The PARTEE Report About This Page:

[sammycat699]

Great trip report. Can't wait for the next installment.

[maggy_1]

Pat, great trip report can wait to red more [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Chantal [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[Wondcat]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The PARTEE Report
or
Pat and Richard's Twenty-seventh anniversay Excursion Extrordinaire
Date:
Friday 11/30/01 to Thursday 12/6/01

Adventurers:

Pat (Wondcat) First trip in 1980-sidetrip after DH won a trip to The Pine Isle Resort in Georgia for selling life insurance, stayed offproperty. Second trip 1992, also stayed offsite. Third trip, 2000, All Star Music-all trips with kids.

Richard (Golfguy) Also on aforementioned trips.

Resort/Hotel: Wilderness Lodge (originally PO French Quarter, then CB, but I whined and got WL for only $108.00 more!

Celebration: Our 25th, 26th & 27th wedding anniversaries rolled into one-first trip without kids (the "kids" are 22 and 25 now)On our 25th anniversary Mandy was getting married and we didn't plan anything and on our 26th Alissa was getting ready to graduate from college and we didn't plan anything, we felt that we were due for a treat.

What the heck is a sensory tickle?

We got up at 6:00am, Richard was going to the Golf Hall of Fame today and I had the Keys to the Kingsom tour at 10:00am, so we wanted to get an early start. I had already decided that I was going to have Richard drop me off at the MK, I wasn't about to take the boat and be late! Since there were no cameras allowed on the tour, I tucked the one that I had borrowed from Mandy into my dresser drawer (and spent the next day looking all over for it because I thought that i had lost it, I found it the next morning)and we went off to have breakfast at Whispering Canyon. Richard had the Fratata and I had the BBQ hash, they were both very good and the cheesy potatoes were the best! It was so cold in the restaurant that I didn't have a really hot cup of tea all week. Since it was really the only water, besides bottled that I could drink, I was looking forward to it each morning. By the time you poured it from the pot into the cup and took the first drink it had cooled off so much that it was undrinkable. I finally had to buy refillable mugs to keep it hot! I was planning to anyway and we got the cute travel type ones instead of the big fat ones that they have everywhere else. So we hopped into the Lancer and off we went, we had finally found the correct route and I got there way before banner drop. By banner drop I mean, there was a family with a banner and when they dropped it the park opened. Anyway, he couldn't even drive me onto the parking lot, he had to drop me off WAY in front of the MK and I had to walk the rest of the way. The search and seizure routine was getting a little old by now, I had stopped carrying just about everything that I could to get through the line quicker. Today, however there seemed to be an awful lot of people in line and it took forever. That's what usually happens when you are in a hurry.
Today was the Buzz Lightyear tourney and although I knew that I didn't have time to participate, I wanted to go over and try to meet some of the passporters. Since I wasn't sure where to go for the tour, I stopped first at City hall to ask where to meet the rest of the tour at 9:45. I was waiting in line when I spotted a passporter pin on the hat of the handsome man in front of me. As he turned around I pointed to my pin and said Passporter? He got the attention of the attractive dark haired woman with him and she turned around. It was Liz-Versafox and Jim her DH. We introduced ourselves and talked for a few minutes and then they were off to the tourney. I spent a few minutes at city hall asking my questions and took off behind them. I was actully quite close behind them, because I could see them ahead of me. They continued on past Buzz and the young man standing in front of it had on a passporter pin and motioned to me. It was Brant-Joey Carioca, he was greeting people as they got onto the ride and another man, whose name I missed. Who was he, Joey? Liz and Jim came over and we sat and talked for a few minutes before I had to leave for the tour. So, I missed meeting Jennifer and Dave and everybody else because they were on the ride, but I had arranged for the tour before I knew about the tournament and I had to leave. So, I hurried back over to the garden or Donald Duck's Christmas tree lot as it was set up for Christmas, to meet up with the group. There were 18 of us including the tour Guide, Kelly from New Jersery. Since this was a 4 1/2 hour tour, I got to choose my lunch from the menu for the (I think) Columbia Harbour House, a restaurant that isn't open to the public, only for the tours. I ordered the chicken salad with pineapple, cashews and balsmic vinegar dressing and a coke, no ice. We each got a cute nametag. We had about 15 minutes and as I had forgotten my hat I ran over to the hat shop, 'Chapeau' to buy one. It was getting hot and I knew that I would look like a drowned rat by the end of the tour if I didn't have one. I would still look like a drowned rat, but at least no one would know. I got a cute straw one with a black band that said WDW on it and trapsed back over to the group. After raising our right hands and swearing that we wouldn't tell any of the secrets or 'keyes' that we discovered today, we were off. We had a smart ass with us who thought that she knew everything and was trying to get in good with the guide. But, when Kelly asked how many bricks were used to build the castle and nobody knew and I said none, she sort of backed off and we started having fun. I had just seen a Disney special that said that it was all concrete,steel and fiberglass. We started off on