Extraordinary Disney – Breathless Illuminations Cruise
This is the first in a series of articles about Disney’s little-known secrets and excursions that you can take advantage of that will turn an ordinary vacation into an extraordinary vacation! Integrating these secrets and excursions into your Disney vacation will provide you with experiences, memories and perhaps even pictures or video that will last a life time!
There are several unique ways to view Illuminations which takes place each evening in the lake at the middle of the World Showcase at Epcot. The most common method of watching Illuminations, is to try and get as close to the lake as possible and hope that someone taller then you doesn’t block your view. The little ones will often have to be hoisted up on Dad’s shoulders to insure a good view but we’ve done that many times before and this time we were looking for something different.
Several years ago, we chartered the Breathless and a pontoon boat (we had a large group) for an Illuminations Cruise and always mention it when talking to our friends about our most memorable Disney experiences. We decided that this trip we were going to charter the Breathless again, order a bottle of bubbly and relax in comfort while watching the Epcot Illuminations presentation from the Breathless!
So, on the night of Saturday, July 12, 2008, my husband dropped our daughter off at one of the Disney World kids clubs, and we went out for a romantic Dinner at the Flying Fish Cafe before heading over to the Yacht Club to check in for our Illuminations cruise around 8:15pm.
As we approached the dock, I could see the Breathless sitting there tied up and waiting.
There were about a half-dozen cruise parties headed out that night so the dock area was quite busy. For the other Illuminations groups, they use the medium size pontoon boats. These are generally the same ones people rent during the day, which have a 25hp motor (or less) that Disney Engineers somehow manage to govern down to about 3mph which makes it similar to steering a car on a sheet of ice. We had rented one of these pontoon boats once before and recall my husband’s frustration.
After a brief wait for the other boats to all leave, we proceeded to board the Breathless. The first thing we noticed was that although this looked like Breathless, it wasn’t her – this was the Breathless II. Our driver told us that the original Breathless had been decommissioned after ten faithful years of service on the lake. At first we were a bit disappointed but after our driver for the night started telling us about Breathless II’s new improvements, thoughts of Breathless I faded away.
Breathless II is a Hacker Craft , and has an 8.1L Mercruiser High Output V8 Engine. That’s 496 cubic inches, for those of you that don’t have your liter-to-inches conversion chart handy, and that means 420HP at our drivers fingertips – my husband was drooling when our driver opened the doors on the engine compartment so he could take a peak. Not only is the Breathless II over 50% more powerful than the original Breathless, she is also approximately 3 feet longer at about 27 feet.
We decided to sit in the middle seating compartment behind the driver.
Stepping into the boat was a challenge but once in I noticed that the seats were very luxurious and comfortable – and dry. It had stormed earlier and most of the previous night so we had been a little concerned about the weather as they had originally called for scattered thunderstorms that evening but the skies looked clear. After we got settled in, we noticed our bottle of Iron Horse 2003 Classic Vintage Brut being chilled in a bucket of ice – very nice!
The driver introduced herself (yes our dirver was a woman) and asked us if we had any special requests or questions. We asked the driver to take us down to Disney Hollywood Studios, past the Dolphin and Swan hotels, prior to heading over to Epcot.
She fired up the engine and cast off. After getting out on the lake a bit, the driver opened up the Breathless and you could really feel the difference in power between the Breathless II and the old Breathless as we quickly approached 50 mph.
We buzzed a few of the Friendship water transports as well as several of the other pontoon boats which had gotten a head start on us.
Once at Disney Hollywood Studios…our driver idled the boat for a few minutes watching the Friendship water transport that was at the dock. She told us that she wasn’t allowed to make any wake while the boat was at the dock. Within about 2 seconds after the Friendship started pulling away from the dock, our driver inched up the throttle and started doing some high speed donuts before exiting back towards Epcot. It was very exhilarating experience for us as we pulled away at full throttle.
After buzzing a few more of the pontoon boats we arrived at Epcot and pulled in under the bridge that connects the United Kingdom Pavilion to an island near the French Pavilion. We docked in the front of the bridge and ended up with a perfect, unobstructed view of the middle of the lake where all the action was about to unfold. Once we were stable and tied in with the other boats and the bridge, we poured the bubbly and had a toast to a wonderful start to our vacation as this was our first night at Disney World having only arrived from Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort a few hours earlier.
After some quality time relaxing with our glasses of bubbly, the Epcot Illuminations show got underway. There are some huge fireballs created in the center of the lake during the opening scenes and we could really feel the heat where we were parked – no wonder they don’t allow you to dock any closer! The view of the fireworks was spectacular and it was very satisfying watching the entire show from this vantage point!
At some point near the start of the fireworks, a young couple on the boat next to us got engaged and we all had a toast and congratulated them. The driver of their boat pulled a string on the side of his boat and a large sign rolled down saying “Congratulations on Your Engagement”. Later, when talking to our driver, we found out that the other drivers had been very nervous about how things were going to turn out as usually the man asks the question prior to the Illuminations show starting so they can roll in under the bridge with the sign already down and have a big celebratory toast, but this gentlemen had decided to wait until after the first fireworks had started before popping the question.
Once the fireworks were over, we finished the last of our bubbly while our driver untangled all of the boats and cast off from under the bridge. We were able to sneak around into the Epcot lake and head back under the bridge on the French Pavilion side of the island. Once we got clear of next bridge and were back in the main lake, our driver opened up the throttle to give us one last speed thrill before pulling the Breathless II back into the dock and putting her to bed for the night.
Once off the boat we hung around talking with some of the people from one of the groups for a while. I asked them the usual 20 questions, where they are from, where they are staying, etc. We finally said our goodbyes and headed over to the kids club to pick up our daughter. We had a nice leisurely walk back to our hotel, Disney’s Boardwalk Inn. As we passed back by the docks we could see Breathless II all covered up and hoisted up into her lift for the night.
Reservations for the Breathless II can be made up to 90 days in advance but can be very difficult to get – especially during the peak seasons and around holidays!
Prices as of July 2008:
Breathless Illuminations Cruise for up to 6: $275
Pontoon Illuminations Cruise for up to 10: $275
Bernadette Stark is a Certified Travel Agent and owner of Vacation Dreams Travel which specializes in Disney World and Disney Cruise Vacations.
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