June 99 - Day 1

Thursday, June 24, 1999 - Trip down

Cast of characters: Sandy (44), Judy (45), Seth (17), Sara (14), Elana (11)

The vacation started off on the wrong foot, so to speak. I fell in the middle of the previous night and turned my foot awkwardly. It was hurting enough in the morning, that we decided that as a precaution, we would go to the emergency room and get it x-rayed. Even though they turned out negative, the Physician’s Assistant who took care of me said it was a bad sprain, wrapped and gave me crutches, telling me to keep pressure off of it. Not a good thought considering we were going to the walking capital of the world.

We like to leave the night before the auto-train departure, to avoid any traffic going down in the morning and to be able to relax the morning of the train. We ate a late lunch/early dinner to avoid the necessity of stopping along the way and hit the road at 5:15. We made one stop for gas off of Exit 7 of the New Jersey Turnpike, where we cut over to I-295. There’s a Mobil there that I find consistently the cheapest anywhere. Around the corner is a truck stop, where we had some TCBY before continuing on. Despite concerns about rush hour traffic, we hit nothing to speak of and made it to Lorton, VA at 10:30. We checked into the Comfort Inn around the corner from the Amtrak station. It offers reduced rates to passengers, making it a pretty good deal.

Friday, June 25, 1999 - Trip down

We woke up at around 8:00, showered and had breakfast in the hotel. Like many hotels of its ilk, the Comfort Inn offers a continental breakfast as part of its rate. We got to the station at 11:30, a half hour before the official check in time. We like to check in early to get the seats we want, the last ones in the rear of the car. We like them, because there’s plenty of room on the floor behind those seats and the girls can spread out some blankets to sleep on. Judy was second on line and got what we wanted, plus a fifth seat for Seth in front of ours. The ticket agent always tries to keep the adjoining seat free if the train isn’t full, which gives us extra room.

Once we checked in, we drove down I-95 to the Potomac Mills mall. We noticed the northbound traffic was bumper to bumper, so we made a conscious decision to leave enough time to get back. We were hungry by this point and had lunch at an Olive Garden on the ring road around the mall. Yesterday was Seth’s 17^th birthday and he had some birthday money to spend. He wanted a CD player, so we found a Best Buy store and not only got one for him, but I indulged myself as well. Plus I bought a Beach Boys CD, Friends.

We headed back to Lorton and wouldn’t you know it, all the traffic was southbound this time. We got to the station at 2:00 and boarded 30 minutes later. The train departed on time. It was about half full.. I didn’t catch how many passengers, but there were 152 automobiles, much less than when we went down in December. The seat next to Seth remained empty and Elana camped out behind us, making a tent with some of the blankets. We had dinner at the 5:00PM dinner seating, which is the first of three. After dinner, Judy and the kids went to the lounge car to watch the feature movie, which was My favorite Martian. I went back to our seats and read.

Saturday, June 26, 1999 - Day 1

I slept well for a change, only waking up once during the night. I woke up for good at 6:00. The curtains on the train don’t fully cover the windows, so once that sun comes up, it’s hard to stay asleep. I woke everyone else up at 7:00 and we went to the dining car for breakfast. The train pulled into Sanford on time, at 9:30. We had our car by 10:15 and got on the road. I had taken to wearing Seth’s sandals, since I couldn’t get my sneakers on, so we stopped at the Seminole Town Center on the way to I-4 and found a Just For Feet and picked up a pair of Timberline sandals with Velcro fasteners for $49. Going west on I-4, we hit one back up, due to a rather nasty looking accident on the eastbound side. After that, it was clear sailing into Orlando. We arrived at Coronado Springs at exactly noon. Check in was quick. We got room 2322 in the Casitas section. Before going to the room, we had lunch in the Pepper Market. I had the rotisserie chicken, the girls had the kids pizza and Judy and Seth and the calzones, which, for my money, are the best deal there. They’re huge, even by New York standards and quite good.

We got settled into our room and went down to the main pool for a swim. This is now the third themed pool we’ve enjoyed, and I still like Stormalong Bay the Best, with the Luna Pool second. Everyone had fun with the slide, even Judy. I stayed off of it, for fear of hitting my foot. The one complaint I have is there’s not much shade around the pool, but we found a table next to Siesta’s Pool Bar that we settled under.

After showering, we decided to make our first park visit to EPCOT. Since the bus stop wasn’t that close, we drove there. When we got there, Judy asked if we should take the ponchos and I told her not to bother, since the sky looked clear and it was already late. Big mistake.

The first thing you notice as you enter the park is everything from the gates to Spaceship Earth is walled off. I asked a CM about it and he told me it was in preparation for the Millennium celebration that will begin October 1. They are building something he called the Millennium Wall, although I’ve seen it in the literature we got in the mail as Leave a Legacy. The idea is that guests could have pictures etched into the wall as a commemorative, a lot like the Walk Around The World bricks, although he said to the price for this would be less and more affordable. One thing the walls do for the entrance is make it looks a lot smaller and as we found out later on in the week, when we left after Illuminations, creates a bottleneck upon leaving.

Spaceship Earth is one of Elana’s favorites (and mine too) and we always ride it if there is no line. There wasn’t one now, so we got on. Every time we ride Spaceship Earth we notice something different, either cause there was a change or we just hadn’t noticed it before. As you make the first incline towards the audio-animatronic scenes of the progression of communication, there are movies clips on the wall at the top of the incline that none of us remember being there before. Does anyone else remember this?

It was getting towards dinner time, but lunch has satisfied us enough that since we had no definite plans, we went to the Land and ate at the Sunshine Seasons Food Fair. We rode the Land Ride and when we got out, it was pouring outside (remember those ponchos?) We went in to see the Circle Of Life and it was still pouring when it was over. So, to kill some more time, we had ice cream and frozen yogurt for dessert. It was now 8:30 and it was still raining and we couldn’t find any more excuses to stay indoors. We decided to buy a Mickey poncho for Seth and send him to the car for the rest of our ponchos. He made it back in 15 minutes (which I was thought was pretty darn good) and he was soaked (17 year-old boys don’t wear hoods J ), including his sneakers. It’s fortunate that he had the sandals, since it took two days for those sneakers to dry out and that with the help of the dryers at OKW. A recommendation for anyone traveling to WDW during the rainy season is to bring a second pair of foot wear, it’s a must.

On the way out, we walked through Innoventions right by the IBM exhibit, so we sent off some postcards to family. Then we drove back to Coronado Springs and turned in for the night. Seth had trouble blowing up the air mattress and we found out it had a slow leak. That’ll teach us to check it out before leaving.