faline
05-22-2011, 02:12 PM
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Who: Gene & Me
Plan for the Day:
Epcot
Les Chefs de France for dinner
When I left off last evening, we were getting ready to head downstairs to Jiko for dinner.
After checking in, we waited only a few minutes to be seated by the nice hostess, Linda, who explained her name means “Patience” in Swahili. This is interesting to me as that is also my first name.
Our waiter was Mike and he was excellent. He answered all of our questions and ensured we were well taken care of. He recommended a barbecue chicken flatbread which was quite yummy. For dinner, we both had the braised beef which was excellent. We weren’t going to order a bottle of wine but decided to do so when we were told we could, indeed, bring any we did not drink back to our room with us. We skipped dessert but did order fancy coffees (Nutty Italian for me; I forget what Gene had).
With the remaining wine corked, we headed back to our room (In fact, we’re each having a glass of the wine from last night’s dinner right now.). This was an excellent meal. I’d have to rate this one even higher than Citrico’s on ambiance.
After dropping the wine in our room, we made our way outside to the savannah view areas.
There was not much to see but we did stop and sit for a bit by the outside firepit which was pleasant. After taking some pictures around the lobby, we returned to our room.
And, once again, I attempted to place a wake up call for the morning. This time I received a woman who told me that Leslie B (I forget the last name but know it began with a B) showed up as the occupant of my room. She told me she would need to get a lead to help resolve the issue. A moment or two later, another woman picked up the call and addressed me as Ms. B (whatever Leslie’s last name is). I told her who I was and she replied that she had “been misinformed” but I was all set for my wake-up call. Full of confidence with this information, I set the alarm on my cell phone and climbed into bed where I tossed and turned for a good portion of the night. I just couldn’t seem to get to sleep – or at least to sleep well.
When it seemed I had just gotten to sleep, I began to hear a ringing. Good! Thought I! The wakeup call really was set! No-one on the phone. Oh wait! That’s my cell phone. No wake up call. Good thing I set the alarm on my cell. Gene and I joked that Leslie must be quite upset that she keeps getting these wake-up calls that she never requested!
Up and dressed, we have the goodies we purchased at the Main Street Bakery yesterday. Just before heading out, my phone vibrates and I see I have a text message from my daughter wishing me a Happy Mom’s Day! Since she’s obviously up, I give her a call and we chat for a few minutes.
We arrived at Epcot just after opening time where, as I entered, I was offered, and accepted, a carnation, in honor of Mother’s Day. Spaceship Earth, surprisingly, is a walk-on so we start with that. Test Track has a 20 minute wait time so we grab fast passes and head across the park. Along the way, we view the fairy area and visit the butterfly house. We ultimately arrive at Living with the Land. We also view The Circle of Life. Seems strange that a place dedicated to so much conspicuous consumption has a film on keeping things simple and using only what we need!
Since we’re in the area, we Journey with Figment and flash-back in time with Captain EO. It is now past time for our Test Track fast pass so we head back to that area. As we are being allowed into the fast pass line, a woman sidles up to Gene and flashes her fast pass. The cast member stops her as her fast pass isn’t good until almost 1:30 and it is now around 11:30 – guess she thought she could sneak by with us!
I guess that fast driving has made us hungry so we head over to France and have ham and cheese croissants for lunch. Before leaving France, we take a pictorial visit through the French countryside. From there, we journey to Morocco before returning once again to France. There, I get a champagne and Gene a beer. We take our refreshments into the United Kingdom where we find a shaded bench in the garden area. Dinks finished, we wander through the shops and have our pics taken with Pooh and Tigger. Rose and Crown is mobbed as it usually is so we do not linger here. The phone numbers for the United Kingdom phone booths do work and I play with calling Gene on the three phones in this area.
It’s turning hot so we decide to return to our resort and swim. On the way back to Animal Kingdom Lodge, we are the only two passengers on the bus for the entire trip. Our bus driver, it turns out in addition to driving for Disney, also runs a non-profit which rescues animals.
