Highway In The Sky Dining Tour

So I'm just minding my own business and DisTwitter throws this new Official Disney-Sponsored Monorail Bar Tour headline in my unsuspecting face. We loved our own little bar tour last year, so I clicked through to read the article, figuring it would be out of reach. But what's this? Food and drinks at four stops including a main course at Citricos all followed by a Contemporary rooftop viewing of Wishes? And it's how much? $150? Has to be a catch, I think to myself.

Later on I get another minute and look on the official Disney Dining website and see that, yes indeed it is as was advertised, and the $150 even includes gratuity. I read it again. It's true.

People were already beginning to talk about the price being steep. Silly people. People who haven't ever done their own Monorail Bar Tour. This is as reasonable, as close to a "deal" as you'll find in Disney food service. Trust me.

Our tour went to Mizners for a couple cocktails and appetizers, just drinks at the Contemporary, dinner at Captain Cook's and more drinks at Trader Sam's and it cost well over $200 for the two of us. We did see pieces of the Electrical Water Pageant, but certainly not Wishes from the roof.

The Highway In The Sky Dine Around (the official, and super-cool name of this event) begins with cocktails and apps at The Wave in the Contemporary, moves on to the Poly for tropical cocktails and more appetizers, heads to the Grand Floridian for diner at Citricos and the champagne and cheese in the lobby and finishes with desserts and cordials on the top of the Contemporary. The food and drinks alone are worth the money, I'm guessing. I mean, I don't know for sure what they are offering, but I'm guessing it's not potted meat on a Tricuit. And that doesn't even toucht he fact that there's no hassle at all. Disney books the times, Disney herds us from place to place, Disney makes sure we make the fireworks in time and don't spend all night in Mizners. And the price, after all taxes (and it includes gratuity remember), is $316.80. Deal.

The long and short of it is that I blathered all about this deal to Lisa at lunch later that day and one ting led to another and by that afternoon I had reservations for the Highway and two nights at Pop Century booked for the first weekend in February.

I can't wait. I hope they have a commemorative pin!

"Together In The Dream": Authentic Magic

As I enjoyed this series of remembrances, smiling away at the humor and the love and the wonder of working INSIDE the magic of Disney's Magic Kingdom, the one thing I thought might be a concern was a risk other readers may find this book too cute, too happy, too positive to be believable. Suzanne and R.J. Ogren titled their collaborative work "Together In the Dream" because working at Disney was the realization of a dream for both of them, and they lived it and enjoyed it and appreciated it as the incredible opportunity it was. That really comes through in all the tales here, but the authors also exhibit a love and respect for each other that is obvious and heartwarming. I just wonder if, with all the cynicism I see floating around social media today, people may be tempted to see this as affected, as put on, as too "perfect" to be true. It's not. If I had to review this book with just one word, that word would be "Authentic." Let me tell you how I know this.

The book ends, and I don't think I'm really giving anything away here, with Suzanne and R.J. looking forward to celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary with a trip to Walt Disney World. Earlier in the book, Suzanne talks about how the Grand Floridian is their favorite resort and their love of visiting Mizner's Lounge. This is where Lisa and I had the great good fortune to meet this one-of-a-kind couple.

We had come to Mizner's as the first stop on our Monorail Bar Tour because we were hungry and I'd been told to not miss the pork belly appetizer they serve. There were no tables so we grabbed a couple seats at the bar and ordered drinks from a very busy, but very friendly bartender. The bartender, I wish I wrote down her name because she was wonderful, noticed and commented on our Happy Anniversary buttons. Within a few minutes the last couple of seats at the bar, right next to us, were occupied by another couple, also wearing Happy Anniversary buttons. The bartender pointed this out to all of us and we all introduced ourselves. Now, I can strike up a conversation with anyone, but it's not my favorite thing and I was pretty exhausted from a long drive, so I wasn't looking to get into any kind of deep conversation. Then we found out they were on a special anniversary trip just like us, that they had worked at Disney and were returning because of all the fond memories and an abiding love of the Disney Magic. OK, maybe these WERE our kind of people.

The Mizner's bar sits directly behind the little stage where the jazz band plays, making it a bit loud. We managed, despite this, to find out that R.J worked in animatronic painting and Suzanne in entertainment, that we all four worked with community theatres and that R.J. had served as a Navy combat photographer, possibly in some of the very same places my dad served with the Marines in Vietnam. I was entralled.

