"October Surprise" Trip Report - Day 4

“October Surprise” (or ICOT25 Celebration) Trip Report – Day 4

Trip Dates: October 11 – October 18
Resort: All Star Music
Transportation: Southwest Airlines, then Mears Connect to resort.

The Plan:

Friday, October 14^th: INTERCOT 25^th Celebration ‘officially’ begins. MK is the ‘park of the day’ with a few ‘meet ups’ on the schedule. This is a MNSSHP night, so the park closes at 6pm. Meet up(s) listed for Steakhouse 71 Lounge and Trader Sam’s starting at 7pm.

First morning trip to MK for this go ‘round and it is starting off to be a beautiful day. A few clouds, humidity seems to be a little lower and the temps are a bit more ‘reasonable.’ After meeting a few of my fellow INTERCOTees last night, I am looking forward to expanding the circle.

Arrived just in time for the Carousel of Progress meet and ride and I am already starting to rethink my first statement. Clouds have all but disappeared and the sun is scorching. Not ‘ungodly’ hot, but getting there. I can see a lot of ‘dark rides’ in my future (without outside queues!) Always a fun ride through the 20^th century of progress.

After leaving the CoP area, I was looking for a bite to eat, but more than just pastry/popcorn types of food. It’s around 10:30am and everything seems to wait until 11am to open up. So, I keep wandering until I find myself looking at a 40 minute Standby for Jungle Cruise. It turns out to be an hour, but most of the queue is in a covered area, so it’s not too bad. Had a very good Skipper and the cruise was over too quickly!

Would you believe that, just down the walkway, Pirates of the Caribbean has a posted 25 minute StandBy? You know I’m jumping on this. It was basically a ‘walk on’ as they were filling boats from both paths and there really was no waiting. I understand the situation, but I really wish the mist screen would come back and, if nothing else, replace the mermaid skeleton with something in that scene. It just seems a little bare to me. I could have sworn that they changed the lyrics to “A Pirates Life” on this trip, but I rode again later in the day and it must have just been my hearing that was bad!

I made my way over to Haunted Mansion and found it to have a reasonable StandBy queue, so it’s time to join the Grim Grinning Ghosts on their Happy Haunts. As far as I am concerned, Disney could create a park of nothing but Haunted Mansions (and Pirates rides) from around the world and I would be a happy camper! LOL

Every once in a while I check on facebook (and other sites) and find that I keep missing other INTERCOTees on rides that I have either just finished or just getting on. Timing is everything and mine seems to be off just a hair.

When it is time for our Buzz Lightyear meet the queue is way too long to wait and still make Trivia Time at Tortuga Tavern, so we split up and find other things to do. Early crowds in MK are heavy, but as the day moves on it does get better. People start heading out after 2pm because it is a ‘party’ night and the park closes to day guests at 6pm.

Here is where I start goofing up by not checking for changes to the schedule. I made my way over for the Dole Whip and Tiki Birds meet up and nobody is there…I figure that maybe people have already gone into the theater, so I head in. Nope! After the show, I come out and get a coconut/pineapple Dole Whip and see a group just finishing up their Dole Whips and heading in for the next show. By the time the show is over, I’ve finished and the group breaks up to get a few things in before heading to the Contemporary to start the ‘Monorail Pub Crawl’ for the evening.

I typically don’t hit the Monorail Resorts, so this is a nice way to spend the evening. Started off in Steakhouse 71 Lounge, then over to Polynesian to check out the Trader Sam’s area. No seating in or directly outside of Trader Sam’s, but we get a couple tables in front of Capt’n Cook’s, so all is good. Our final stop for the evening is at Enchanted Rose in Grand Floridian Resort. A bit more ‘upscale,’ but still a comfortable gathering place. I truly enjoyed the evening getting to know fellow INTERCOTees and relaxing.

I am quickly finding that I am not as much of an ‘outsider’ as I feared I would be. I have no idea why I was so nervous. LOL

Day 1 was a blast! Yes, I am tired and sore, and more than a little ‘fried’ by the Florida sun, but my head hit the pillow and I was out!!

Tomorrow is Animal Kingdom for Day 2 followed by the Planet Hollywood soiree.

Stay tuned for more daily reports…Sorry for going off ‘live’ reports, but I will play catch up as time allows.

I'm glad you finally caught up with the gang! And it sounded like a decent MK day ... but yes, it is always so darn hot!

You had a Magic Kingdom day. Glad you also enjoyed the Intercot festivities!!

We were there early and got on many rides first thing in the morning with little to no wait. We even managed to get on 7 Dwarfs with a 20 minute standby line from entrance to getting on the ride (We're guessing it must have gone done and we were walking by at just the right time). We were not so lucky with Peter Pan which did go down so, with all the backup from lightning lane, we were still on line there when the Carousel of Progress meetup started. I definitely wore the wrong shoes that day so we went back to our resort for a while. We did make it back to the Magic Kingdom for the trivia challenge - that was really, really hard. We did make it over to The Enchanted Rose that evening but I think we were there a bit early and folks may still have been at either the Contemporary or Polynesian.