When we enter the lobby, we head to concierge. Since I’m told that Leslie is occupying my room, I want to be sure we don’t have any unexpected charges on our room charge. I ask for a printout of charges to our room – all seems in order. I then ask what name comes up under our room number and am assured it is my name. Now we find out that we’ve never officially been completely checked into our room – our status is still pending. The person we are speaking with, however, is unable to correct the issue. After venturing into the “back room”, he returns to say he will need to “start an IT ticket” on the issue. After discussion with this gentleman, here’s what we’ve been able to piece together. The computer system was down for some period of time on Monday (the day we checked in) which is why we never received a phone call with our room number. Concierge said there was still a note to call us with the room number. He indicated that Leslie was probably the occupant of the room before us. I suspect that Leslie never got completely “checked out” of the system which prevents us from getting completely “checked in”. The man I spoke with the one time we actually got a wake-up call seems to have identified the issue as he put a note in the system stating our status was still listed as pending. When the person at concierge could not correct the issue, it was discovered why the other individual just made a note instead of doing the fix. It is unlikely that wake up calls will work for us. He said we could make arrangements to have a “manual” wake up call(s) if we wanted which means a person would actually call us. I said we’d make do with my cell phone.
After our pool time, we changed and caught the bus back to Epcot. We walked, once again, to France and checked in at Les Chefs de France. There was probably at 10-15 minute wait until we were seated. We decided on the three course meal. The food was decent but the ambiance here (or lack thereof) really ruined this meal for us. Our waiter was attentive. The lobster bisque was hot but not quite as tasty as it could have been and the lobster morsels (rather measly, I might add) were mushy and did not have the right texture. I don’t know how Gene liked his onion soup. We both had the braised beef. Quantity was ample but did not compare in taste to the beef we had at Jiko the night before. The dessert was good. The din in the restaurant was more than annoying. Each person in the place seemed to be speaking louder than the next. When we finally exited the restaurant, the sounds of World Showcase seemed serene by comparison. We returned here because we’d have a wonderful experience on a trip that wasn’t that far in the past. After this trip, though, we will not rush back.
I had thought about going from here to the Magic Kingdom to view Wishes. We’re just too wiped out for a late night out so head directly home to Animal Kingdom Lodge.
Who: Gene & Me
Plan for the Day:
Epcot
Les Chefs de France for dinner
When I left off last evening, we were getting ready to head downstairs to Jiko for dinner.
After checking in, we waited only a few minutes to be seated by the nice hostess, Linda, who explained her name means “Patience” in Swahili. This is interesting to me as that is also my first name.
Our waiter was Mike and he was excellent. He answered all of our questions and ensured we were well taken care of. He recommended a barbecue chicken flatbread which was quite yummy. For dinner, we both had the braised beef which was excellent. We weren’t going to order a bottle of wine but decided to do so when we were told we could, indeed, bring any we did not drink back to our room with us. We skipped dessert but did order fancy coffees (Nutty Italian for me; I forget what Gene had).
With the remaining wine corked, we headed back to our room (In fact, we’re each having a glass of the wine from last night’s dinner right now.). This was an excellent meal. I’d have to rate this one even higher than Citrico’s on ambiance.
After dropping the wine in our room, we made our way outside to the savannah view areas.
There was not much to see but we did stop and sit for a bit by the outside firepit which was pleasant. After taking some pictures around the lobby, we returned to our room.
And, once again, I attempted to place a wake up call for the morning. This time I received a woman who told me that Leslie B (I forget the last name but know it began with a B) showed up as the occupant of my room. She told me she would need to get a lead to help resolve the issue. A moment or two later, another woman picked up the call and addressed me as Ms. B (whatever Leslie’s last name is). I told her who I was and she replied that she had “been misinformed” but I was all set for my wake-up call. Full of confidence with this information, I set the alarm on my cell phone and climbed into bed where I tossed and turned for a good portion of the night. I just couldn’t seem to get to sleep – or at least to sleep well.
When it seemed I had just gotten to sleep, I began to hear a ringing. Good! Thought I! The wakeup call really was set! No-one on the phone. Oh wait! That’s my cell phone. No wake up call. Good thing I set the alarm on my cell. Gene and I joked that Leslie must be quite upset that she keeps getting these wake-up calls that she never requested!
