MartyS
01-06-2008, 05:25 PM
On Jan. 3rd, I went to WDW to ride back home with my DD22, who has been doing the College Program this last five or so months. It’s too long of a trip for her to make solo, so I flew out and drove back with her. It had been cold here in the Fort Worth – dallas area, with lows in the low 30’s dipping down at times to the upper 20’s and highs in the 40’s. Miserable. But I’m going to sunny, warm central Florida. I read Chris’ post about the Orlando area forecast to be unusually cold. Maybe, just this once, he could be wrong. So I’m sitting at the gate at DFW airport, waiting for my flight to board, watching CNN. They cut away from the news desk to a remote. There’s a guy bundled up, standing in front of some orange trees, he’s talking about how everybody there was worried about the citrus crop. Up at the top of the screen says WESH, at the bottom: Live from Orange County, Florida. RATS!!! He says the forecast there was: lows in the low 30’s dipping down at times to the upper 20’s and highs in the 40’s. Imagine that. Chris was right, but then, I think he cheats, because he personally knows the One who controls the weather. DD picks me up at MCO and we head for Coronado Springs Resort, the only place she could get me a room with her discount, because all of the values and other moderates were full, but it was about $75.00 for the night, you can’t get a cheaper room even off site. CSR’s a nice resort for a moderate, but with the convention center, it is geared more for business travelers and lacks that “make yourself at Home” feeling that POR and POFQ have. They give me my room key and process me in, but I’ll have to call or come back later to get my room assignment. That’s OK, I only have a few things in my backpack, I’ll just take it to the MK with me. From there, we went to DD,s apartment, which is about ½ mile from Fort Wilderness (sure hated to drive by the entrance to Ft.Wilderness without going in) where I met some of her friendsand room mates. They were very nice. They were from all over the country, worked in different parts of WDW, but spoke the same peculiar language. At first, I though it was a generational “language barrier”, but then I realized that they were speaking Disneyese. Entire, fully encrypted conversations that only CM’s understand. Amazing. After that, we went to the Poly to park her car and take the monorail to the MK.
DD gets me in the turnstiles with one of her passes, and we head under the train tracks onto Main Street. The Christmas decorations are all still up, and Christmas music is playing, and it’s cold. Normally, all these things go together, but being in the MK and it’s cold? It’s just wrong. Cold and extremely crowded. We just walked around a while enjoying the park. DD has to work from 5 until 12 or so, I’ll fight the crowds solo after that. We decide to ride HM; I haven’t seen it since the refurb. Sounds like fun, hope the heater works in there. Now, normally, you could just walk past the hearse, through the gate and almost right up to the door before the line starts. Not today; it starts in Liberty Square, winds back and forth through a structure with a roof on it that I had hardly noticed before, down a ramp along the waters edge and back up again then go back and forth again under the awning to the front door, long wait, but worth it. With the improvements, it is a better ride, and it’s toasty warm inside. With very long wait times for the rides, we just wandered around til it was time for DD to go downstairs to get ready for her last day of work. She’s working at the popcorn / ice cream stand at the entrance to Toon Town. I’ll go by later and sneak a picture of her at her post. After she went backstage to get ready for work I rode a few rides, and then caught a bus to CSR to get my room and unpack and catch my breathe for a few minutes. Maybe when I get back to MK, it will be later and colder and thinned out a little, crowd- wise.
DD gets me in the turnstiles with one of her passes, and we head under the train tracks onto Main Street. The Christmas decorations are all still up, and Christmas music is playing, and it’s cold. Normally, all these things go together, but being in the MK and it’s cold? It’s just wrong. Cold and extremely crowded. We just walked around a while enjoying the park. DD has to work from 5 until 12 or so, I’ll fight the crowds solo after that. We decide to ride HM; I haven’t seen it since the refurb. Sounds like fun, hope the heater works in there. Now, normally, you could just walk past the hearse, through the gate and almost right up to the door before the line starts. Not today; it starts in Liberty Square, winds back and forth through a structure with a roof on it that I had hardly noticed before, down a ramp along the waters edge and back up again then go back and forth again under the awning to the front door, long wait, but worth it. With the improvements, it is a better ride, and it’s toasty warm inside. With very long wait times for the rides, we just wandered around til it was time for DD to go downstairs to get ready for her last day of work. She’s working at the popcorn / ice cream stand at the entrance to Toon Town. I’ll go by later and sneak a picture of her at her post. After she went backstage to get ready for work I rode a few rides, and then caught a bus to CSR to get my room and unpack and catch my breathe for a few minutes. Maybe when I get back to MK, it will be later and colder and thinned out a little, crowd- wise.