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My 6 month long "business trip" concluded in Tampa earlier this month. I'm back in Hawaii and get re-settled in. But my time in Florida was too great to express in words. Of course the highlight of this was my purchase of a WDW AP and getting to the resort about 2-3 times per week (excluding the month of March when all my free time was spent driving around Florida going to all the baseball spring training games). As a native Californian who has been a DL AP holder and a former DL CM, and now getting to spend so much time at WDW I believe I can now look at both properties with a balanced view. So here now is a brief report of my expierences, observations and conclusions about WDW.
The first thing I learned I had to get over was the history factor. Disneyland, for those who are at least aware of it, is steep in Walt Disney (the man) history. WDW on the other hand has a much more "corporate/post-Walt" feel. Once I got over the fact that what I was looking at mostly came from the Walt Disney company after Walt died, I was able to enjoy the park more.
Certain things always seemed to annoy the living crap out of me. Things like the constant announcements on the monorail by whoever does the overly happy voice. Or conductors on the parking trams who feel they need to shout into the speaker the WHOLE time from vehicle to the gate or vice versa. I would quickly grow weary of the Magic Kingdom because of the constant barrage of Princesses and Pirates. It is because of things like that the common population will find one odd because he/she likes Disney. Someone really needs to explain to the execs of the company that Disney is not all about Princesses and castles. That's why there is a Fantasyland which only makes up a fraction of the rest of the park.
Of course there is the two big eye sores (the wand at Epcot and the hat at MGM). These two things serve no real purpose and having seen the parks before they were added (back in the summer of '98) I quickly grew to despise them.
Finally in the area of complaints are two things that I really loved that have now been removed. First was the pizza place that has now been transformed into the Noodle station. To me, the pizza there used to be very good. I was deeply saddened to find that this had been replaced by a resturaunt that was hardly ever open. Second is the replacement of what was my favorite attraction, Alien Encounter to the now very pathetic Stitch's Escape. Just the thought of it burns me up.
But enough with the negative, let's talk about the more positive experiences. To start off with, it was a great pleasure to meet Kevin Yee and his brother. A few years ago when I first found MiceAge I never thought I would eventually meet both Al and Kevin.
It was great to ride the Peoplemover again...granted, they're designed differently and there is no Tron tunnel, but it is nice to ride a nice relaxing ride going through the buildings in Tomorrowland. Mission Space was a wonderful ride. I would love to ride it after hours and just leave the spinning on to see how much I could take. I could never seem to get enough of it. Rockin' Roller Coaster was very fun, but just seemed a little too short. Mt. Everest was great, and turned out to be my wife's favorite as well. Wonderful theming all around.
Le Celliar (sp?), Alfredo's, and the French resturaunt turned out to be our favorite places to eat....ESPECIALLY Alfredo's. It made us sad to learn that Alfredo's will be leaving.
Overall I had a wonderful time and I will be missing it. Who knows when I will return, and what changes will be made. Hopefully Spaceship Earth will be back to it's original look.
Originally Posted by CA_Man_In_HI 
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