Working trip in Disney

After the enjoyable trip we had last July and my first attempt at working from Disney World, we returned again to give it a whirl with some extra knowledge on how to do it even better. The biggest two differences this year are we are staying in a 1 bedroom verses a Studio last year, and we are staying at Bay Lake Towers at the Contemporary verses Saratoga Springs last year. Don’t get me wrong, we really enjoyed last year, but Kriss and Kellie pretty much stayed at the resort or walked over to Downtown Disney last year. This year being at the Contemporary opens up a lot more possibilities for them since they don’t like to take the bus or drive in Disney without me so while I work, they can hit the pool, walk to Magic Kingdom, or take a monorail EPCOT. Also staying in a Studio last year put me at the foot of the bed working while they were still asleep in the morning or getting ready, now they can go to the living room or kitchen and I can shut the door if I need quiet. This year we also decided to stay in one place the whole time, last year we hopped from moderate resorts on weekends to a DVC resort do the week, and back to a moderate again for the last weekend.We left home Saturday, later than usual but in no hurry with 8 days ahead of us, and got checked in to our room on arrival at 2:00, not even a line at check-in although there was one person at the online check-in desk so again, online would have slowed things down more. Our room was on the second floor, wish it was higher, but we had a nice view of Bay Lake, the Contemporary, and the marina. Pretty much everything is great with only a few minor things. The Contemporary is one of Disney’s original resorts from the 70′s, and the idea was that it would be the 1950′s view of what the “future” would look like complete with flying cars, futuristic styling, and maybe even a robot maid named Rosie. With all of the “Contemporary” styling features though, it’s very hard to move around quietly in the morning without waking someone, bathroom doors are on tracks and make rolling noises for instance. There is also no lock on the bedroom or bathroom doors, my oldest daughter would flip out staying here. Apparently there will be no soap in the future either, maybe George Jetson uses something else, because there are no soap dishes in an otherwise awesome shower, with 2 shower heads, so the soap either sticks to the tiled shower seat, or in our case we took the soap dish from the sink and put in the shower, but it holds water so you have to remember to dump it out when you’re done or end up with mushy soap the next day.

Saturday, arrival day, we took Kellie for a cool off swim and then walked over to Magic Kingdom and enjoyed a relaxing evening in the park with no plans. We had a nice dinner at Tony’s Town Square, yeah yeah, I know it’s about as close to Italian as an Olive Garden, before hitting some of Kellie’s favorite rides like the Tea Cups, Tomorrowland Speedway with only a 20 minute wait, and Winnie the Pooh. We were headed towards Peter Pan when Kellie mentioned Dumbo, and wanting to shoot pics of the fireworks, or making a feeble attempt at it at least, I thought maybe they could ride while I set up and took some shots, but the line was very short so I decided to ride too. One of the dreams of every Disney fanatic is to be riding Dumbo during the fireworks, and Saturday night July 17, 2010, that happened for us. I really wish I had been better prepared camera wise but enjoyed the time on the ride anyway with fireworks going on both sides of us, castle and behind Fantasyland. The ride ended and we quickly got off at the ramp nearest Snow White and no one was paying attention so I stopped near the bottom of the ramp where the hand rail is that has a nice bevel on it, and set my camera on it, voila, instant tripod! I got some great shots, by my amateur standards, for an off the cuff setup, but had already vowed that one night we would walk over with the tripod and setup early with the sole purpose of taking pics so I’m pleased with what I learned and produced on this first occasion including a pretty good shot of the Mickey head fireworks.

Sunday we slept in a little and missed rope drop but headed to Hollywood Studios around 11:00AM and grabbed lunch at the Sci-Fi Dine In, we literally walked in and they sat us 3 minutes later, the crowds were very low for July to me. We hit a few rides including standby for an hour for Toy Story Midway Mania, before heading over to EPCOT. My sole purpose was to go see the return of Captain EO since it is only back for a limited time and I remember my granddad suffering through watching Michael Jackson 20+ years ago with me. We missed seeing Off Kilter and it was over an hour til the next show so Kellie said she was hungry and had been trying to get us to take her for sushi, yes that’s my 7 year old begging for sushi, so we went to Tokyo Dining for dinner after running in to Aurora, Sleeping Beauty and having a quick dance with her. We were again seated immediately without reservations, and got a nice seat between the main window and the kitchen. The wait staff there is EXCELLENT, some of the best service on Disney property, and then one of the managers came over to ask how we were doing when we noticed he was from Savannah. He then told us about four of the girls he had sent to Savannah for a getaway weekend and some of the places he recommended them to go, it was funny picturing these four drunk Japanese girls going to Lady & Sons and playing golf like he described. It also rained so hard while we were there we couldn’t see across World Showcase.