Up and dressed, we have the goodies we purchased at the Main Street Bakery yesterday. Just before heading out, my phone vibrates and I see I have a text message from my daughter wishing me a Happy Mom’s Day! Since she’s obviously up, I give her a call and we chat for a few minutes.
We arrived at Epcot just after opening time where, as I entered, I was offered, and accepted, a carnation, in honor of Mother’s Day. Spaceship Earth, surprisingly, is a walk-on so we start with that. Test Track has a 20 minute wait time so we grab fast passes and head across the park. Along the way, we view the fairy area and visit the butterfly house. We ultimately arrive at Living with the Land. We also view The Circle of Life. Seems strange that a place dedicated to so much conspicuous consumption has a film on keeping things simple and using only what we need!
Since we’re in the area, we Journey with Figment and flash-back in time with Captain EO. It is now past time for our Test Track fast pass so we head back to that area. As we are being allowed into the fast pass line, a woman sidles up to Gene and flashes her fast pass. The cast member stops her as her fast pass isn’t good until almost 1:30 and it is now around 11:30 – guess she thought she could sneak by with us!
I guess that fast driving has made us hungry so we head over to France and have ham and cheese croissants for lunch. Before leaving France, we take a pictorial visit through the French countryside. From there, we journey to Morocco before returning once again to France. There, I get a champagne and Gene a beer. We take our refreshments into the United Kingdom where we find a shaded bench in the garden area. Dinks finished, we wander through the shops and have our pics taken with Pooh and Tigger. Rose and Crown is mobbed as it usually is so we do not linger here. The phone numbers for the United Kingdom phone booths do work and I play with calling Gene on the three phones in this area.
It’s turning hot so we decide to return to our resort and swim. On the way back to Animal Kingdom Lodge, we are the only two passengers on the bus for the entire trip. Our bus driver, it turns out in addition to driving for Disney, also runs a non-profit which rescues animals.
When we enter the lobby, we head to concierge. Since I’m told that Leslie is occupying my room, I want to be sure we don’t have any unexpected charges on our room charge. I ask for a printout of charges to our room – all seems in order. I then ask what name comes up under our room number and am assured it is my name. Now we find out that we’ve never officially been completely checked into our room – our status is still pending. The person we are speaking with, however, is unable to correct the issue. After venturing into the “back room”, he returns to say he will need to “start an IT ticket” on the issue. After discussion with this gentleman, here’s what we’ve been able to piece together. The computer system was down for some period of time on Monday (the day we checked in) which is why we never received a phone call with our room number. Concierge said there was still a note to call us with the room number. He indicated that Leslie was probably the occupant of the room before us. I suspect that Leslie never got completely “checked out” of the system which prevents us from getting completely “checked in”. The man I spoke with the one time we actually got a wake-up call seems to have identified the issue as he put a note in the system stating our status was still listed as pending. When the person at concierge could not correct the issue, it was discovered why the other individual just made a note instead of doing the fix. It is unlikely that wake up calls will work for us. He said we could make arrangements to have a “manual” wake up call(s) if we wanted which means a person would actually call us. I said we’d make do with my cell phone.
After our pool time, we changed and caught the bus back to Epcot. We walked, once again, to France and checked in at Les Chefs de France. There was probably at 10-15 minute wait until we were seated. We decided on the three course meal. The food was decent but the ambiance here (or lack thereof) really ruined this meal for us. Our waiter was attentive. The lobster bisque was hot but not quite as tasty as it could have been and the lobster morsels (rather measly, I might add) were mushy and did not have the right texture. I don’t know how Gene liked his onion soup. We both had the braised beef. Quantity was ample but did not compare in taste to the beef we had at Jiko the night before. The dessert was good. The din in the restaurant was more than annoying. Each person in the place seemed to be speaking louder than the next. When we finally exited the restaurant, the sounds of World Showcase seemed serene by comparison. We returned here because we’d have a wonderful experience on a trip that wasn’t that far in the past. After this trip, though, we will not rush back.
I had thought about going from here to the Magic Kingdom to view Wishes. We’re just too wiped out for a late night out so head directly home to Animal Kingdom Lodge.