She Said – He Said Day 1 & 2

[nicster]

Cast:
She (nicster) – 10 years old at WDW. Real world age? Between 50 & death…
He (DH) – 11 years old at WDW. Ditto on real world age.

The Plan: AK & DTD

September 20-21:
Our noon flight out of Sacramento, CA was uneventful. We caught ME & arrived @ CBR after midnight. There were three cm’s at the front of the Custom House when we arrived. The family going thru the doors ahead of us were struggling with holding the doors open while rolling in their luggage. Then we did the same thing (no help from the cm’s that were chatting it up outside of the Bell Services booth). We checked in & had our one request granted- a corner room in Jamaica! We also asked for our ‘Happy Anniversary’ pins, & proudly wore them. We exited, again with the bags & no help… where is the guest service here:confused: The cm’s then asked us where we were headed, we told them Jamaica, so they called Donnie to bring the van to take us over to our room. Donnie kindly helped us with our luggage – we were finally here!!:thumbsup: By the time we were unpacked & settled down to sleep it was 2:15 a.m.

We had time to walk to Noah’s for a bagel breakfast in the morning…our last training walk. Our son drove us to the airport and dropped us off at the terminal. We checked our bag and walked to the gate. We started to walk thru the wrong security checkpoint. The American flights now leave on the completely opposite side of the terminal. It would have been nice if there was a sign so indicating. How hard is that? So down the escalator, the long walk to the other end of the terminal, back up the escalator and thru security. We changed planes in Dallas, and even had time for a meal at Chili’s. We had only checked one bag, so our two carry-ons were a bit heavy (to keep the checked bag under 50 pounds). A bit of a pain heaving them up and down all of the time. A little challenge finding Magical Express, though once we arrived in Orlando. American comes in the “A” terminal while the ME is at the “B” side of the airport. Signs would have been nice here as well. Of course, it wouldn’t hurt if I read the ME map correctly, and I think I’m pretty good at reading maps. Since it was so late, we walked right on the bus, but we waited for 20 minutes or so for other families to arrive before the bus would leave. Finally 4 or 5 more arrived and we were on our way. We were taken to our room and unpacked. Guess who had the most stuff and who took the most time? You get two guesses and the first one doesn’t count.

Okay, quick room review. We got just want we wanted. A corner room in Jamaica. Plenty of room, close to the bus stop…life is good. Towels pretty cheap, but I can live with that.
Continued

[nicster]

The alarm is set for 6-, we want to get to AK for EMH. Whose idea was that?? The alarm went off & I killed it in one fell swoop! After some stumbling around in my sleep deprived, yet I’m so excited to be at WDW stupor, we were out & arrived @ AK by 9a.m. (an hour late, so much for EMH).

Out the door and at the bus stop at 8:20. We just missed an AK bus. But the next AK bus arrives at 8:39 (one of our longest waits). In the meantime, 3 DHS, 2 DTD, 1 Epcot, 1 Resort and zero MK buses show up. Glad we weren’t going to MK. We were really at AK at 8:58, so about 40 minutes from door to park.

We kept promising ourselves we would slooow down & really enjoy all the little things the parks have to offer as we will be here for 11 whole nights. We did pretty well with that. We stopped & listened & looked @ the creepy & weird things the cm’s had in glass boxes as we came into AK. Some were scorpions & tarantulas (glad they were behind the glass). Some of the highlights for me were the Festival of The Lion King (gonna do that again, if we can). The Safari was awesome, I always enjoy that. We ate @ Tusker House, had 12:45 rezzies & got seated about 1:15. I was really surprised @ how many empty tables there were considering there were so many people waiting to be seated outside! I mean at least half the available tables were not being used (and yes, I made allowance for those who were at the buffet)!! Something very odd about that. The food – very good. I had the marinated salmon, couscous, tabouleh, a curried seafood stew (not too spicy) & and apple/blue cheese salad thing. For dessert; baklava, chocolate lava cake, & cherry apple cobbler. Remember, this is a buffet, so the portions of dessert were all, shall we say tasting size. I noticed that the more day-to-day foods (like roast beef, turkey, mashed potatoes etc. were on one side of the room & the more ethnic stuff on the other).


Just have to make some comments about getting seated at Tusker House. We arrived at 12:35 for our 12:45 ADR. The family ahead of us did not have a ressie and were told it would be 30 minutes. We wait and wait and wait. We see families who arrived after us get seated. What’s going on? Nicci goes up and talks to the CM. We’re like second in line. After 5 more families get seated, she goes to the CM and oh, we’ve already been seated. Oh, no, we haven’t. So they seat us then. A 33 minute wait. That’s flat out unacceptable based on the circumstances (I understand it could happen for some other reason, but not when people who just walk up without a ressie get seated before us). If this is the way the DDP is going to work this trip, I’m going to be really upset. And when we get inside the restaurant, there are a bunch and I do mean a bunch of empty tables (30 to 40% of them). What is going on? Needless to say, we will never, ever be back there again. Meal before tip was $42.58. We had no “extra” expenses.

