theDIBB - Magical Millennium Memories of Mickey Mouse

Similar to my Original Orlando Odyssey trip report that I did a few years ago, I thought I'd post some more scanned photos of my old visits to Florida and the theme parks. This report is from our second trip to Orlando in the year 2000. I think we visited in February, but I could be wrong.

So, 21 years later and it was just my wife and me - our daughter wouldn't be born for a mother couple of years. I'm not sure who we flew with, although it would've been booked as a package - possibly with Thomson? I do know that, again, we stayed at the Gateway Inn hotel at the north end of International Drive. We liked the hotel last time, and it was cheap, so we stayed there again.

This'll be mostly photos from the theme parks without much in the way of commentary (because I can't remember much about what we did back then!). I do know Animal Kingdom and Islands of Adventure had opened since our last visit, so those were new. And fastpasses were a new thing back then too!

Anyway, here we go...

First stop - Magic Kingdom, of course!

The castle had lost its birthday cake makeover from the last time we visited. It was back to its usual (boring) appearance.

Timon and Pumba.

Dance show in front of the castle.

Does that Loch Ness monster topiary still exist at MK? I'm guessing not considering they've redone the hub area.

Buzz Lightyear. I remember being very impressed by the projection mapping on his face. Nowadays kids are like "meh".

To Infinity and Beyond!

The 3pm parade. I can't remember what this parade was called, but Google tells me it might have been Disney's Magical Moments Parade.

Off to Universal. And there's a younger me showing off my legs. :)

I'm not sure whether the ‘October 31' shown on the front of Hard Rock means we were actually there later in the year and not February? However I do know we visited in March 2001 and I can't believe we visited only 5 months before then.

And into Islands of Adventure, the first time we'd visited this park. It had only opened a year or two beforehand.

There's Michelle in Marvel Superhero Island.

The original Hulk coaster. It was probably my favourite coaster at the time.

Seuss Landings and a little pop-up show with most of the characters.

Michelle was a big fan of the Dr Seuss books so she loved this area and meeting the characters, like
the Cat in the Hat.

I thought the original Poseidon's Fury - where your tour guide around the ruins turns out to be Zeus and battles Poseidon - was excellent. Walk through attractions were pretty rare and this one was very well done, especially the ring of water. The theming outside the attraction was amazing too.

Cat in the Hat again.

Here's a general photo of Seuss Landing, with Michelle and the Green Eggs and Ham cafe in the background. That cafe was rarely open, which always seemed a shame.

A different day but Universal again - this time Universal Studios and outside Mel's Diner. I didn't take many photos here, probably because we had photos from this park the last time we visited and nothing much had changed.

At least it wasn't raining this time like it was the first time we visited. In fact, based on all the photos from this trip, it looks like the weather was pretty good.

The Universal Globe sign. Everyone has to take a photo in front of this; it's the law!

The sign has changed since we were last here. The old version was more like a wire frame and uncoloured.

Now onto Seaworld and back in those days when they had proper orca shows and the trainers got into the water with them.

Admittedly my photos of the Shamu show all start to look the same over the years. We also often seem to sit in a similar location in the stadium.

More Shamu.

On to the dolphin show. This was a gentler show, themed around the Florida Keys.

Sort of looks like those dolphins are about to leap out of the pool.

"Off! Off! Off!" ;)

Ah, good old Clyde and Seamore, this time it was their Take Pirate Island show. So cheesy but still entertaining.

Remember the overpowering smell of fish whilst moving along the travelator in here? I'm glad Seaworld replaced the old penguin enclosure with the new Antarctica area. Although even that doesn't seem big enough for the little penguins.

A couple of photos taken at MGM Studios, as it was called back then.

This one has me outside Rock'n'Rollercoaster wearing trousers (and others have jackets on) so it must've been a bit colder. I probably ended up buying a Disney jumper in the evening when it got cooler - something that became a bit of an in-joke between us.

This photo of Muppetvision 3D to show that, yes, sometimes it is sunny here at MGM Studios. We often seemed to visit this park when it was raining and had a photo of Michelle looking fed up outside this attraction from our previous trip. So I thought it was best if we had a photo that wasn't so dull and grey.

Onto Animal Kingdom, another park that was new to us back in 2000. And, of course, a photo of the Tree of Life.

Ok, by now everyone who's been to Disney World has taken a photo in front of the Tree of Life but, at the time this photo was taken, only a few million people had done this before. :)

Animals on the Kilimanjaro Safari. Still an excellent attraction and very unique.

An elephant.

The Lion King show was (and still is) amazing and very entertaining. It has moved location from Camp Mickey to Africa since this photo was taken.

The Tarzan show which was, I think, near the Dinosaur area? I have no recollection of this and therefore have no idea how good it was. I don't even remember taking this photo.

Now onto Epcot. And to prove it was 2000 when we visited, here's Spaceship Earth with a magic wand and a ‘2000' above it. I think this was the only thing that celebrated the millennium at Disney World.

Me, at the other side of the lake in the middle of World Showcase at Epcot. Looks like I liked the Hulk coaster so much I bought the t-shirt.

Another photo of Spaceship Earth showing the Millennium decoration.

Arguably the best parade at Disney World - and certainly a favourite of ours - was Tapestry of Nations. This was a fabulous parade at Epcot, which has not really had a parade since (shame really).

More from the Tapestry of Nations. These giant puppets were ace.

Then onto Downtown Disney, as it was called back then. Now it's called Disney Springs.

It think this was the first time we visited - I don't think we visited the first time we were at Disney World back in 1997. I enjoyed looking in the shops but it is just an outdoor shopping mall after all.

Planet Hollywood as it was back then.

One final photo of Wonderworks on International Drive, near Pointe Orlando. I think this had been built since we were last here.

And that's it. There were a couple of photos that were a bit dark so I didn't post them. But those were the highlights of our 2000 trip.