a parking lot for the employees near the opening of the utilidors, Kelly told us that every day the cm's have to come here 20 minutes early to get their costumes for the day. Since they have to come in 20 minutes early, they get tp leave 20 minutes early too. That doesn't make sense to me, why don't they just change their schedules to include that time? That their costumes aren't their own and the only things that they get to keep are their awards, in her case a pin and a 'crop' that she carried. That they can't take tips and I forgot my WWWD pins or I would have given her one, she was that good. That they have to provide their own shoes and that she buys good ones and goes through a pair about every three months. She told us to pay attention to where we came in because it would be important later and off we went. We went though many of the utilidors and learned many interesting facts about the MK. When we went upstairs we were near the Castle by Cinderella's statue, the same man who made this statue did the ones of Walt & Mickey and Roy & Minnie, his name is Blaine something. She then reminded us where we had come in and told us that contary to public belief, there are no tunnels under the MK. That when they dug out the swamp to build bay lake, first they built the utilidors then they put all of the dirt from the swamp on top of them and built the MK, so that the utilidors are really the first floor and the MK is the second. We had started outside of the first floor on the parking lot and this was the proof that there were no tunnels. Trucks come as close as they can to the utilidors and have loading docks. The only truck that can go into them is the armored truck that comes to pick up and drop off money. This was something that we were allowed to tell. We got on a few rides including the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the CB and the WED(Walter Elias Disney)way people mover, now called the tomorrowland transit authority and learned a few secrets about each. The Epcot prototype that is in it was in Walt's office in California. It was huge, look at it the next time you are there and just try to imagine the size of his office. Let me say that this was a fascinating tour, I learned so many things and found out that there are so many things that are right in front of your face that you just don't see unless you know that they are there. We walked through the building that stores the floats and got to look at them up close and personal. We had lunch at the Harbour House and received our keys to the kingdom pins that were on a cardboard placecard that matched our nametags and then we contined along the water where the riverboat is and the Swiss Family treehouse. We went behind the scenes where the parade route starts. Then we walked along main street and found out about the names on the buildings there. WE also found out that there are huge packing lots for the cm's behind main street and they have to park there and take a bus to costuming. We were back at City Hall by 2:30. She asked if we had any more questions and I asked if there was an apartment in the castle and did Michael Jackson really stay there. She said that no, there were plans for an apartment when Walt was alive that were scrapped after his death and now there was only a small room that was used as a dressing room and that Michael had been there on tours, but had NOT stayed in the castle. So I left City hall and shopped a little. Since we had just been there last night I didn't do anymore rides. After a little while I caught the boat back to the WL and sat at the pool bar drinking a Margarita and writing postcards until Richard called me on his cell phone and told me he was back. We met in the lobby, that fabulous lobby, I could sit there all day! Then we stopped in the gift shop to pick up things that we had had sent there and bought a few more things and then went upstairs to change for dinner at Artist Pointe. We had a message from the front desk inviting us to lengthen our stay at a reduced rate, since we had to check out and check back in the next day. We actually didn't have to phyically do it, we had express check out and check in because we had added a night to our stay, but not to our package. We went to dinner, Artist Pointe is a very nice restaurant, not one that children would appreciate however, so that we were surprised to find children there. Although, I guess if the parent wanted a good meal, they had to bring the kids. Anyway, I had a glass of Chablis for a change and the shrimp risotto appetizer, yum! Richard had the Boar and polenta appetizer and we both had the mixed Grill, Elk, Ostrich and Venison. It was good, he enjoyed it more than I did, I found all of them a little tough. He likes beef more than I do and it was really close to beef. The purple tubular potatoes au gratin were wonderful, though we found all of the other vegetables slightly undercooked for our tastes. For dessert, yes we had room and we used wishes for the dinner so we had a full meal to eat! Richard had the chocolate bread pudding with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream and I had a sinful chocolate cake with white chocolate curls and raspberry sauce. Then we walked around for a while, watched some of the fireworks from Fort Wilderness and Epcot. It still astounds me that we could hear the music also.
By the way, a sensory tickle is when you are walking through the MK from land to land and the streetlights don't exactly change at the right spot or the music or the color of the sidewalk doesn't change at the right spot and you may be walking from Fantasy land into Frontier land but still be hearing the music from fantasy land. I didn't think that it was a big deal, but apparently Disney does and tries not to do it, but sometimes they miss something.