After that we did Tough To Be A Bug, not much wait. Then picked up FP for the Dinosaur Ride, then headed over to Nemo…ah-oh….rain! The kinda rain that pours down your poncho & gets the bottom of your capri’s soaked & makes your sandals all squishy! We headed back for the Dino line & found it was walk on, so we went in & enjoyed that. When we came out the rain had slowed. We headed over to Nemo & walked right in & got some pretty decent seats. Love that show, but the jet lag was starting to hit. We did Dino again, then took our time leaving, going thru the shops.

No wait for the bus. It was there when we got there at 4:55. We got seats and could have got off at Jamaica at 5:19, but we wanted to get off at Old Port Royale, so we stayed on and was off at 5:25.

Returned to CBR, laid down for a quick rest…2 hours later we woke up (guess we were wearier than we thought). We headed over to DTD, and ate at Wolf Gang Puck Express. DH had spaghetti & meatballs, I had the turkey hero sammy—yumm! We took our cookies with us to be eaten @ a later time. Shopped @ the World of Disney, replaced my worn our mouse pad with the Mickey icon shaped one. Looked thru some of the other places & ended up @ Art of Disney. We did one of the ‘make you own tee’ for our 7 month old grandson, Otto. We headed back to the resort just before closing @11p.m.

18 minute wait for a DTD bus. The worst bus service for the entire trip was ALWAYS DTD. More on that later. For some reason, the first DTD bus stop was closed. So they dropped us off at the PI bus stop. Since we wanted to go to Wolfgang Express near the other bus stop, this was a pain. We had to walk all the way back just to get our meal. What’s with that? Wolfgang was great as usual, and so we wandered around doing a little shopping and walked all of the way back to PI to catch the return bus home. I realize it’s not that long of a walk, but with all of the crowds, and since we really had no desire to do the West Side, or go thru PI, it was a little frustrating.

Overall a good day. It would have been better without all of the rain at AK, but hey it’s Florida. It’s not like we didn’t expect it.

[SBETigg]

I love the she said, he said! Great reporting! Thanks. And belated happy anniversary!

[KylesMom]

I've been waiting for your tag-team trip report! :thumbsup:

Sounds like service at CBR could have been a bit better upon arrival, but the important thing is that you got the room request filled. Very nice!

I laughed when I read that you were going to hit a.m. EMH at Animal Kingdom when you hit the sack at 2:15 am - and chuckled again when you obviously didn't make it. 6 am comes very early in The World, doesn't it? :thedolls:

I'm hoping to convince DH that Nemo will be worth the wait - glad you were able to catch it today.

Looking forward to tomorrow's report! :mickey:

[T-Belle]

I'm loving your reports and can't wait to read more!!!

[pdrlkr]

Thanks for the Report! :smickey:

[nicster]

I love the she said, he said! Great reporting! Thanks. And belated happy anniversary!
Thanks! We are just a couple of kids at heart, so WDW really is a good fit for us.

I've been waiting for your tag-team trip report! :thumbsup:

Sounds like service at CBR could have been a bit better upon arrival, but the important thing is that you got the room request filled. Very nice!

I laughed when I read that you were going to hit a.m. EMH at Animal Kingdom when you hit the sack at 2:15 am - and chuckled again when you obviously didn't make it. 6 am comes very early in The World, doesn't it? :thedolls:

I'm hoping to convince DH that Nemo will be worth the wait - glad you were able to catch it today.

Looking forward to tomorrow's report! :mickey:
Thanks. You can let DH know that Nemo is good on several levels. If he like musicals, he will enjoy the unique way they do their whole approach. The mechanics of the 'puppets' are fascinating, and if you still haven't sold him... it is air-conditioned!;)

I'm loving your reports and can't wait to read more!!!


Thanks for the Report! :smickey:
More to come...:mickey:

[faline]

We found Tusker House to be the most organized of our last trip. After checking on why we were waiting so long, we noticed we were called before another party of 2 who were there when we arrived and after a party of 4 who arrived about 5 mintues before we were called! I was not impressed!

Overall, it still seemed to be quite a nice day!

[vizsla]

Thanks for the report.

[ChipDale]

... A 33 minute wait. That’s flat out unacceptable based on the circumstances (I understand it could happen for some other reason, but not when people who just walk up without a ressie get seated before us). If this is the way the DDP is going to work this trip, I’m going to be really upset.

I wouldn't blame you - that is unacceptable.

After such a long travel day it still sounds like you two had a nice start to your vacation. Thanks for taking the time to share - I like the "She said, He said" format. :)

[princessgirls]

Thanks for the great report, and the comments about Tusker House. While the food was good, the wait is not acceptable!

Julie:mickey:

[Mickeydream]

Glad that you are having a great time...even without kids. Of course, it helps when you are a kid at heart! Just goes to show you that WDW is for everyone!! :mickey:

[nicster]

Glad that you are having a great time...even without kids. Of course, it helps when you are a kid at heart! Just goes to show you that WDW is for everyone!! :mickey:
We have been going solo for a few years now, the 'kids' are both in their 30's. Now we are looking forward to taking our grandson when he is old enough.:mickey: