Ian's INTERCOT 10th Anniversary Bash Trip Report - Day One - It Begins
My flight left at 7AM from Philly to Orlando, so I was at the airport by 5AM. My flight was on time and totally uneventful (the best kind!) and even landed a few minutes early. Gotta love Southwest! :thumbsup:
Emily was picking me up from MCO, so I called her when I got on the ground. She was inbound, so I grabbed a quick snack at McDonald's, walked down outside of baggage claim, and she literally pulled up the second I walked out the door. Talk about good timing!
Things were off to a great start ...
I wanted to head to Saratoga and check in before heading out to the parks, so we got there around 10:30 or so, checked in pretty smoothly, and went up to the room. While I was there unpacking, John called. He was on his way over to SSR from MK, where he had attended the morning trivia meet, so we agreed to wait for him to arrive before going out to the parks.
It didn't take too long before John called back ... he was at the front desk trying to check in, but his room was going to be all the way across the resort from ours. No good. After some wrangling, though, he ended up being issued a room in our building. The catch was it wasn't ready yet, so he came up to my and Gary's room, dropped off his bags, and we headed over to MK for a bit. We really just wanted to get some food before the Tambu Lounge meet at 4PM. After I picked up my new AP, we walked over to Cosmic Ray's and dined on the classic Disney meal of burgers and fries. Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!
Things started to unravel a bit at this point ... Gary called and he was on his way to SSR from the airport. Originally, we told him to just get his key, drop off his bags, and head over to MK. Problem was, John had his park admission. And his park admission was in John's bags in the car back at the hotel. Also, John needed to pick up some "swag" from his car to give out at the MNSSHP party, so we decided it was best to just head back to the resort.
We went back to SSR for a bit, picked up our new INTERCOT gear, picked up a Gary, relaxed a little, and then headed to the Poly for our Tambu Lounge meet.
I was pleasantly surprised to see how many people were there!! We had a great turnout and a great time. I got to put lots of faces with some very familiar usernames, which is always great. We hung around for a good hour or so (despite the best efforts of the cast member who kept trying to kick us out!). Not to mention that Frankie showed up, which is always good!
Another high point for me was getting to meet all of the Magical Journeys folks!! It was really great to FINALLY be able to put a face to Karen's name ... she's helped make so much magic for my family that I really enjoyed getting to hang out with her and the rest of the MJT gang for a bit!
Some folks had ressies at Liberty Tree Tavern before MNSSHP, so they slowly filtered over to Magic Kingdom. Gary, Em, and I actually had a ressie at like 4:15, but we were having so much fun that we canceled it and ended up eating at Kona Cafe with Frankie and Christine. We had a great meal there. Christine just had light fare, since she and her sister were eating at Wolfgang Puck's later that night. The rest of us split between the steak teryaki and the pork and everyone had nothing but positive things to say about their meal.
We finished up and then monorailed it over to Magic Kingdom for MNSSHP. We got our wristbands, picked up our trick or treat bags, and headed in to party with Mickey. We met in the Tomorrowland Terrace and decided to go check out a show of the Laugh Floor Comedy Club. Fortunately for John, he was not deemed to be "THAT GUY"!! ;)
When we got out, a few of us were very eager to go ride the new Haunted Mansion, so we bolted up to Liberty Square to try and squeeze a ride in before our IASW ride through. Luckily, we caught HM during the first parade and there was virtually no line.
All I can say about the updates is ................... WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! They did an incredible job with this refresh. I mean the entire thing from start to finish is just awesome. The audio is great, the scenery is great, the new additions were FABULOUS, and even the existing stuff looks and sounds great again. Our entire party was just totally and completely impressed. Kudos to the Imagineers on this one!!
After we rode through, we hustled over to IASW and met up with our fellow Doll Warriors. We were big enough that we took up an entire boat and even had a few folks left behind in a second boat (sorry John and Carol!). I can't give out too many details on how the battle went, but let me just say that all of our soliders returned home safely. ;)
We wrapped up the night with a great viewing spot for Happy Hallowishes near the Castle. Some of us took a quick spin on the TTA and then we headed up to Frontierland to meet the whole crew for the parade. When that ended, we were so darn pooped, that we just hightailed it back to SSR for some much needed sleep.
We knew we needed to be up bright and early for the Soarin' meet at Epcot and we didn't want to risk missing any of the fun!!