Next, "The THING"

[ 12-12-2001: Message edited by: wondcat ]

[ 05-10-2002, 11:26 PM: Message edited by: wondcat ]

[rescuesk]

Pat!
This is great!
Don't keep us hanging on the "thing" report...we want to know!!!

Sue [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Wondcat]

The PARTEE Report
or
Pat and Richard's Twenty-seventh anniversay Excursion Extrordinaire
Date:
Friday 11/30/01 to Thursday 12/6/01
Adventurers:

Pat (Wondcat) First trip in 1980-sidetrip after DH won a trip to The Pine Isle Resort in Georgia for selling life insurance, stayed offproperty. Second trip 1992, also stayed offsite. Third trip, 2000, All Star Music-all trips with kids.

Richard (Golfguy) Also on aforementioned trips.

Resort/Hotel: Wilderness Lodge (originally PO French Quarter, then CB, but I whined and got WL for only $108.00 more!

Celebration: Our 25th, 26th & 27th wedding anniversaries rolled into one-first trip without kids (the "kids" are 22 and 25 now)On our 25th anniversary Mandy was getting married and we didn't plan anything and on our 26th Alissa was getting ready to graduate from college and we didn't plan anything, we felt that we were due for a treat.

The "THING"!

We woke up at 9:00am, since we knew that we had to check in and out we wanted to get up early and check on our wishes. We hadn't used too many of them and we didn't want to lose them. Come to find out, we didn't have to check in and out and our wishes lasted throughout our stay. Since we didn't know that we stopped and asked how many we had left, 18, we had 24 to start. So we went to the Gift shop which is called the Mercantile and bought two clocks, two journals, two picture frame/pin sets and a couple of other things that I can't remember and since we haven't gotten them yet, I'm going to have to call tomorrow. It seemed that we had bought soo much stuff that there was no way that we were going to be able to carry it all home, we had 3 boxes mailed to us. We got the first box and the last box and are still waiting for the middle box. we didn't eat breakfast that day and we wanted to save enough wishes for lunch and dinner. Actually, we never eat three meals at home, but it seemed that we did most days that we were there. I guess all that walking makes you hungry and we didn't gain any weight so it worked out just fine. Since Richard hadn't been to Epcot yet, we decided to go there today. By now I had given up all hope on the 'thing' and after we went to the gift shop and had to go back to the room to pack the boxes, Richard picked up our wedding ears to pack them and said lets take them with us, maybe we can do the 'thing' today. So after taking the boxes back downstairs we decided that we would drive today, so that we could go where we wanted when we wanted. Now, where my favorite things in Epcot are the countries, Richard's are in future world, so we spent a good bit of time there playing games and doing the stuff that is available there. We had our photo taken there, the one that is posted on the BB. By then it was around noon and we were getting hungry so we headed over to the Land. The Garden Grill didn't look busy, so we went up and told the CM there that we had missed the thing on Saturday and could we do it today? She said that of course we could and we headed into the restaurant. We walked and walked past many empty tables, I can only guess that she wanted to make sure that we were seated in the area that was governed by Rick, a yet another flamboyant-Elton John sort of looking, not so young CM. After we were seated with our ears on, he came over and took our drink orders, beer for Richard, wine for me. He asked us if we wanted to 'git' re-hitched and we said yes and he said OK! But, first we had to have our lunch. Which was pretty good, we had salad, sunflower seed bread and cinnamon-honey butter, Mickey Mouse came over and kissed my hand with a real kissing sound and touched my ears and Chip and Dale kept sneaking by and acting wierd, but didn't really stop to talk with us. Then we had catfish, BBQ flanksteak, turkey with stuffing, mashed potaotes, carrots and string beans, and Mickey came over again. whew! Just when we were feeling more than full, Rick bounced over, he was a really sort of bouncey fellow, with Mickey and Chip & Dale and a couple of cm's, which we gave our camera to since we had forgotten the video camera and He said, get up! Which we did immediately and he started yelling at the top of his voice, Mr. & Mrs. Chandler, (I don't ever remember telling them our names, so they must have gotten it from the PS from Saturday, because we were shocked!) you have been living in sin for 27 years. I just wanted to crawl under the table, but I was laughing so hard, that he said "this is serious!" He then jumped up on the bench of the booth and started shouting " Mr. & Mrs. Chandler, you have been living in sin for 27 years, you are not really married until I, Rick, your Preacher, perform this fancy, spiffed up, go-to-town rehitchin ceremonie! Then he said, Mrs. do you? and Richard said I do, and Rick said are you Mrs.? and we laughed and Rick said Mrs. do you? and I said I do, and Rick said Mr. do you, and Richard said I do, and Rick said now you have to kiss for 100 seconds, so we did and we started laughing, and Rick said no laughing, this is serious, start over, so we did and after he was satisfied and had counted to 100, we stopped kissing and my ears fell off and over the railing of the spining scenes that spin around as you are eating. I started to lean over the railing to get them and he said, allow me and he leaped over the railing and picked them up. At that time another CM, whom I assume was the manager hurried over and said, what are you doing? and Rick said she dropped her wedding ears and I went to get them, so he turned around and went back to where ever he had been. So, then they let us sit back down and the characters came back and hugged us and patted our ears. Rick came back and asked us if we were ready for dessert, we said yes, expecting strawberry shortcake and they bought us a little cake with Mickey on it and congratulations!, so we took a photo of it and cut it and we each ate a piece and it was very good, they put it in box and we took it with us. I really only took it so that I could keep the thing that was on top of it with Mickey on it, but it melted and I had to throw it away. They also gave us a certificate with Mickey & Minnie dressed in their go to town, re-hitchin outfits which says:
To all them thar that reads this Mr & Mrs. Chandler had one fancy, spiff'd up go-to-town, re-hitchin ceremonie at the Garden Grill
signed by Rick, the Preacher, Mickey the Best Man and Minnie the Maid of Honor. Too funny! We then left the Garden Grill and took off our ears, Richard didn't want to wear his and mine were really too small. We headed over to the world showcase and walked around for awhile and spent more money until it was time for the parade, then we watched the parade, Richard's favorite. It had started to sprinkle a little, so after the parade we headed over to MGM.

