DisneyDINK
09-26-2013, 04:05 PM
I landed and was at the gate at 5:55am – on-time! Being in first class means I am among the first off the plane. I gathered my things and made a bee-line for ME. As was the case on my last 3 trips the ME staging area was a ghost town. I shared the bus with 2 Japanese tourists. I took their picture in front of the bus and they, in turn, got one of me and saved me having to do the close-up selfie.
The young Japanese couple were the only other passengers and they were also staying at the WL. I sat up front with the driver and we talked about languages and I taught him a couple of phrases in Tagalog (Filipino). Note – I do butt-in to other people’s world on this trip, but I am thoroughly convinced that in at least 75% of the cases they enjoyed the resulting conversations almost as much as I did.
I stepped off ME at 6:55am and I told the Japanese tourists to follow me to check-in. My room wasn’t available, so gave the CM my cell number, responded to the text and then I went to Sturdy Branches and changed and stored my things in a locker there. They have those electronic locks there that work with a 4 digit code; not super secure, but I’d chance it.
It was about 7:20am now and I didn’t want to wait around for the bus, so I hopped in a cab and sped off to DHS. The weather was sunny and warm with a few scattered clouds. The humidity was there and it would be a hot day. I went to Guest Relations (Guest Relations, right out there in front of everybody?! (Tee hee hee! )) and exchanged my paper AP for a plastic Donald one. The CM was so apologetic, “All I have for APs right now is Donald, but you can exchange it later.” Yeah, I’d prefer :goofy2:, but I don’t take little issues like this seriously at all and the duck with the anger issues would serve me just fine. So… they still hadn’t opened for the 8:00am EMH. I got in line and had time to talk to a nice Australian family from Sydney. They told me that Sydney and Melbourne have a bit of a contest as to who is the better city. Darn Aussies, their holidays (vacations to us Yanks) are sooooo much longer than ours.
The park opened and I did my usual: off to TSM for a FP, over to ToT for a ride (walked on), then 2x on RnR in the Standby line (Single not open yet) then get a breakfast sandwich at Fairfax Faire then went to TSM to use the FP. (BTW, it is now 9:45am – I did all of that in 45 minutes!) Now I went to Star Tours (walked on) and C3PO and R2 took me over to Hoth to do battle with some walkers this time. It was fun, but those sim rides made me feel just a tad queasy. Next I hit Muppet Vision and then went to the Tune-In Lounge for lunch. The Tune-In serves the full menu at the bar and my Pot Pie was great and arrived some 4-5 minutes after I ordered it. The bartender was a fast-moving young guy from Mexico City – Muy amigable tambien. Octavio? Can’t recall his name but I think it began with O. Just think, bartender CMs like him have regulars. I had a moment so I stopped to think about that; I wanna be a regular here!. Lunch was quick, but I relaxed and ate at a leisurely pace and had 2 drinks, still doing the Scotch thing.
There aren’t a lot of things I haven’t done in the parks, but I have never seen the Beauty and the Beast stage show, so I gave it a go. I really enjoyed it. I can cross that off the bucket list and I will be sure to take it in again with DW the next time we go.
After a very short night light on the sleep time it was time to go to the room for some Z’s. My phone had notified me my room was available. I stopped by Sturdy Branches and grabbed my stuff and went up to room 4004. Inside was the “feed bag” I packed which had been delivered. I wasn’t too surprised the TSA had opened it up to take a peek, but they left me a nice form letter, awe! How sweet! I did a bit of unpacking and rearranging and settled into a 3 hour nap.
Wake-up calls were going to be an issue this trip, but oddly that would not cause any problems. Before the nap I tried to use the Wake-Up system on the phone. I hit the button on the hotel phone and… nothing. The speaker phone would come on, but it would never dial a number. None of the buttons worked. I programed my phone alarm to wake me at 4:00pm, but somehow I forgot to hit save. Gratefully I work up at 4:15 on my own. So I showered, dressed, prefunctioned, (a term from my college/fraternity days. You have a drink or two before you go to the party) went down to the check-in desk, reported the phone problem and then boarded a bus for Epcot. I arrived at about 5:20pm.
BTW – those texts I’m sending myself using the voice-to-text feature are less than infallible, observe:
“. Heading for spaceship earth and then I'll head of the mold and pick up lines for sore and him”. ???
I did SSE and then Test Track in the single sider queue. Single riders don’t do the full design process so I choose one of 4 pre-designed vehicles. I would have liked to do the whole process, but, again, I’ll do it with DW in December. Hakuna Matata! Next off to Club Cool where I saved myself $ on soda-pop. I tried everything including 3 full cups of Beverly. All sugared up, I headed to Nemo. They had to reroute the queue and a few of us wound up at the exit but I lead us back and found another way to the loading area. In the middle of the queue there was some poor CM doing a hazmat style cleanup with some sort of strong disinfectant. Apparently someone had dropped some sort of load in the road. I hope they are feeling better!
