Our trip started with a flight from Columbus to Orlando on February 23, 2009. After baggage claim one only has to find the stop for the bus that goes from OIA directly to the WDW complex. Very handy. If you fly on one of Disney's preferred airlines, they will even do all your baggage handling. We, however, chose to fly cheap on Southwest and so had to tote our own bags from the Baggage Claim carousel a hundred feet or so to the "Magical Express" bus stop.

The Magical Express dropped us right at our registration entrance at the Port Orleans Resort - French Quarter". It has very attractive architecture and landscaping. The feeling of Mardi Gras was in the air. Lots of jester decor, wrought iron fencing, bright colors, bead necklaces offered at every turn. Our room overlooked a waterway and was very well designed and decorated. Twin sinks in the bathroom. Beautiful Mardi Gras bedspreads on the two double beds. Our French Quarter had seven separate buildings containing a total of over 1000 rooms. (And there are many similar "resorts".) These resorts are more like motels than hotels in that all the rooms have exterior entrances. I can think of two complaints: one is the noisy electric toilets. I'm sure they have their advantages, but one can hear all one's many neighbors' flushes; the other is that there is no public internet terminal. (The rooms have connectivity though.) One could rent bicycles or boats--we passed on these options. Didn't take a horse carriage ride either, although the cloppity, clop, clop became a familiar sound in the evening.

Our first night (Monday) we ate inexpensively at the on-site food court of a neighboring resort. The decor there included a giant paddle-wheel and Marty looked for Tom Sawyer among the boy guests. This was clearly Mark Twain country. We took a boat down the waterway to the Disney Downtown to pick up our Cirque du Soliel tickets for the next night. The ride back to Port Orleans was teeth-chattering cold, even with jackets. The temp was in the fifties and the 6 knot wind from the open boat velocity made it feel like freezing.

Tuesday was spent at "Magic Kingdom". This is the theme park that strongly resembles Disneyland in Anaheim, where Don lived for many years. One gets there and to all the theme parks from Port Orleans by hopping on the free bus that stops in front of each resort. Don found nothing special at Magic Kingdom due to his familiarity, but Marty liked the Haunted Mansion, the Jungle Cruise, and the parade. Here was Marty's first experience with Disney's 3-D shows, this one being Mickey's Philharmagic. She truly loved the 3-D show and as we experienced other Disney parks, she sought out the 3-D show in each park. She laughed the most at the "It's Tough to be a Bug" attraction at the Animal Kingdom park. But we're getting ahead of our story.

A guide book had recommended the Dole pineapple ice cream stand in Magic Kingdom's Adventureland. Although the line at the stand was long, the soft ice cream was quite good and well worth the time standing in line.

We spent some time locating the "Hall of Presidents", only to be disappointed since it turned out to be closed for rennovation. Hmmm, working on the Obama figure?

We rode the "Peter Pan Flight". Cable cars flew us over a charming model of early 20th century London and then through action scenes in Never-Never Land.

We stopped for an early lunch at the Columbia Harbour House. We experienced quick service and carried our trays to the upper deck where noise and confusion were left behind. We learned that if Marty ordered soup and Don got a sandwich, we could share our lunches, feel full, and spend a little less than the cost of two full lunches. The Harbour House was a good experience.

After another inexpensive dinner at Port Orleans' food court, we went back downtown for the Cirque du Soliel - La Nouba show. This was Don's favorite show of the entire visit. It's amazing what the human body can do - and so stylishly. (It was also the most expensive entertainment at about $110 per seat.)

Wednesday's activity was at the Hollywood Studios park. This was a warm day (80-ish) and very crowded. Neither of us found much to recommend here probably because of the tremendous crowds. No, wait, we both liked the Muppets 3D movie. We rode the Tower of Terror thrill ride and were disappointed at the brevity of the ride. OK, one more thing: the Fantasmic show was quite good, although I'm sure many people liked it better than Don did. (He doesn't get excited about fireworks either.) It's an outdoor show with laser images, fiery water, and live "Disney characters". It also turned out to be quite cold on this evening and he didn't wear a jacket. He looked so miserable that a Scottish couple sitting behind us lent him a plastic tarp that they had been sitting on. Saved his life.

The Fantasmic show is very popular though and people wait in line a long time to be seated in the amphitheater for it. One avoids the wait by paying for an expensive ($60 per) dinner first and consequently being ushered in to a special section without significant waiting. We ate at the Brown Derby, a simulacrum of the famous Hollywood restaurant (now defunct) of that name. It was elegant, quite elegant, and even had all the celebrity caricature drawings (hundreds) hanging on the walls. This was our first restaurant at Disney with table cloths and cloth napkins. Our prepaid dinner came with appetizer, main entree, and dessert. Obviously we ordered in every category and consumed the foods with great enthusiasm. We were walking at a pretty slow pace when we departed The Brown Derby.

