Room for 1 More/WDW 40th Anniversary/F&W Festival Trip

Tell me about it. I will be severely lacking in sleep. So caffeine all around!

I will, assuming he remembers to contact me.

Zz.

I just went to the Room for 1 More event website, and they've uploaded the Dinner menu for the event. Someone sure is having a lot of fun playing with the theme of the event!

Zz.

Hum... is this why I couldn't sleep that well last night?

I'm up, and have been awake an hour before I'm supposed to. That's not unusual since I'm always excited on the day that we leave for WDW. We have a very, very early flight out this morning, and will get to Orlando by mid-morning. I hope our room is ready so that we can unpack and take a nap!

Zz.

We are all packed and ready to head out to the airport. My next transmission will be from the Most Magical Place on Earth!

Zz.

Greetings from the Most Magical Place on Earth! It is HOT here!

We are in our 1-bedroom villa at Saratoga Springs. Had a very good lunch at Fulton's and then did some shopping at Downtown Disney. Some of the merchandise for the 40th Anniversary are already out. Boy, they're expensive, though.

We're chilling out a bit in our room before heading out to the Contemporary for the early registration for the event. Then off to the nearest Winn-Dixie to get some supplies before heading back to our resort for an early evening dinner and sleep! I'll try to upload some pictures I took today later this evening.

Zz.

OK, I'm exhausted. Considering that I've been up since 1:30 am, that's understandable, I think.

We have a lovely 1-bedroom villa at SSR. This is the view on the balcony - green leaves and a bit of water.

We had lunch at Fulton's. We used to have lunch at Fulton's on every visit. But it seems that the past 2 or 3 years, we haven't done that. So it was very good to go back. I had the fish taco lunch special, which was mahi-mahi. It was delicious.

Walking around Downtown Disney, we saw that the balloon is busy carrying passengers.

We then made our way to the Contemporary for the early registration of the Room for 1 More event.

They were doing the decorating of the convention area for the event tomorrow. If this is what they are doing on the outside, I wonder what they have done on the inside.

Long, slow line for registration and merchandise pick-up.

We got to see a display of all the merchandise that was available for this event. Some of them look better than in the catalog.

We will be tuning in early this evening because tomorrow is going to be a very long day. The Room For 1 More event will continue on at MK with the MNSSHP, well into the night.

Zz.

That comes with a pin as well!

Zz.

Good morning!

Had a good night sleep, and did my early morning walk. I also took a few pictures of this very nice resort. I love the early morning hours, so these are a few pictures of SSR at dawn.

We're staying at Congress Park in SSR.

A serene walking path.

The main pool area at Carriage House.

It will be a long day today. With us attending the MNSSHP tonight as well, I probably won't be able to do any updating till I either get back very late tonight, or early tomorrow morning right before we leave for MK. I'll try to update as much as I can on my Disney Blog.

We're almost ready to leave for The Contemporary for the Room for 1 More event. So see you later!

Zz.

We are at MK celebrating WDW 40th. Huge crowds and long lines everywhere. The line into the Horseshoe where Anniversary pins and merch are sold never let up.

At least the weather is almost perfect.

Zz.

Just a quick catch up for now. I'm back in our room, just to relax a bit before going back to MK for the evening shows. So with just a few minutes to spare, I'll catch up on the report from Room For 1 More event yesterday.

This is the decor they set up to the entrance into the ballroom where the dinner and evening entertaining will be presented.

They certainly put in some effort into decorating the entrance. And guess what? They put in even more effort decorating the inside. More on that later.

Zz.

Just got back from MK. Holy Cow! The pace was packed! It was so packed, they were directing guests to use a backstage area around the Plaza Restaurant as an alternate route to get to Town Square and exit the park.

I was a bit disappointed that they did not have a special fireworks for the 40th. They did have an overlay of extra fireworks during Wishes, but that was it. Other than the morning rededication ceremony, it's as if the 40th anniversary didn't exist.

I have a few more things to complain about, but I'll save those for later. We leave for home late tomorrow. We plan to spend the day at Epcot's Food and Wine Festival. And I'll be waiting for Brad to call.

Zz.

Good morning!

We are busy packing all of our crap. We leave late today, and will be spending the day at Epcot and Food and Wine Festival.

Last night was a mad house at MK. Even with my disappointment of them not doing much for the Anniversary, I still had a good time.

But catching up a bit on the Room for 1 More event, we continue with the banquet that evening.

Our servers were all zombies.

One of the servers who worked at our table was in complete character. He even slammed down the plate onto the table and made a few people jumped the first time he did that. We all loved it!

The next few pictures are the entertainment and decor in the banquet hall. This was our Master of Ceremony

The pipe organ and the organist was, to me, the most impressive part of the whole evening.

The artist Noah did a one-of-a-kind art that evening to be auctioned off later that evening. We don't know who, if anyone, bought it or for how much

More entertainment during the evening.

We then continued our evening at MNSSHP, but that report will have to wait till after I get back.