After dinner, and after the rain stopped, we went back to the resort and met with one of our local Disney freak friends, Amanda Tinney of DisneyEveryDay.com. She brought two Twitter friends to see our room at Bay Lake Tower and the Top of the World Lounge, Aurora (@roraboriealice,) and Debbie (@dcanoli,) two true Disney freaks. We went to the Top of the World lounge thinking we were going to see the fireworks at Magic Kingdom but this Sunday night was apparently the only night this month that fireworks were at 9:00 so we missed them. After they had to go track down kids so Kriss, Kellie, and I walked to Magic Kingdom since it was an Extra Magic Hours night and rode a few more rides until after midnight and then headed back to the room since I had to work the next morning.

Monday was my first working day of the trip so while I was holed up in the room, Kriss and Kellie went to the pool. I met them for lunch at the Contempo Cafe. I also watched/listened to the Tour de France through my Slingbox at home since Disney doesn’t have Versus. They came back late afternoon and got showered to go to the Boardwalk so we could try Kouzzina, Cat Cora’s new place where Spoodles used to be. We were early and got right in. I wish I’d have had a better experience so I may wait on saying too much until I go back and try again. Our waiter I could have done without all together, he brought my daughter the wrong meal all together, and my meal was nothing to write home about, I really miss Spoodle’s paella even if it was a little pricey. After dinner we went to Downtown Disney for some free chocolate at Ghirardelli’s, a little shopping, carousel ride, some pictures, and back to the room before 11:00.

Tuesday was pretty much like Monday for work, Tour de France, and Contempo Cafe while the girls hung out. That night we went to House of Blues at Downtown Disney which is becoming one of our new mainstays for dinner. We were back at the Contemporary before 8:00 so we could go up on the rooftop for pictures of the fireworks and visit the Top of the World Lounge. Unfortunately, even though I got up there in plenty of time to set up the tripod, do some test shots for composition and light checks as the sun went down, someone at Disney had the bright idea to set up a large work light in the parking lot between Bay Lake Tower and Space Mountain, pointed back toward us ruining most any chance of my getting any good fireworks shots. None of the cast members up there had a clue why it was there, how long it had been there, or seemed willing to make a phone call to find out about it. It was extremely bright and basically rendered the entire rooftop useless for fireworks photography. I moved from where I was to the far end to try and move it as far away from me as possible and zoomed in enough to get it completely out of the shot, re-leveled the tripod, etc and did my best with what I had.

Wednesday, another repeat of the previous days but fortunately my last day of work for the week and it went by fast even though I worked through lunch and made a sandwich in the room so I could knock off early. That evening we had made plans to do something we had never done before after 8 years of being Disney Vacation Club (DVC) members and attend one of the Welcome Home Wednesdays at the Atlantic Dance Hall on the Boardwalk. It is a definite must see for any member that hasn’t yet, but not likely something you’ll want to do every trip, but they had a little snack, played some games with a chance to win some DVC prizes, and an hour of entertainment with some cool Disney facts. We were still hungry leaving there at 5:00 so we went somewhere I probably wouldn’t have any other time and that’s the Big River Grille & Brewing Works. We’ve eaten there a few times and I have never enjoyed it, I even tweeted that it was their last chance, and I got a fish sandwich this time instead of the burger and it was out of this world, I will keep them on my list a little while longer. We had to hurry back to the Contemporary because we had scheduled to attend the DVC Aulani presentation and party, this is the new resort Disney is building in Hawaii. We had attended the one the previous July for bay Lake Towers and had a great time dancing with Mickey but this presentation was quite the spectacle as last year’s but we still had fun but left after a few pics with Mickey and Kellie danced a little. We met Amanda Tinney and her husband that night at Top of the World Lounge to chill for the evening and hopefully get some better shots of the fireworks, which I did since the light was gone. After fireworks we just hung out in the lounge with them and had a very enjoyable evening finally with these guys without being rushed to do something else.

Thursday, my first non-working weekday, we went to Hollywood Studios. Even though we didn’t make rope drop we got some “decent” fastpasses for Toy Story Mania and stood in a 30 minute Tower of Terror line. While I was getting the Toy Story fastpasses Kriss got us a reservation at 50′s Prime Time Cafe which was great as always except for a screaming kid that needed his “fanny fanned” as my grandmother used to say although I think the parents needed it equally as much for forcing the entire restaurant to endure him for nearly an hour. A few rides later, including our last ride on  Star Tours Last Tour to Endor before it closes and gets refurbed/updated, and it was time for our Toy Story fastpass and then we went back for a dip in the pool to cool down. After a shower we rode the monorail to EPCOT to see if we could get back in to Tokyo Dining, Kellie wanted sushi again, which was again successful, we had wonderful luck getting in to great places with no ADR’s. A few EMH rides and we headed back to the room by midnight.

