azcavalier
10-11-2009, 10:52 PM
Wow, was that a hot week. Now, keep in mind, we have never been to Disney in the summer. Is it worse than it was this week? Low to mid 90's with high humidity? It felt like we were swimming out there a few times. That pool sure felt wonderful around 2pm every day.
No real new lessons learned, except for one. When we checked in, the CM that checked us in mentioned that we could park for free since we were resort guests. I don't think anyone had ever told us that before, and we had always used the busses. So, we decided to try it out. Wow, that is so much more convenient than waiting on the busses. Don't get me wrong, the busses are nice, but we had no waiting, and no problems getting into or out of the parking lots at the parks. It was SOOO much faster. And after the fireworks shows, such as Illuminations, we didn't have to wait an hour to get on a bus. It was -zip! out of the park, into the car, on the highway, and we were back in our resorts and in our beds in fifteen minutes.
So....
LESSON LEARNED - If you have a car, drive to the parks! Except for the Magic Kingdom....that parking lot isn't actually anywhere close to the park.
So, the last few days, we ate at Tusker House, O'Hana, and Le Cellier. O'Hana and Le Cellier were excellent, and Tusker House was a nice change.
In the end, a couple of things about the week stick out, besides the heat....
My wife, the crazy pin lady, actually managed to collect the entire 26 pin "alphabet" set that has one character whose name starts with that particular letter, and she did so in five days. So, for example, the "G" has a picture of the Genie on it. They were all animated characters, except for one. Quick, any guesses who the letter "V" might stand for?
"The Voyage of the Little Mermaid" is by far the worst stage show in the whole of WDW. The voice of the CM who sang Ariel's part was actually very good, but on the whole, it's just kind of a cheesy show, not at all on par with any of the others.
Our Mousekeeper was excellent. The room was always spotless, and the kids were so excited to come back every day to see what she had done with their stuffed animals. Also, over the course of the week, she had created three more stuffed animals from the washclothes and hand towels, and even had stuck on paper eyes, noses, mouths, etc. It was really cute. I took pictures almost every day of what the animals were doing. Once they were all circled around the biggest one, who had an open book in it's lap. Another time, they were climbing up/down the bed post. Once they were all actually watching the TV, which they had switched on. That's just one of the touches that makes Disney special.
On a final note, the older kids and I drove 716 miles home today, and made it in about 12 hours (including stops) from Orlando to southwestern VA. But early in our trip, sometime between 9-10am, on a strip of 1-95 north of Daytona Beach I saw something I have never seen before. As we were heading northbound, I saw an SUV (Ford Expedition maybe?) heading southbound, drive on to the shoulder, hit the guardrail, and take flight. It flipped up and over, end over end, and spun slightly, before coming down on its top half on the median and halfway on our shoulder. I was only about 50 yards away when it landed. I moved over a couple of lanes (light traffic) because I actually thought it was coming into our lane. I have no idea what caused it, and there were no other cars involved. I don't know what happened to those in the truck, as I didn't stop. I was going to, but saw a lot of other cars pulling over on to the shoulders to stop, and I don't possess any special skills that would have made me particularly helpful. That, along with no one to stay with my kids (and if it was gruesome, I certainly didn't want them near it), and we still had ten hours to drive even without delays, I just kept going. Had my DW been with us (she was flying to Arizona to visit family), we would have stopped, as she is a surgeon, and could have possibly rendered assistance. I don't know what the result was of the accident. I tried to Google some news, but I don't remember exactly where it was, except that it was on 95 in Florida. If anyone happens to have ANY idea of a single-car SUV accident on that stretch of road during the morning of Sunday, October 11th, I would appreciate it.
So, it was another great trip to Disney. Looking forward to going back either late next year or early in 2011. In any case, it'll be during a cooler time.
No real new lessons learned, except for one. When we checked in, the CM that checked us in mentioned that we could park for free since we were resort guests. I don't think anyone had ever told us that before, and we had always used the busses. So, we decided to try it out. Wow, that is so much more convenient than waiting on the busses. Don't get me wrong, the busses are nice, but we had no waiting, and no problems getting into or out of the parking lots at the parks. It was SOOO much faster. And after the fireworks shows, such as Illuminations, we didn't have to wait an hour to get on a bus. It was -zip! out of the park, into the car, on the highway, and we were back in our resorts and in our beds in fifteen minutes.
So....
LESSON LEARNED - If you have a car, drive to the parks! Except for the Magic Kingdom....that parking lot isn't actually anywhere close to the park.
So, the last few days, we ate at Tusker House, O'Hana, and Le Cellier. O'Hana and Le Cellier were excellent, and Tusker House was a nice change.
In the end, a couple of things about the week stick out, besides the heat....
My wife, the crazy pin lady, actually managed to collect the entire 26 pin "alphabet" set that has one character whose name starts with that particular letter, and she did so in five days. So, for example, the "G" has a picture of the Genie on it. They were all animated characters, except for one. Quick, any guesses who the letter "V" might stand for?
"The Voyage of the Little Mermaid" is by far the worst stage show in the whole of WDW. The voice of the CM who sang Ariel's part was actually very good, but on the whole, it's just kind of a cheesy show, not at all on par with any of the others.
Our Mousekeeper was excellent. The room was always spotless, and the kids were so excited to come back every day to see what she had done with their stuffed animals. Also, over the course of the week, she had created three more stuffed animals from the washclothes and hand towels, and even had stuck on paper eyes, noses, mouths, etc. It was really cute. I took pictures almost every day of what the animals were doing. Once they were all circled around the biggest one, who had an open book in it's lap. Another time, they were climbing up/down the bed post. Once they were all actually watching the TV, which they had switched on. That's just one of the touches that makes Disney special.
On a final note, the older kids and I drove 716 miles home today, and made it in about 12 hours (including stops) from Orlando to southwestern VA. But early in our trip, sometime between 9-10am, on a strip of 1-95 north of Daytona Beach I saw something I have never seen before. As we were heading northbound, I saw an SUV (Ford Expedition maybe?) heading southbound, drive on to the shoulder, hit the guardrail, and take flight. It flipped up and over, end over end, and spun slightly, before coming down on its top half on the median and halfway on our shoulder. I was only about 50 yards away when it landed. I moved over a couple of lanes (light traffic) because I actually thought it was coming into our lane. I have no idea what caused it, and there were no other cars involved. I don't know what happened to those in the truck, as I didn't stop. I was going to, but saw a lot of other cars pulling over on to the shoulders to stop, and I don't possess any special skills that would have made me particularly helpful. That, along with no one to stay with my kids (and if it was gruesome, I certainly didn't want them near it), and we still had ten hours to drive even without delays, I just kept going. Had my DW been with us (she was flying to Arizona to visit family), we would have stopped, as she is a surgeon, and could have possibly rendered assistance. I don't know what the result was of the accident. I tried to Google some news, but I don't remember exactly where it was, except that it was on 95 in Florida. If anyone happens to have ANY idea of a single-car SUV accident on that stretch of road during the morning of Sunday, October 11th, I would appreciate it.
So, it was another great trip to Disney. Looking forward to going back either late next year or early in 2011. In any case, it'll be during a cooler time.