From: heiby@chg.mcd.mot.com (Ron Heiby)
Subject: EPCOT in 1st Half November
Organization: Motorola Computer Group, Schaumburg, IL
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 23:29:01 GMT

My wife and I are planning to take my father to EPCOT during the first
or second week of November of this year.  My wife and I have been
there several times before, but this will be my father's first visit.

When we've been to WDW before, we've stayed at the Contemporary,
Polynesian, or Treehouse Villas, because we were either interested in
seeing *everything* or mostly Magic Kingdom (with nephews).  This
time, we're going with my dad, and will spend most (if not all) of our
"park time" at EPCOT, with perhaps an afternoon at MK and MGM, each.
So, we are interested in lodging near EPCOT.  We are interested in
paying as little as possible, so we've been looking at staying at
something like the Carribean, still on property but budget-minded.

For these places, I understand that we will have to take a bus or tram
to EPCOT.  We'd like to pick a place that is on a route with few other
stops.  Also, we figure that arriving at the "back entrance" near
France would be a Plus.  Since my father is in his mid-seventies, and
we're going to be doing a great deal of walking in the parks, we want
to avoid long walks between where we want to go and the bus stop, as
well as stair climbing at the hotel.  I'd appreciate any
recommendations as to where to reserve.

We'll be driving to FL, so will have our own car.  One person in my
office suggested that it would be more efficient for us to drive our
own car and park in the EPCOT parking lot.  I thought perhaps I could
park near and enter through the "back entrance" as I mentioned above.
I'd like to hear from anyone who's tried driving from on-property
hotels to EPCOT.

In the past, early November has been anything but "prime time" at WDW,
and I expect that there will be very few crowds.  We *would* like to
take in anything like fireworks, laser fantasy, or skyleidescope that
are available.  If they're going at all during those weeks, I'd
suspect that they'd be only on weekends.  Taken together, we're
concerned that arranging our stay to include a weekend might have us
running into "crowds of locals".  Any help or guidance in this area
would be appreciated.  (Actually, it's my wife who's concerned about
this.  As I recall, the weekend after Thanksgiving seemed very light
to me the 2-3 times we went during that time of year.)

Last time we were at EPCOT, Imagination was being refurbished.  If
anyone knows of any EPCOT attractions that are planned to be "down"
during all/part of that period, we'd like to know ahead of time.

We've never gone for one of the "package" deals that include meals,
admissions, etc. with the hotel rooms, figuring that (basically) we
couldn't eat enough to make it cost effective.  One of the guys in the
office thinks there's a package that includes just room and admissions
and just a few meals.  Any guidance/suggestions on a package that
might be cost effective for us (non-golfing, non-horseback riding,
non-tennis playing park attenders) would be appreciated.

Finally, tickets!  We're thinking of spending 4-5 days in the parks.
Having an extra day or two on a pass doesn't worry us, because we know
we'll use it some day and ticket prices only go UP.  But, since we
will probably *not* be going to Pleasure Island, Discovery Island,
Typhoon Lagoon, etc., we don't want to pay extra for a pass that
includes admission to those attractions.  So, if I don't have a cost
effective package option that includes admissions, what's my best
option for tickets/passes?  BTW, I'm in the Magic Kingdom Club through
my company recreation department.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to go through this message.
-- 
Ron Heiby, heiby@chg.mcd.mot.com	Moderator: comp.newprod
"The centipede has a thousand legs, but he cannot tapdance."
Newsgroups: rec.arts.disney