Friday we again overslept for rope drop so we went to Downtown Disney to eat at the Rainforest, we usually eat there and I can’t believe we hadn’t in the first 6 days of this trip. After lunch we went to Animal Kingdom to do Expedition Everest. I know, I know, you’re thinking I’m crazy for saying we went to AK after lunch to ride EE but this is one of the biggest secrets in Disney, so don’t tell anyone. Kellie, DD7, won’t ride it so we would baby swap anyway, so we go to the mostly hidden single rider line where there are usually no more than 5-20 people there and you can zip on almost as fast as if you had a fastpass, as long as you don’t mind riding with someone you don’t know. We also lucked up and walked in to the Finding Nemo musical without standing in line at all and got a great seat. Then Kriss and I decided to try something that we weren’t sure about, get Kellie on to Kali River Rapids for the first time, we were successful and she loved it, we may have created a monster though because she now wants to ride it over and over. We headed over to Kilamanjaro Safaris even though everyone says to go first thing in the morning, but the standby time posted was 5 minutes and we never stopped walking until we got to the trucks and practically walked right on. There were so few people riding on this Friday afternoon that the guide would actually stop the truck and let us take pictures and talk a little more about the animals, probably one of our top 3 experiences on this ride if not number 1, he was an excellent guide. Being a little last after showering we decided to venture off property for our Friday night meal and ended up at Hooters right outside Downtown Disney. We hung out just a bit there and then went back to the Contemporary and walked over to Magic Kingdom for a late night, we were eating ice cream on Main St at midnight and didn’t get back to the room until after 1:00AM after seeing the fireworks from the park for the first time this week, and doing a few of the rides that we’ve come to enjoy at night and take some cool smear pictures, I had fun with the camera this night for sure.

Even though we had stayed up late, we actually discussed not going to bed at all because we had heard about a special Sizzling Summer Appreciation Sale at World of Disney that was open only to Passholders and DVC at 6:00AM. We got out of the room at 5:41, a little later than I’d hoped, but we got there in time to get in the line that was backed up to T-Rex and still got the “special gift” available to the first 1000 guests in the door. Let me tell you, I don’t care how big of a Disney freak you are, this is NOT worth coming to if they told you they were giving out $10 bills to the first 1000 people. There was pretty much nothing on “sale” at all, everything was just as it was he day before, with the exception of a hand full of items that look like leftovers of items that no one would buy anyway, it was basically the crap that nobody would pay retail price for from the first half of the year, I mean garbage. The “special gift” that we had hoped would be a cool pin, ended up being a 4-pack of plastic Disney Cruise Line cups that were marked at $15, and they too were crap that I wouldn’t have paid $3.00 for, much less the fact that they were CRUISE cups that had no business at the parks, they probably had no room on the boat for it and since nobody bought them, sent them to Orlando. Definitely not worthy of a 4hour sleep night and standing in line for at all.

Next we headed to Animal Kingdom which wasn’t open yet, the toll plaza wasn’t even open at this time, and we were the 2nd car there and first in line to go through in our lane, I can’t believe we finally made a rope drop on our last park day on an 8 day trip, it was an Extra Magic Hour morning. I went straight to Expedition Everest and got fastpasses and the standby line was so short I jumped in and rode immediately before Kriss and Kellie got there.  Next I grabbed fastpasses for Kali River Rapids since Kellie was dying to get back on again and we rode it standby right then since it opened later, it’s not an EMH ride. Kilamanjaro safari was again a 5 minute wait at 9:30AM so we did it again too, this time during the “recommended time” in the morning. We did Expedition Everest again many times, I lost count, and the single rider line was shorter than the fastpass line so we didn’t even use the fastpasses and ended up giving them away later to someone walking that way. One last Kali River ride and we were hungry and went to Pizzafari, our “standard” restaurant at Animal Kingdom but I think it needs to change just for the sake of change, I still like their pizzas but need to try something else in this park. We went back to the room after lunch, I took a quick nap and Kriss took Kellie to the pool to chill after the last night/early morning. We had made a Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique appointment for our little princess Kellie to get made up and for the first time did it at Cinderella’s Castle instead of the one at World of Disney. It’s cool to finally do it in the castle but there is just no room there for people waiting, that’s the only bad thing about it. Kellie chose to be transformed into Jasmine, which she had wanted to do on a previous visit but we did Cinderella instead that time. Then we spent the rest of the evening at Magic Kingdom, which was our last night, took some great pics of my beautiful princess around the castle, rode all of our favorite night rides again, saw Main Street Electrical Parade, and finally set up the tripod, that I had been toting through the park all afternoon, in front of the Crystal Palace in a great spot for fireworks shots. By now Kriss and Kellie were pretty worn out after the short night/early morning “shopping” so they decided to beat the crowd out by waiting for most of the people that would have left after MSEP but before the fireworks started, probably about 10 minutes before they went off. Unfortunately this left me guarding my tripod position alone as the crowd started closing in around me but I tried to look as menacing as possible after I got it leveled, lined up, test shots, etc. After I waited for a little space around me to open up, packed up my gear in my backpack, and trekked straight back to the room where Kriss had pretty much packed up everything for departure day, and my wide awake 7 year old sitting up watching what had to be a week long Hannah Montana marathon this week.

Sunday we packed up the car pretty quickly thanks to my wife pretty much doing everything the night before, and were on the road before 10:00 after a quick stop at McDonald’s. Yet another successful trip to the Happiest Place on Earth, I’m already trying to think of how to do this trip again next year but different. Be sure to follow me on Twitter, I tweet a lot from the parks on our trip, I’m @mb168