A table opened up and we moved there, ordered more drinks and some food (the pork belly is every bit as good as I'd been told), and continued chatting about R.J.'s adventures in the backstage of our favorite Magic Kingdom attractions, discussing the happy difference in the way troops are treated returning from today's conflicts versus what my dad and R.J. faced, wallowing in the joys of being married to our best friends, and sharing stories and photos on cell phones from our theatre productions (turns out we'd both worked on Into the Woods and 39 Steps recently). Before we knew it, a few hours had passed and Lisa and I had say our goodbyes if we were to make our tour complete and hit Trader Sam's Grog Grotto before closing.

During those hours we heard several of the stories you'll read in "Together In The Dream" straight from the proverbial horse's mouth. R.J. and Suzanne are in person just as excited about their time at Disney as they "sound" in the book. They appreciate the opportunities presented by their time at Disney, the people they got to meet and work with, and the behind-the-scenes secrets they were a part of. They love each other in such a sincere and obvious way that the joy they share was contagious. R.J. took obvious joy in requesting Suzanne's favorite songs from the band, Suzanne expressed nothing but loving admiration for R.J. and both were completely happy to let Lisa and I share in their evening. I was blown away to be sitting across from a man who not only had "cobwebbed" the Haunted Mansion, but had told me how to do it myself if I ever worked on a haunted house again. That was the magic of that evening, magic strong enough that I spent the next few hours in a sort of "did that really just happen?" state.

But it did happen, because R.J. and Suzanne are real, and really cool, people. And now YOU can meet them in the pages of this book. It's set up with Suzanne and R.J. writing alternating chapters, a device that works very well. They keep the pace uninterrupted and the timeline is basically smooth (and in all cases easy to follow even when it skips a bit or overlaps). They operate like runners in well-run relay race. Each writer has his and her own style, but both are conversational and interesting, with details that will leave Disney fans thrilled several times over. This isn't a "brag book." Things fell together and apart, there were successes and failures and both R.J. and Suzanne ended up leaving Disney to look for adventures elsewhere, but there is no bitterness or negativity of any kind.

These two had an adventure, lived a dream that many of us share, and they appreciate what that means to themselves.....and to their readers. The "Together" in the book's title means more than they may have intended, more than just R.J. and Suzanne finding theirs side by side with each other. They bring us, their readers, along for the ride, so we all get to experience the dream. Together.

Together In The Dream is available in both paperback and Kindle editions via Amazon here

You can also purchase direct from the publisher, Theme Park Press  here

The Great 2015 Stites Monorail Bar Tour

This has been on our Disney bucket list for a while. If you're unfamiliar with the concept (and I feel sorry for you if you are), this involves taking the Disney monorail around the resort loop and drinking at The Contemporary, The Grand Floridian and The Polynesian resorts. I suppose if you're a purist you should hit ALL the bars in each resort, and I'd love to try, but we settled for the Readers' Digest version and just hit one in each.

The Monorail Bar Tour was first on our list of Things-To-Do for this trip. We planned to (and did) arrive around dinner time and figured we'd just settle into our room and then begin the adventure. I briefly considered a trip to Downtown Disney (it was still called that) to try out Jock Lindsey's Hanger Bar before our monorail journey, but decided against it for time concerns. That was wise. Our timing ended up being PERFECT!

An unexpected bonus was our Monorail Tour Tour night being a Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party night, so we were accompanied on all our journeys by all manner of costumed partiers. We stepped off the elevator in our Pop Century building and ran smack into a 4 foot tall Darth Vader and Storm Trooper. We about died of cute before we even began, ya know? The whole night was sprinkled with costumes, mostly homemade and awesome. I kind of wanted to take photos of some, but it would be creepy shooting photos of strangers, wouldn't it? I thought so. Anyhow, off we went on our bus from Pop Century to the Magic Kingdom to catch the monorail.

Now, the logical thing to do would be to just hit the monorail resorts in order--Contemporary, Grand Floridian, Polynesian. But no, we were hungry and our friend Jen had raved about the pork belly appetizer at Mizners Lounge, so we headed there first.

Mizners is way in the back there

These guys were great!

The lobby of the Grand Floridian is breathtaking, and Mizners is situated in a rather cozy manner on the second floor opposite the entrance from the monorail behind a bandstand. If you're lucky, a band will be playing and you can sit at the bar, as we did, and feel all tucked away in another world. When the band IS playing, it's a bit loud at the bar, but it's still really cool to be in such a fancy place sipping a Manhatten and listening to live jazz. Which is what I did (Lisa chose the Cosmopolitan) and we had a great, relaxing first stop.