6:22pm and I’m at the Imagination Institute for a go-round with Figment. After that it was off to dinner. Then plan was to eat at the Pub in the Rose and Crown, but it was packed, so I walked through the International Gateway to the YC and had a nice meal the Crew’s Cup. Next to me were a couple from PA who had been married for 1 ½ years, without kids who were making me miss my DW. Why? They were ripping on friends and family members and second guessing their decisions. Back in February DW sat in their same seats and did the same thing. We have a fun conversation and talked about how much better it was to externalize: observe the faults of others and avoid turning a critical eye on ourselves. It wasn’t mean, it was all in good fun. We laughed some and I ordered a couple of drinks and had the lobster sliders. Wes the barkeep was a good guy. He said the 18% tip TIW card brought down his average. He only mentioned it because I asked him. I thought about it and decided I’d always award “good” service beyond the included gratuity. Standard to sub-par would just get the mandatory 18%. His service was good. Again, these guys have regulars, who knew?
After a nice meal and a few adult beverages I headed back to Epcot. I walked around the lake and rode Maelstrom. I think this was the longest wait I did the whole trip (15-20) minutes. At the end I caught the majority of the movie; it had been a while. Next was the GFT which I enjoy. Then I walked around to Japan to see what kind of Chococat merchandise I could find. DW had a Chococat luggage tag which she recently lost somewhere between Seattle and Chicago. Sadly, they didn’t have one, so I got DW a Chococat coffee mug. A day later she found one on Amazon and bought it: crisis averted.
I bought a bit of maple candy in Canada and chatted with the CMs about the Nexus card and a few other things. Nice kids. Then I checked out Illuminations. One odd thing, I could actually feel little tiny chunks of fireworks lightly pelting my face and body from time to time. The smoke was a bit thick there too, but it was still a great show.
Time to head to the WL? No! Why? I need a Dole Whip! I went through the International Gateway and caught a MK bus at the BC. One came right away and then I took a boat to the Poly. This BTW was kinda dumb of me. Crowds were pouring out of the MK after Wishes. I probably should have just gone to Aloha Isle, but I did want to check out the Poly a bit. I just barely got on the third boat and I made it to Capt. Cooks and served myself up a big ‘ol Dole Whip. I enjoyed it as I slowly strolled around the property with its tiki torches and ubiquitous relaxing Hawaiian tunes playing. After a stop on a bench I bought a pair of shorts at the gift shop and then took the Resort Monorail back to the MK where I caught a boat to the WL. It took me a about an hour and forty minutes to get my desert, but I enjoyed the whole experience.
I was finally in for the night, so I had a night cap and was in bed by about 11:15pm for some needed if not well deserved sleep. My phone had been “fixed” so I programmed a wake-up for 7:30am.
I DINK Alone! – Day 2 Pt. 1 – Whole Lotta MK - Morning (http://www.intercot.com/discussion/showthread.php?p=2378273#post2378273)
:goofy2:
The young Japanese couple were the only other passengers and they were also staying at the WL. I sat up front with the driver and we talked about languages and I taught him a couple of phrases in Tagalog (Filipino). Note – I do butt-in to other people’s world on this trip, but I am thoroughly convinced that in at least 75% of the cases they enjoyed the resulting conversations almost as much as I did.
I stepped off ME at 6:55am and I told the Japanese tourists to follow me to check-in. My room wasn’t available, so gave the CM my cell number, responded to the text and then I went to Sturdy Branches and changed and stored my things in a locker there. They have those electronic locks there that work with a 4 digit code; not super secure, but I’d chance it.
It was about 7:20am now and I didn’t want to wait around for the bus, so I hopped in a cab and sped off to DHS. The weather was sunny and warm with a few scattered clouds. The humidity was there and it would be a hot day. I went to Guest Relations (Guest Relations, right out there in front of everybody?! (Tee hee hee! )) and exchanged my paper AP for a plastic Donald one. The CM was so apologetic, “All I have for APs right now is Donald, but you can exchange it later.” Yeah, I’d prefer :goofy2:, but I don’t take little issues like this seriously at all and the duck with the anger issues would serve me just fine. So… they still hadn’t opened for the 8:00am EMH. I got in line and had time to talk to a nice Australian family from Sydney. They told me that Sydney and Melbourne have a bit of a contest as to who is the better city. Darn Aussies, their holidays (vacations to us Yanks) are sooooo much longer than ours.
The park opened and I did my usual: off to TSM for a FP, over to ToT for a ride (walked on), then 2x on RnR in the Standby line (Single not open yet) then get a breakfast sandwich at Fairfax Faire then went to TSM to use the FP. (BTW, it is now 9:45am – I did all of that in 45 minutes!) Now I went to Star Tours (walked on) and C3PO and R2 took me over to Hoth to do battle with some walkers this time. It was fun, but those sim rides made me feel just a tad queasy. Next I hit Muppet Vision and then went to the Tune-In Lounge for lunch. The Tune-In serves the full menu at the bar and my Pot Pie was great and arrived some 4-5 minutes after I ordered it. The bartender was a fast-moving young guy from Mexico City – Muy amigable tambien. Octavio? Can’t recall his name but I think it began with O. Just think, bartender CMs like him have regulars. I had a moment so I stopped to think about that; I wanna be a regular here!. Lunch was quick, but I relaxed and ate at a leisurely pace and had 2 drinks, still doing the Scotch thing.