This will be my last transmission from the Most Magical Place on Earth. I might try to write something on here via my phone, but obviously I won't type much, or upload photos.

Zz.

We are back at home, tired, exhausted, lack of sleep, etc.. etc. Our plane, which already had a late flight, got delayed even more. We got home at 1:30 am! And I have to go in to work this morning too!

In any case, it was still a good time. I had 4 major missions for this trip: Room for 1 More, WDW 40th Anniversary, Food and Wine, and meeting up with Brad. I'm happy to say that I completed all 4 missions!

I will finish up my report in the next few days once I had enough time to recover. I'm already looking forward to our next trip in early December, which will include a cruise on the Disney Dream!

Zz.

Continuing with the trip report...

The banquet ran long. We were supposed to be out of there by 9 pm, but we didn't get out until about 9:30 pm. By then, we missed the fireworks for MNSSHP. Still, we walked over there and did see Boo To You parade.

Here are a few shots that I took during that evening's MNSSHP.

The obligatory shot of the castle from Main Street.

A shot on Main Street towards Town Square

Boo To You Parade

A winking Mickey Pumpkin right out front by the entrance.

We managed to ride on the Haunted Mansion attraction that evening. Didn't have that much time left by the time we got in. They turned Columbia Harbor House into the "VIP Lounge" for the Room for 1 More participants, but it wasn't much of a "VIP" place. We only had a place to sit, and bottles of cold water. That's it.

Zz.

A little bit ore on the Room for 1 More event. For this event, for the first time (at least, for me), instead of giving us the regular credentials that have our names on them, they gave us this credit card size thing with the event design, but without our names on them.

But this is no ordinary card. If you flip up the bottom half, it reveals a USB memory stick!

It turns out that if you pay $39.95, you get a 6-photo package uploaded to your memory stick. And we did pay for that, and I think it was worth the money. Remember the photo I showed earlier of people taking photos with the green background? Well, they superimpose themes from the Haunted Mansion with you in it!

I'll try to upload those photos some time soon. But this new credential thing is kinda cool!

Zz.

The day after the Room for 1 More event was, of course, the 40th Anniversary. It seems that the celebration commemorating this event was done as an after-thought.

I got to the Magic Kingdom rather early, certainly earlier than I thought considering that we were at MK till after midnight the day before. Already there were huge crowds entering MK.

The hub was already crowded with people waiting for rededication ceremony, so I decided to avoid that and went to the Diamond Horseshoe to see if I have a chance to get any of the 40th anniversary merchandise (and pins!). It was very strange to see that Liberty Square and Frontierland were actually not busy at all, considering that Town Square, Main Street, and the Hub were packed!

Unfortunately, there were long lines getting into the Horseshoe. There was a line for people with wristbands (that showed up to stand in line to get wristbands starting at 6 am that morning!), and there was another long line of people just to view non-pin merchandise. At that point, I decided that it was not worth it and decided to ditch the idea of getting any merchandise (I already got commemorative stuff elsewhere which I will mention later). So I decided to just go on rides.

There were ZERO lines at both Thunder Mountain Railroad and Splash Mountain. I walked right up to the loading area for Thunder Mountain.

The same with Splash Mountain. Walked right up to the loading area.

When I got off Splash, it still wasn't busy, so I went back on it again! Rode Splash twice in less than 20 minutes!

Then I got on Jungle Cruise. By then, there was quite a line, but it was still 15 minutes, and I got to see the backside of water.

I then had lunch at Pecos Bill, which was slowly filling up. Luckily, I didn't have lunch at my usual place, which is Columbia Harbour House, which was already packed at that time with lines stretching out of the main door.

I then went on Snow White, in case I didn't have a chance to go on it again before they shut it down.

I doubled back to Adventure Land and did Tiki Room.

By then, I was getting a bit tired, so I went back to the resort to rest a bit. At around 5 pm, we went back to MK for the evening. By then, the place was getting very, very packed!

We stayed for the Electrical Parade, and then for the fireworks. The place was so crowded, I had no room to set up my tripod, and thus, could not snap any pictures of the fireworks. So that was disappointing. The other disappointment was that they didn't do much with the fireworks for the 40th Anniversary. It was basically Wishes, with a few added fireworks, especially around the perimeter. They should consider making those a permanent part of the show because it made parts of Wishes even more spectacular. But as far as it being an anniversary fireworks, it was a disappointment.

At the end of Wishes, we wanted to leave before the 2nd Electrical Parade starts. Ha! Easier said than done. There wasn't even any room to move, much less trying to make our way out. The crowd was just huge, and made worse because there are people trying to leave, there are people trying to move in, and there are people not moving. Just take a look for yourself.

They opened a path backstage around the Plaza Restaurant an an alternate route to get to Town Square. We took that and got to Town Square and the exit unscathed. It was a zoo, but that ended our day "celebrating" WDW's 40th Anniversary.

Zz.