The bartender noticed our Happy Anniversary buttons and when another couple came and sat down next to us, she noticed theirs as well and sort of set the four of us to talking. Turns out they were celebrating 50 years and were both former cast members at Walt Disney World. We got talking to this couple, R.J. and Suzanne Ogren, and it made our night. R.J. had been an animatronic artist in WDW's early days and Suzanne had been a character actor and later supervisor in the live entertainment department. They've just published a book about their experiences called Together in the Dream: The Unique Careers of a Husband and Wife in the Early Decades of Walt Disney World. I've got my copy (though not read it yet, review forthcoming after I have) and you can get yours on Amazon here, in either paperback or Kindle edition. R.J's stories about the Haunted Mansion and other attractions from the "inside" were enthralling, but as sometimes happens, we found out we had much more in common. He had served in Vietnam as a Navy combat photographer and was familiar with some of the locations and experiences my father had told me about from his time in the war. We also found that we were all four of us involved in some way in our local community theaters, even having put on a few of the same shows. We spent a few hours in Mizners with the Ogrens; the time just disappeared as we talked about everything from how to make a spider web gun to the experiences of veterans returning from war to the staging of 39 Steps. All this while R.J. was speaking with his friend, the drummer in the jazz band, to request Suzanne's favorite songs. It was, as I said, a huge highlight of a wonderful weekend, and time I will never forget. Disney magic is everywhere.

Finally dragging ourselves away from "Cocktails With An Imagineer" (he wasn't an Imagineer per se, but close enough for us. Heck, he fixed things in the Haunted Mansion), we hopped back on the monorail and headed for the Contemporary. I'll admit, this was more a "have to" than a "want to" for us. We wanted to do the whole tour and the Contemporary is one of the resorts. It's just never been one of our favorites. I mean the monorail running through the lobby is beyond cool, but other than that nothing in the Contemporary's "feel" appeals to us. We chose The Outer Rim lounge, which sits right next to Chef Mickey's in the lobby

and sort of serves as its waiting area. This means it's loud. Very loud. And crowded. With kids. This night said youngsters were crawling all over the couch seating and having pillow fights with the cushions. It was a bit of a shock from the staid atmosphere at Mizners. We sat at the bar and ordered a couple drinks from a frazzled and grumpy bartender (who can blame him? Bar tending in Romper Room would put anyone in a foul humor) and went to find a couch away from the worst of the ruckus. It wasn't terrible, let's be honest. The drinks were good and we got to watch the Electrical Water Pageant out the window. But we simply finished our drinks, completed our required tour stop and set off excitedly for the Polynesian and Trader Sam's Grog Grotto!

Trader Sam's is the seller of the Nautilus souvenir mug that sort of brought this whole trip together. I'll devote a whole post to a review of this place later, it deserves it. We were concerned about making it in before closing after spending so much time at Mizners, but it all worked out fine. We checked in with the hostess and left our names. She told us we would have about a 45-minute wait and that would leave us only about 15 minutes before last call, which I think was meant to discourage us. She doesn't know Lisa and I don't discourage easily. We smiled, added our names to the list and with blinky coaster alarm in hand headed down to Captain Cook's to see what they were serving at this hour. Turns out they had the whole dinner menu going so we got a flatbread and some Polynesian meatballs and sat down to wait our turn. Before we were even finished our coaster began blinking so we boogeyed on back to Trader Sam's and found seats at the bar.

Tentacles. Why'd it have to be tentacles?

Trader Sam's seemed like eating in the Enchanted tiki Room, where the birdies sing and the tikis boom. There are "windows" that turn from sunny seascapes to thunderstorms, there are moving bar stools (throwback to the awesome Adventurers' Club), there are moving giant squid tentacles, it's a wonderful place for a drink. The drinks are expensive but delicious, and the Nautilus mug is worth every penny of it's $50 price tag. They even give you a brand new, still in the box one on your way out after you finish. We had a blast and left thinking it was the greatest bar in the world.

The Prize

We monorailed it back to the Magic Kingdom at about last call, caught a bus full of sleepy, costumed Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party revelers, and tucked in back in our Pop Century room feeling quite proud of ourselves and accomplished. Our sights are set high, right?