A Day at Hollywood Studios.....Prime Time Cafe & more

During our day at the Disney Hollywood Studios we took the girls over to an area called "Animation Courtyard". Here they have a Playhouse Disney---Live On Stage! show. It is a great little 22 minute show featuring characters from the Playhouse Disney TV shows. The only problem for me is that you all have to sit on the floor. Not real comfortable and hard to get back up with old, creaky knees! But....Grandma's and Papa's go along, as we always try to do. Here are Mackenzie and Zoey just before the show began.When the show was over, we went outside to a "character meet & greet" area. Disney has found new ways to make it easier for the kids to have an opportunity to get an autograph and photo taken with some of their favorites. Of course, that doesn't mean you can avoid waiting in another interminable line, but what are you gonna do? Here are the girls with June (who she is, I have no clue) and the girls were very excited about seeing her.

Now this guy I know. This is Handy Manny and I have seen his tv show with Zoey many times. He is a great guy and Zoey loves him.

On our way over to the restaurant for lunch, Mackenzie wants to push the stroller.

We chose one of our favorite restaurants for lunch today. It is the 50's Prime Time Cafe. The restaurant is designed with several kitchens for the dining guests. The kitchens are all done up exactly like typical family home kitchens from....what else? the 50's. Here is the revolving sign out front to show you the way. The waiting area is decorated like typical home living rooms with all of the retro furniture included....including a contour rocker.

This is one section of the "kitchen" we ate lunch in. There are several television sets around the room that play portions of old 50's and 60's comedy shows like: I Married Joan, Dennis the Menace, The Real McCoy's, and so forth. I recognized several of the knick-knacks around the room from things that were once in my own family's home.

The wait staff here all play roles, too. They are great characters and sometimes act like your Moms by telling you to eat your vegetables and KEEP YOUR ELBOWS OFF THE TABLE. This is our waitress, Auntie Em. She was very nice. They all call you "kids" here. They'll come up to the table and say, "Hello, kids. What will you be having for lunch today?" On a previous trip to this restaurant a lady nearby did not eat her green beans. The waitress made her go stand in the corner. The lady was great and played right along with the whole gag. It was a lot of fun. The food is great too. Home cookin' here like: Chicken Pot Pie, Meat Loaf, Pot Roast and so on. The desserts are to die for also.

This is another kitchen designed room where other "kids" sat to eat their lunch.

Here is Papa with Mackenzie, coloring on the menus provided while we waited for our food. I don't think the girls really understood the whole concept of this restaurant, but we loved it.

After we finished with dessert (remember Kids...clean plates), we went over to the Little Mermaid show for the girls. I was looking forward to that one. Not only is the show cute and innovative....it has AIR CONDITIONING!

Bye for now...more later!

A Day at Hollywood Studios - Aerosmith Rockin' Roller Coaster

We went over to Disney's Hollywood Studios for the first time with the kids. We planned to stay for as long as we could hold out with the intense heat and humidity. One of the landmarks for the studios is this "Earful Tower". I got a poor shot of it, but it was all I could manage at the time. The majority of our group wanted to head straight over to the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, starring Aerosmith, which is in the Sunset Boulevard section of the park. So, we made a quick walk over there before the line was too long. Zoey decided she wasn't about to ride on anything like that, and I stayed out with her. It wasn't much of a sacrifice....I've never wanted to go on it. Here are the other daredevils about to enter the inside waiting area. Even Mackenzie was eager to go on this fast ride.


This is the outside of the roller coaster ride with this huge electric guitar out front.

Zoey and I realized after 10 minutes waiting in the heat, that we could go into the gift shop where the ride has the exit. Once we got in there we found that blissful air conditioning welcoming us. I got a photo of the limousine style cars that the riders are strapped into.

Here comes the rest of our group, just off their own limousine. They don't look any the worse for wear to me. The ride is totally contained indoors and in semi-darkness. Not only do the riders go upside down, they endure one corkscrew turn as well. NO THANKS.

Also located in this Sunset Boulevard section of the park is the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. This ride will drop you 13 stories in a sort of free-fall. Oh yippee. Nobody in our group was willing to take that "fun ride". So, we moved on to another section of the park.

