Disney began offering horse-drawn carriage rides throughout two of its resorts several years ago. The carriage rides go through the Port Orleans resorts but you have to meet at the dock at Port Orleans Riverside. They suggest you arrive 15 minutes early. However, I suggest if you don't have dinner plans, arrive earlier and go to the food court at Riverside and get yourself a delicious southern meal. We did this and were surprised at how many choices there were for dinner!
So when the time for our carriage ride came, we met our driver and his black horse named Dan.
The driver was very friendly and answered any questions we had along the way.
We had the choice to ride through the Riverside resort or the French Quarter. We chose Riverside since we were staying at the French Quarter.
For 30 minutes we enjoyed the quiet ride along the Sassagoula River and throughout the resort.
We learned that our horse, Dan, was one of about 90 in Disney World. They can be visited at their stables at the Fort Wilderness Campground.
The $35/hour pricetag for the carriage ride is well worth the money. And if you choose, you can bring along your own alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage. They don't take credit cards for payment because the driver takes your payment. You can pay with your Disney Resort room card or pay by cash.
Anyone can make a reservation for the carriage ride. You don't have to be a resort guest.
I would strongly recommend reservations because this activity is very popular and very reasonably priced.

Extra Magic Hours are just for Disney resort guests. Each day, one park opens an hour early just for those staying on-site and one park closes late --- up to 3 hours late. You don't need any special wristband for the morning Extra Magic Hour but you do for the late night one.
Extra Magic Hour at night can be hit or miss. Sometimes it's overly crowded. And that was our experience Friday night when we attempted to stay in the Magic Kingdom for the midnight to 3 a.m. Extra Magic Hour. I usually never go to the park that has the morning Extra Magic Hour because that's where everyone else goes! I did do this on Monday to get back on my new favorite ride...Toy Story Mania. Fast passes for this ride was gone before noon every day.
Tuesday we were flying home at 5 p.m. so we always go to Magic Kingdom our last morning. It was Extra Magic Hour in the Kingdom and it was crowded. Since we only had a few hours to get on some last rides and finish up our shopping, we just dealt with the crowds. But in the 4-hour span we were there, we managed to get on Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Pirates of the Caribbean.
I really liked Port Orleans French Quarter. We almost never shared a bus with Riverside and it was so centrally located to all the parks the bus rides all seemed pretty short. I think the resort is due for some needed refurbishment because some of the room doors looked like they needed painting and in our bathroom I noticed some of the porcelain chipped off the tub and was painted over. The food court was a bit slow. Much of what you ordered had to be prepared and one afternoon we waited more than 20 minutes for a meatball sub and a personal size pizza. We tried the food court at Riverside on the night of our horse-drawn carriage ride (I'll blog about that next!). The food there was great. Short waits. Very well organized!

Since today is our last full day in Disney, we're spending the day park hopping. We started at 8 a.m. in Disney Hollywood Studios to get back on Toy Story Mania again. Then it was off to the Great Movie Ride. You can take a bus from Disney Studios to Epcot and we did that in order to get a fast pass for Soarin'. Once we got the fast pass we did some shopping then hopped the monorail to the Magic Kingdom. We rode in the front of the Monorail with the driver. Ed, the driver, was on his first solo trip after "earning his ears." He told us that to train for operating the monorail he had to study a book from cover to cover and was "in training" for 6 weeks. Then he has a written and verbal test he had to pass. This morning he passed the actual monorail driving test.
When we arrived at the Magic Kingdom, Kristen asked if we could get a fast pass in the Magic Kingdom since we still had one from Epcot that the time hadn't started for. We decided to test this out and see if the fast pass rules of only one fast pass until the start time of the fast pass still applied. We successfully got a fast pass for Splash Mountain, proving that if you move to another park, you can get another fast pass.

Disney Hollywood Studios opened Toy Story Mania, an interactive 4-dimensional ride earlier this spring. I was anxious to ride it after reading that you shoot a variety of carnival type targets while wearing 3-D glasses.