Next So, now where did Donny & Marie have these lights?

[ 12-13-2001: Message edited by: wondcat ]

[Ursunique2001]

I love it!!! Your CM for your rehitching ceremony really did a good job. I am glad that yall finally got to do it. I know that it would have bothered you now if you had not. Thumbs up to your husband for suggesting that you take the ears with you just in case.

[maggy_1]

Pat, your rehitching sounds great, could you post the picture with the cake

Continue to wrote you make my day [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Chantal [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[Saundo]

Pat --

Thanks for a great trip report! It sounds like you made many happy memories! I'm glad you were able to have the ceremony so you're "disney-legal" not living in sin any longer [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

andrea [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[wdwlovers]

Glad to hear you finally got re-hitched! After missing it the first time [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] I love your trip report!

[Wondcat]

Hi, guys
Had to take a break from the trip report. We had a huge robbery at work on Tuesday night, thank God I was off! One of the employees came into the building after hours, unlocked the door, turned off the alarm, opened the safe, took the night deposit of almost 3,000.00, (we have always taken it to the back in the morning)locked the safe, turned on the alarm and locked the front door all in 2 minutes time, verified by the alarm company! So we have been swamped with the police and trying to find out who this is on the video tape of the parking lot. Will get back onto the report as soon as I can.
Pat

[Aerobics]

Pat,

I'm only just now getting around to reading all of the trip reports, but I just read your first installment, and I busted out laughing out loud.

Clay was the "oh-so-friendly" Guest Services CM that Spencer and I got on our last trip!!! (And, yes, he is definitely a big ol' queen--and I mean that in the nicest way possible!)

Can't wait to read the rest of your report! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[DVC_Don]

Thanks for the report. The Rehitching part sounded hilarious. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Wondcat]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The PARTEE Report
or
Pat and Richard's Twenty-seventh anniversay Excursion Extrordinaire
Date:
Friday 11/30/01 to Thursday 12/6/01

Adventurers:

Pat (Wondcat) First trip in 1980-sidetrip after DH won a trip to The Pine Isle Resort in Georgia for selling life insurance, stayed offproperty. Second trip 1992, also stayed offsite. Third trip, 2000, All Star Music-all trips with kids.

Richard (Golfguy) Also on aforementioned trips.

Resort/Hotel: Wilderness Lodge (originally PO French Quarter, then CB, but I whined and got WL for only $108.00 more!

Celebration: Our 25th, 26th & 27th wedding anniversaries rolled into one-first trip without kids (the "kids" are 22 and 25 now)On our 25th anniversary Mandy was getting married and we didn't plan anything and on our 26th Alissa was getting ready to graduate from college and we didn't plan anything, we felt that we were due for a treat.

Okay, So now, where did Donny & Marie have these lights?

