Guest Column
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After dinner we made our way on the balcony just off the main lobby and watched as giraffes came right up to us for their evening dinner. Then after enjoying the wildlife we made or way over to the Magic Kingdom to experience an E-Ride night. These are nights that are only available to you if you are staying on park property. For a few dollars more you can spend three hours in the park after it closes and experience a limited number of attractions. But, all the major ones are open. The ticket sales for this event are limited, so in a sense it is like have the park to yourself. This particular night activities went from 10pm to 1am so by the time we got back to the resort it was 2am and we had been up for nearly 24 hours. But, who could be tired with all that Disney Magic around you? (Two Disney tips for the Magic Kingdom- if you stay until the park closes make sure you stick around and watch the castle's light show at the end of the night. And, if you watch the “Wishes�? fireworks show do it from right in front of Casey’s on Main Street.)
The next day the friends we came with went to a pin trading event located at the hotel giving my girlfriend and me the day to ourselves. Before heading out I met up with our friends at the event and had the pleasure of meeting Alex Maher. Alex is a Disney animator and pin designer. That was a cool experience. After a relaxing breakfast we made our way over to the Pop Century resort and walked around the lobby and pool area. This is a very cool resort if you have kids with you. We then made our way over to the Grand Floridian resort to the spa area and treated ourselves to one-hour massages and a spa experience. Wow, talk about feeling like a vegetable afterwards. After the spa we made our way over to Disney’s Boardwalk and had a nice relaxing lunch. We then headed in our car to Celebration to drive around and take a look. (Neat little town but not at all what I expected. I was told that Christmas time is when you want to experience Celebration.) We then headed over to friends of ours who live near the parks.
The next day we met up with a friend of ours whose husband is a Cast Member (which is necessary for the next part of the story) and we headed over to Cast Member property control, which basically is two unassuming buildings behind the Magic Kingdom. In one of these buildings you will find Disney merchandise that for one reason or another is marked down off of retail prices and then another 75% it taken off. It’s like going to a huge Disney swap meet. The next building has items that are marked down 10-20%. Let’s put things in prospective. Among our group of four we bought probably close to $600 to $700 worth of merchandise and actually spent maybe $300.
Whispering Canyon Cafe
After spending several hours here (I will never shop retail again) we made our way over to Whispering Canyons and had lunch with our group and two new friends. These two people are responsible for putting together one of the best Disney websites that I know of. The site that I am talking about is LaughingPlace.com and the people that joined us were Doobie and Rebekah who are the two main people responsible for the site. We dined at the Whispering Canyon Cafe. The name implies that this is a nice quiet place for lunch. This is anything but true. We spent probably close to two and half hours there and had an absolute blast.
After filling our bellies we headed back to the resort and unloaded all of our goodies from the day and then headed to Downtown Disney for more shopping and some pin trading. After spending a couple of hours there our friends had to leave to catch their flight so after dropping them off at the airport my girlfriend and I had dinner at Peebles, a nice quiet (non Disney, if you can believe it) restaurant. We then headed back to the resort and tried get some sleep because we had to catch a 5am flight the next morning.
Now the title of this article is “Doing Disney without "Doing" Disney�? I never said we didn’t spend time on property or doing Disney things or experiencing Disney magic. But we did only spend a total of 5 hours in an actual Disney park and we had a truly magical experience.
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-- Story by Jeff Zaret
-- Pictures by LaughingPlace.com Staff
-- Posted June 24, 2004