Waiting in the queue, it's a flashback to all the kiddie games those of us who grew up in the 70's remember. Giant size Scrabble, Operation, a log cabin build with Lincoln Logs and a talking Mr. Potato Head are all there to greet you.

We got to the Disney Studios at opening and raced to the ride first, along with almost everyone else! Our daughter Kristen took all of our park passes and got in line to get a fast-pass while the rest of us waited in line for the ride. She got the fast passes and joined us in line. We knew we'd get on this ride at least twice.

Once on the ride, our instructions were simple: pull the string behind your "shooter" and aim it at the screen. There was a practice screen at the beginning so you could practice shooting before any points were calculated.

The car you ride in moves quickly into a position where a screen is in front of you. The ducks, plates, balloons and other targets are labeled with what points they are worth so you can choose to shoot at the higher points items. You will cycle through about 4 or 5 screens during the ride and there's a certain amount of time you spend at each screen trying to score points (don't ask me how much time, I lost track because I'm super competitive so I had to win). A screen on your ride vehicle keeps a tally of your score and oddly enough, your accuracy. Hint: don't worry about accuracy, winning is all about the points you score!

****SPOILER ALERT********DON'T READ FURTHER IF YOU WANT TO BE SURPRISED!

When you shoot at and pop some of the targets such as balloons, you will feel bursts of air and spurts of water too! Also, I read somewhere in a review that you should look for and shoot at the Easter egg on each screen. This wasn't easy to find and it's not labeled with a point value. The entire ride moves rather quickly and you find yourself pulling the string on your shooter with lightning speed. However, if you get the chance to strengthen your triceps before going on ---do so! You'll be amazed at how sore these muscles get if they're not used and this ride puts them to the test.

After getting off the ride the second time, a cast member gave my daughter Kelly a ride switch pass (usually used for parents with a small child that can't go on the ride. It allows the 2nd parent to go in the fast pass lane along with 2 other people). We went back later and I asked the cast member at the fast pass entrance if we could have an extra fast pass since the one given to Kelly would only let 3 of us in. And in usual Disney fashion, they said yes.

We enjoyed this ride so much that we just have to squeeze in one or two more rides before this trip is over so we plan to get up early Monday and go during the extra magic hour early entry at 8 a.m.

This ride is now my new favorite!

My soon-to-be 18 year-old daughter Kelly has been a fan of Belle since
she was 3. And every time we come here, she waits in line to have her
picture taken with her. Laat year she stood in line with 5 & 6 year
olds.
Yesterday, while waiting for Belle at her meet & greet, my husband & I
began to wonder if she's not just a bit too old for this. At that
moment my daughter & others spotted Belle and they all ran to meet her
I saw one woman who I had just seen in the gift shop with an autograph
book in hand asking where Belle would be. I assumed she was asking for
her daughter but I was wrong, she was asking for herself. And she was
21. A bride & groom were also waiting in line. That young woman was
24.
So of the first 3 in line to see Belle, my daughter was the youngest
We are no longer wondering if she is too old.

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Usually you have to line up at least an hour ahead of time for the Disney Dream Come True Parade in the Magic Kingdom. But when we were there Wednesday afternoon, crowds were light!

We arrived at Main Street for the parade about 5 minutes before it started. But you wouldn't know that from the pictures!

These are actually crowd levels we're used to seeing in August since many schools in the south have already begun and a lot more start on Monday.

Crowd levels in Epcot were about the same as the Magic Kingdom. Temperatures have been in the low 90s and of course, there's that Florida humidity. But with air conditioned buses, ride waiting areas, food courts and restaurants, along with that afternoon pool break when the heat of the day is the worst, it has not been unbearable.

I heard yesterday that Caribbean Beach resort is undergoing some
refurbishment changes. Some are already in the works with some rooms
being said to be Nemo themed. As a part of the changes it's rumored
that the Trinidad area rooms will be converted into moderate family
suites! Disney currently only offers family suites at All-Star Music.
The theme of the suites is rumored to be Pirates of the Caribbean!