Small World Vacations...the way to go!

Here we are at dinner the first night the kids arrived. We are sending a big THANK YOU to our travel agent, Terri Amundson.

Well, the kid are off and running with a great start to their vacation. Here is the point where I have to give credit to "Small World Vacations", which is the travel agency we used to plan everything. I found a recommendation for them on an online newsletter I get monthly, Mousesavers.com.

Although we've never used a travel agent for previous trips to WDW, I thought I would give it a try this time. I contacted Small World via the internet and they connected me with our own personal agent, Terri Amundson. Terri actually works from the Minneapolis/St. Paul area so everything we did was over e-mails or direct phone conversations. It worked beautifully!

We began planning about 15 months prior to the beginning of our trip, which is a little early but we had "big plans". First of all, Bruce and I needed to be booked into the Fort Wilderness Campground for 25 nights...with a Premium campsite in a dog loop....complete with Disney Dining Plan. OK..done! Then we needed to find the kids a room at the Contemporary Hotel. We didn't want to pay the price of a room in the tower section so Terri needed to get us a room for them in the Garden Wing for 14 nights. OK...done, with an Annual Pass discount plus Disney Dining Plan. Next she helped us secure dining reservations at some of the most popular restaurants here at WDW. OK...done!

There was plenty of e-mail communication and Terri always informed us on details along the way. She even contacted us by e-mail once we arrived to make sure that everything was as we had planned. Terrific service.

If anyone of you reading this message want to plan a Disney vacation of any kind, I suggest you send Terri Amundson an e-mail and get something going. Small World Vacations specializes in everything "Disney" so they can probably plan a Disney cruise for you or a trip to Disneyland in Paris is you so desire. Our motorhome cannot drive to Paris, France so Disney World and Disneyland in Anaheim will have to be enough for us.

Terri Amundson: terriwdwtravel@mchsi.com

Small World Vacations: http://www.smallworldvacations.com/

Well, I have to close this message out now as we're heading off to "Japan" for dinner tonight.

Until next time.....Bye for now!

They're Here! They're Here!

The big day finally got here and our family arrived safely. They tried out the "red eye" nonstop flight from Seattle to Orlando. The Alaska Airlines flight left Seattle at 10:55 pm and they arrived in Orlando around 7:00 am (Eastern time). They had tried to get some sleep on the plane, but as anyone who travels by air these days knows, that is almost impossible.

Anyway, here they come getting off the Disney Magical Express bus which delivered them to the Contemporary Hotel. Zoey and Mackenzie are first off the bus. There were no other passengers on this trip, so they actually had that entire bus all to themselves! Like a giant limo just for them. Our daughter, Stephanie, and son-in-law, Darin were next off. Even though they were looking a bit bedraggled, they were happy to see us.

Checking in at the front desk was a breeze as Stephanie had done an online pre-check in a few days ago at home. It was early in the morning and the room wasn't ready yet, but their bags were held for them.

The girls found some Disney cartoons playing on a TV in the lobby, so they waited there while the grown-ups finalized the check-in process.

After a quick breakfast bagel for them, we went off to the Magic Kingdom to purchase their park tickets. We got those and then went into the park for a couple of hours. I took a photo of my special girls, Mackenzie and Zoey.

Our Pacific Northwest family isn't acclimated to the intense Florida heat yet, so we didn't stay at the Magic Kingdom very long today. Besides, they are all wiped out after the long flight and need some rest and maybe a swim in the hotel pool. Here is the room we got for them in the Garden Wing of the Contemporary Hotel.

SPECIAL TIP: I can't claim credit for this idea (I read it somewhere) but I thought it was a great one! When taking children to places where there will be a lot of people and/or confusion it is a good idea for parents or grandparents to take a quick full-length photo of the kids each morning before setting off. This way, should the kids get lost or separated from you for any reason, you will have a perfect photo of them in your camera or in your camera phone. In your panic to find them you won't have to try and remember every detail of what they were wearing, etc. You'll have an exact picture to show authorities of how your precious kids were dressed and the search for them can begin immediately. Then the next day, delete the old photo and take a new one of how they look then.