Thursday we went to Epcot. This turned out to be our favorite park. We spent a total of three days there. I can't remember which days we did what, but the highlight was the Around the World at Epcot experience on Friday. You may have seen the Segway PT in the news or on TV. It is a very sophisticated machine that is designed to be easy and safe to use. It has two wheels, each about 16 inches in diameter, independently driven but on a common axis. One rides it standing up on a platform between the two wheels and holding on to "handlebars" mounted on a vertical staff up from the platform. It is controlled fore and aft by shifting one's weight in the direction one wishes to go. It is made to turn by pushing the handlebar staff (hinged a little above the platform) left or right. We had an hour of closely supervised instruction and practice indoors, going up ramps and down ramps, zig zagging around big cones, backing up, turning 360. Then, passing muster, we were loosed upon the multitudes for an hour. Actually, the park was lightly populated until the last half hour. But then, as we wended our way, we could smile down condescendingly upon the groundlings from our lofty perches.

Don's favorite ride of all is at Epcot. It is called Soarin'. One is seated in a carriage that is lifted above the floor to the center of a large (say 40 foot diameter) disc-shaped movie screen. The subsequent movie clips, taken from various aircraft, then give one a very real feeling of flying over the scenic California landscapes. The final scene is flying through fireworks sent up from Disneyland in Anaheim below. Wheee!! Even though Don is enthralled, Marty is white-knuckled. But brave. She did it twice. Marty also sat white-knuckled on the GM Test Track, a popular ride at Epcot for teenage boys.

At Epcot there is a lake around which is the "World Showcase" where a number of nations have exhibits consisting of their idiosyncratic architecture housing restaurants and gift shops. Some have a "circlevision" movie promoting the beauty and culture of their respective countries. We enjoyed all of those. We lunched at Le Cellier at the Canadian exhibit one day and dined at the Biergarten on the night we stayed to watch Illuminations show on the lake.

The "Animal Kingdom" was our destination for Saturday. This park was more entertaining than we expected. First and foremost it is an excellent zoo. But we also found the stage musical version of Finding Nemo delightful. Reminiscent of the "Lion King" techniques, but creative in its own right and well performed.

We also enjoyed the Kilimanjaro Safari Ride, the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail , the Maharajah Jungle Trek, and lunch at The Rainforest Cafe.

Saturday night was another primo dining experience. We went to The Flying Fish Café on the Boardwalk . The Flying Fish Café served us one of the best dinners we had at Disney World. Fish dinners were delicious, service was top notch, and the decor of hot air balloons soaring overhead was impressive. Our entertainment was people-watching out the nearby window.

Sunday we went back to Epcot for another Soarin' ride. Also repeated our boat voyage "Living with the Land" where we marveled again at the tomato tree, the pineapple plants, the Brussel sprouts (which neither of us had seen unharvested), and others along with the narrative of advances in horticultural science.

A new ride was added to our day, Spaceship Earth , which was enjoyable, but especially amusing at the end where they showed on a little display panel mounted on one's cart, animations using the faces of the occupants which had been surreptitiously photographed during the ride. We laughed out loud at these.

For lunch on Sunday we decided to visit the Grand Floridian Resort , which we had heard of because of its Grand-ness. Our choice of restaurants was the Grand Floridian Café. Now here was elegance -- everywhere. Dining included a single rose on every table. Cloth napkins--standard white or black, if you were wearing dark trousers on which white lint would show. The Grand Floridian had an upper balcony with shops and spas. The soap shop was grand, simply grand. Oh, the aroma of the soap shop. Marty wanted to stay there all day. But alas, the Monorail was calling and so our expedition continued. We made a waypoint stop and wandered around the Contemporary Resort with its beautiful mosaic three story wall, then Monorailed back to Epcot.

Our route back to our French Quarter Resort diverted to Downtown Disney for a night time experience. In an outdoor setting a band was playing and drawing a big crowd to sing and dance along. We watched from afar. Marty did pull Don through the big Disney toy store where she was enchanted with the Lego sculptures, Mr. Potato Head table where children and adults were creating their own variations of Mr. Potato Head, and the "Little Pony" tables with tons of clothing for your "Little Pony". Noises everywhere -- children running ( some crawling) after balls that had gotten away from them. Chaos everywhere. Crazy fun.

In case you're interested, here are some facts about the amazing scale of Walt Disney World:

We'll wrap it up with Don's pet peeve: Pirates of the Carribean - They might as well trivialize rapists and murderers; Oh, that's right, they do! Is it possible they don't know what pirates actually do? It's outrageous.