club members, including some samurai warrior statues from a Holiday Inn on 192! Beezil the Genie lives inside that armoire. This is another one of the small alcoves with shows, the Treasure Room. These masks are Claude and Arnie. These "greco-roman" masks are symbols of the harvest...Claude, the grape harvest, and Arnie the...horny harvest! All the masks on the walls have stories of were they came from, or who they were owned by before the club. The middle one is Glinda, a bride's wedding mask from Bali, who turns out to be a witch. Here is the entrance to the Mask Room, one of my favorite little holes in the wall in all of Disney. This is the Yakoose. He's half yak, half moose. He was supposed to go to the taxidermist, but ended up at the upholsterer's instead. Sometimes he comes to life and says some stuff about how he's just "hangin' around." This is the club's goddess, Babylonia. No, her name is not "restrooms." A couple of times a night, she will pick on unsuspecting, virile men in her presence. This is Colonel Critchlow Sunchbench, the head of security and club gleemeister. To wake him up, you have to yell "Free drink Colonel!" He's the one that leads the new members in singing the club's theme song, and is actually very lifelike to be a puppet! The first thing you come to is a statue of Zeus, or "God with Rod." You enter on the second floor, in the Zebra Mezzanine. This is your view down into the Main Salon. Looks pretty interesting...lets go meet some of the club's residents. Welcome to the Adventurer's Club. It's 1937 and the club is holding it's annual new membership drive.

After we extracted Kevin from the Mega Mouse Meet, he, I and Peter went to the Magic Kingdom for the rest of the evening. As we arrived, they were about to run the Christmas parade, which was strange since it wasn't a Christmas party night. As most people quickly find out, I am NOT a fan of stopping and watching parades, but Kevin and Peter really wanted to stop and watch it. So I obliged, but I didn't take any photos (frankly, parades aren't entertaining at all to me...I know, I am in the vast minority here). After the parade, we headed into Adventureland. Thus comes to a close another lovely night in the Magic Kingdom. Not to be defeated that easily, he just decides to go in backwards and "rnigs also" on the way! Oh!!! Disaster strikes! Better luck next time Kev! The treehouse had a very tiny door, so what's the obvious thing for Kevin to do? Try to limbo through it of course! When we stopped to watch Wishes, we ran into Kenny and Donna. Then we all headed back into Fantasyland and played in the kid-sized Pooh playground for a bit. Ever wonder how many adults you can fit in Pooh's treehouse? The answer is four! After we met up with Tony, we all went to the noodle station for dinner. This was what I got...it tasted ok, but the handful of raw veggies on the top was too much and I couldn't eat it. So I quickly hightailed it to Caseys and back with a hot dog. After Splash, Kevin took in a little Bannister: the Ride as we waited for Tony, who was a few people behind us in line. Peter says "This is NOT an acceptable amount of water!!!" I just got a little wet during the ride! Peter is captivated by Splash Mountain. Next up was Splash Mountain! Mike (Mr. Six) had requested a cellular ride through Splash Mountain, so I obliged. This is me talking to him right before losing the signal inside the mountain. Robb even got in on the cellular ride as well! "Come on Julie! Second star to the right and straight on til morning!" ¡Olé! What says "pirate" more than a sombrero and maracas? OMG it's the axe murdering duck from Dollywood! Except at Disney World, he has a machete weilding sidekick! Time for gift shop fun! Pirates has the best gift shop ever! Kevin tries out his sexy pirate look, but doesn't succeed the way Dennis does! Next we rode Pirates of the Caribbean, where Kevin professed his undying love for this enormous keg. Kevin and Peter both stopped for Dole Whips on the way through. They look so yummy, but I can't partake because of a citrus allergy