The whole time that we were there, everytime we saw a 100 years of magic light up pin Richard said don't you want one of these? I kept telling him that I did, but I had a coupon for a free internet pin if I bought it at the hat in MGM. (I had actually asked about these at other pin stores and no one knew what I was talking about) I must have told him this at least four times. So after the parade at Epcot, which he LOVED! We headed over to MGM, we were driving everywhere by now, having gotten tired of waiting for boats, etc. So it was just getting dark when we got there and they closed at 7:00. You would think that with having all of these lights they would be staying open later, but NOOOO! So we went up to the Hat and I said I wanted to go in the store and DH said there is no store there, it must be nearby. So we made a circle and didn't find a pin store. There was a huge stage that had been there for the Regis filming earlier that day and they said that celebrities were coming tomorrow. DH asked someone where the pin store was and he said under the hat and I looked at Richard like he had two heads and said I told you! We went over to the pin store and I bought a pin and gave the CM my certificate and she gave me a pin with Mickey at a computer. Richard had gotten into the pin thing about this time, he bought every Tigger pin that he saw. We finished making our purchases and started out to find the Osbourne lights. I knew that they were on the backlot, but not sure how to get there, we asked someone and they told us to go to New York Street, which we did. So, here we are standing on new York street with a throng of people who were saying, what are we waiting for, where are the lights? We learned years ago not to complain about the lines or crowds.
In fact, I was in line at a store for Christmas and the man behind me was complaining loudly about waiting and I started talking to him. I mentioned that I was just glad that I wasn't in line for BTM in Disneyworld in July, he agreed and shut up.
Meanwhile, we were waiting and someone started to pass out 3-D type glasses, when you put them on and look at the lights you saw little angels playing horns around all of the lights, this kept all of us amused for a few more minutes and then it began to 'snow' on NY st. As it started to snow they moved the barriers and we were allowed to walk down the street thru the area to the back lot. As the lights came into view, and we realized the enormity of the whole thing, I heard a lady exclaim ' So, where exactly did Donny & Marie have all of these lights?(I would have been less surprised if she had said Ozzie and Sharon) WE started to laugh as did most of the people around us as someone with her quickly began to explain that it wasn't Donny and Marie Osmond, but Mr Osbourne who had the lights apparently on some large property somewhere until his neighbors started to complain about them. Evidently Disney got wind of this and offered to have the lights at MGM. If anybody knows the correct story about this, please let me know. We walked through all of the lights and we were going to have dinner at the Sci Fi drive in, but we didn't have enough time. We decided that we would do that tomorrow, so we headed back to the car and off to the Boardwalk, which we knew was still open for awhile. We drove threw the gate and told the guard that we were having dinner and he told us to park on the right. We did and walked and walked up to the Boardwalk Inn and went through and onto the Boardwalk. We went into several stores and into the lobby of the inn where we saw a bride getting ready to get married, I even took some photos of her. After all how often do you see a Bride at Disney World? We decided that we would go and spend some wishes at Spoodles for dinner. It is so nice when you have wishes that you get salad, an appetized or Tapa ( a word neither of us had ever seen before and saw frequently on this trip)an entree and soft drinks or coffee, but it is soo much food. We had some kind of little nibble things first, I had a glass of wine and he had a beer, then salad and flat bread, which was almost pizza like, then Richard had mussels, I almost said muggles, (yes, I'm still reading Harry Potter)I had shrimp and then he had rigatoni and I had the best Fetticini Alfredo with proscuitto that I have ever had in my life and couldn't do justice to it because I was so full already. I couldn't take it with me because I had nowhere to heat it. So if anybody has the receipe PLEASE give it to me. We left there and went into a few more stores, then we left there and drove through the CB resort to see what we had missed. It looked really nice, but I was very glad that I had picked the WL. Then we went 'home'. Everytime we drove through the gates, they said 'welcome home'. We realy felt like we were at home. We were just sorry that we never got the king bed. Now, if they just had waterbeds. Richard fell asleep and I sat there writing in my Passporter for awhile, I heard fireworks and went out to look at them. I decided to surprise Richard and ordered a continental breakfast for the next morning, then I went to sleep.

Next: How could I forget Walt's Birthday!?

[ 05-10-2002, 10:53 PM: Message edited by: wondcat ]

[TiggGrrrl]

I'm really enjoying your trip report Pat! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] So glad you finally got to do the "thing"! Can't wait for the next installment [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Peace, love & ºoº

[minnievoice]

I'm dissapointed in you Mom. You had off all week and you didn't write more? Get crackin'!!