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After a swift check in process at Port Orleans French Quarter we got
lunch at the food court. Crowds are manageable here in the Kingdom.
The wait for Pirates of the Caribbean was 15 minutes and Haunted
Mansion was about the same
TEASER: Heard a very interesting Disney rumor down here. I'll reveal
it in a blog entry later today!!

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Despite leaving Philly in the rain, we arrived in Orlando under sunny
skies and 82 degrees and 20 minutes ahead of schedule.
Kudos to Dramomine's less drowsy formula. It kept the motion sickness
away and I don't feel groggy.

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It's the most anticipated week of the year - VACATION!
After months of plotting and planning, the time has come to pack suitcases and head once again to the place we vacation the most...Walt Disney World. Even though this will be our third trip in 14 month, the excitement never wanes.
Our flight is scheduled to arrive in Olrando Wednesday morning. We expect to be at our resort by noon and in the Magic Kingdom by early afternoon.
Some of the new and/or changed attractions we're looking forward to seeing include the refurbished Spaceship Earth in Epcot, the new Toy Story Mania and the Block Party Parade in Disney Studios.
Check back often to see my live blogs, direct from Disney. The updates may be a bit shorter since they're sent via my Blackberry, but there will be multiple entries each day and pictures will be added too.

Like just about everything else, park tickets for Walt Disney World will cost you more effective today. The news was officially announced Friday but rumors were rumbling on the Internet for several days before that.
I had a room-only reservation for my upcoming trip and was planning to make the final payment and add tickets when I arrive Wednesday. But if I waited, I would be paying the price increase, which for my trip, would have been an additional $36. While it's not a significant amount of money, it basically amounts to the cost of the horse-drawn carriage ride we are surprising our teenage daughters with.
The increase amounts to an additional $4 for a one day park pass. And adding park-hopping to your tickets will cost extra too. But as long as your package or r00m-only reservation was paid before today, the price increase won't affect you.
While there are many ways you can save money on your Disney vacation, park tickets are one thing you usually can't get a discount on. You can get a discounted room rate through AAA or with a code or promotion, but they don't discount the park tickets. And I would not want to buy park tickets from some vendor outside the parks.
Last year when we lost my daughter's park pass in Animal Kingdom, we just went to guest services and told them what happened. They printed her out a temporary park pass and when we got back to our resort that day, they printed her a permanent one just like the original with her name on it. It took very little time and did not put any kind of damper on our trip.
It did however, make me think about what might have happened if I didn't have my tickets through Disney as a resort guest. I would have just been out of luck.

I've heard conflicting reports about crowd levels in Disney parks this summer. This morning I read that it was not crowded yesterday in the Magic Kingdom. Now while everyone's idea of crowded may be different, my experience with August crowds has been that they it's busy but not terribly crowded. I always chose August because some of the schools in the south begin in early August, leaving the parks much more managable.
But if you read Disney's quarterly earnings report (http://corporate.disney.go.com/investors/quarterly_earnings.html), they're not experiencing a lack of visitors to Disney due to the economy.
The only time in August (and early September) that I expect it will be very crowded is for Disney's free dining. A lot of people take advantage of dining on Disney for free. We did this in 2006 and in a week, we racked up $1,300 in disney dining that we got for free just for booking through Disney during a specified time period. That year, we were there Aug. 14-21. Now they've pushed the dates back to Aug. 22, making it impossible for those of us with school and college-age children to take advantage of the free plan. My guess is (from a cost-effective standpoint) Disney would rather have 2 adults and 2 children under 5 utilizing their free dining plan rather than 2 adults and 2 hungry teenagers taking advantage of it!
And though it was great eating at some of the best restaurants Disney has to offer for free, the crowd levels in the parks were much higher that year.
It's nice to dine for free but I'd rather have less crowded parks!