There aren’t a lot of things I haven’t done in the parks, but I have never seen the Beauty and the Beast stage show, so I gave it a go. I really enjoyed it. I can cross that off the bucket list and I will be sure to take it in again with DW the next time we go.
After a very short night light on the sleep time it was time to go to the room for some Z’s. My phone had notified me my room was available. I stopped by Sturdy Branches and grabbed my stuff and went up to room 4004. Inside was the “feed bag” I packed which had been delivered. I wasn’t too surprised the TSA had opened it up to take a peek, but they left me a nice form letter, awe! How sweet! I did a bit of unpacking and rearranging and settled into a 3 hour nap.
Wake-up calls were going to be an issue this trip, but oddly that would not cause any problems. Before the nap I tried to use the Wake-Up system on the phone. I hit the button on the hotel phone and… nothing. The speaker phone would come on, but it would never dial a number. None of the buttons worked. I programed my phone alarm to wake me at 4:00pm, but somehow I forgot to hit save. Gratefully I work up at 4:15 on my own. So I showered, dressed, prefunctioned, (a term from my college/fraternity days. You have a drink or two before you go to the party) went down to the check-in desk, reported the phone problem and then boarded a bus for Epcot. I arrived at about 5:20pm.
BTW – those texts I’m sending myself using the voice-to-text feature are less than infallible, observe:
“. Heading for spaceship earth and then I'll head of the mold and pick up lines for sore and him”. ???
I did SSE and then Test Track in the single sider queue. Single riders don’t do the full design process so I choose one of 4 pre-designed vehicles. I would have liked to do the whole process, but, again, I’ll do it with DW in December. Hakuna Matata! Next off to Club Cool where I saved myself $ on soda-pop. I tried everything including 3 full cups of Beverly. All sugared up, I headed to Nemo. They had to reroute the queue and a few of us wound up at the exit but I lead us back and found another way to the loading area. In the middle of the queue there was some poor CM doing a hazmat style cleanup with some sort of strong disinfectant. Apparently someone had dropped some sort of load in the road. I hope they are feeling better!
6:22pm and I’m at the Imagination Institute for a go-round with Figment. After that it was off to dinner. Then plan was to eat at the Pub in the Rose and Crown, but it was packed, so I walked through the International Gateway to the YC and had a nice meal the Crew’s Cup. Next to me were a couple from PA who had been married for 1 ½ years, without kids who were making me miss my DW. Why? They were ripping on friends and family members and second guessing their decisions. Back in February DW sat in their same seats and did the same thing. We have a fun conversation and talked about how much better it was to externalize: observe the faults of others and avoid turning a critical eye on ourselves. It wasn’t mean, it was all in good fun. We laughed some and I ordered a couple of drinks and had the lobster sliders. Wes the barkeep was a good guy. He said the 18% tip TIW card brought down his average. He only mentioned it because I asked him. I thought about it and decided I’d always award “good” service beyond the included gratuity. Standard to sub-par would just get the mandatory 18%. His service was good. Again, these guys have regulars, who knew?
After a nice meal and a few adult beverages I headed back to Epcot. I walked around the lake and rode Maelstrom. I think this was the longest wait I did the whole trip (15-20) minutes. At the end I caught the majority of the movie; it had been a while. Next was the GFT which I enjoy. Then I walked around to Japan to see what kind of Chococat merchandise I could find. DW had a Chococat luggage tag which she recently lost somewhere between Seattle and Chicago. Sadly, they didn’t have one, so I got DW a Chococat coffee mug. A day later she found one on Amazon and bought it: crisis averted.
I bought a bit of maple candy in Canada and chatted with the CMs about the Nexus card and a few other things. Nice kids. Then I checked out Illuminations. One odd thing, I could actually feel little tiny chunks of fireworks lightly pelting my face and body from time to time. The smoke was a bit thick there too, but it was still a great show.
Time to head to the WL? No! Why? I need a Dole Whip! I went through the International Gateway and caught a MK bus at the BC. One came right away and then I took a boat to the Poly. This BTW was kinda dumb of me. Crowds were pouring out of the MK after Wishes. I probably should have just gone to Aloha Isle, but I did want to check out the Poly a bit. I just barely got on the third boat and I made it to Capt. Cooks and served myself up a big ‘ol Dole Whip. I enjoyed it as I slowly strolled around the property with its tiki torches and ubiquitous relaxing Hawaiian tunes playing. After a stop on a bench I bought a pair of shorts at the gift shop and then took the Resort Monorail back to the MK where I caught a boat to the WL. It took me a about an hour and forty minutes to get my desert, but I enjoyed the whole experience.
I was finally in for the night, so I had a night cap and was in bed by about 11:15pm for some needed if not well deserved sleep. My phone had been “fixed” so I programmed a wake-up for 7:30am.
I DINK Alone! – Day 2 Pt. 1 – Whole Lotta MK - Morning (http://www.intercot.com/discussion/showthread.php?p=2378273#post2378273)
:goofy2: