Mary & DH - October 2007

WHO?:Me 40 something - DH a tid bid younger
Wednesday, October 17

Today we had booked the "Keys to the Kingdom" tour which we have taken before, several years ago, but we wanted to do it again. Our old brains have forgotten alot of the information, plus walking in what I had hoped would be cooler weather was very appealing. Well, much to my dismay it is hot as heck out today. Hot, humid and I am already sweating at 9:00 am! Anyway, since it is a 48 hour cancel, we are going. So we get there and the tour is full and we start out. They gave us each a bottle of water and headsets. The last time we took this, the girl had to yell to speak to us, so the headset is GREAT in that she can talk in a normal voice and we can hear very clearly from a distance.

We venture out and surprisingly we hear things we didn't hear before and some of what we learned last trip, she didn't talk about this trip. We do the tour and then stop around noon for our lunch which was really very good. It was at the Columbia Harbor House and DH and I both got the chicken and fish combo. Just sitting in air conditioning for 30 minutes was a treat! We sat with two ladies from England who were very nice. One of them had just bought DVC through a resale and was currently staying at the Boardwalk.

After lunch we did the Haunted Mansion where I noticed some differences but not alot. Maybe I'm just not terribly observant.

Then on down to the "underground" area and back outside by the garbage. Boy did it stink! The garbage was not part of our last tour and I think they can eliminate that part of the tour. We did also get to see the snowflakes practicing for the Christmas Parade. That was pretty neat.

At this point I'm ready to end this tour, but it keeps going on. We watch a video back in the underground area which is interesting but we have gone beyond the scheduled end time and I'm ready to go! Finally at 2:00 the tour finally wraps up. We have now been on this tour for 5 hours! It is scheduled 4-4.5 and that would have been plenty. While the tourguide was very nice and clearly a HUGE Disney enthusiast, it was just too much embelishment and not just facts and stories. I won't be taking this again for a long while.

After the tour, we leave MK and head back to the hotel. We quickly change into bathing suits and head to the pool for a couple of hours.

At around 5 we go back up to the room, grab a few appetizers which consisted of clam chowder, the usual cheeses and olives, etc. and clams. We were still pretty full from lunch so we didn't eat much.

After relaxing in the room for a while, we make a few cocktails and head down to the Marketplace in the Beach Club and get a couple of cups of chowder. I love this Marketplace in this hotel. Since the Boardwalk has nothing like it, I really appreciate it. You can get breakfast, salads, sandwiches and some pretty awesome clam chowder! We brought the chowder back to the room and just relaxed the rest of the evening. We started to pack up as tomorrow we are moving to the Boardwalk.

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