Rhonda - February 2008

Cast: Rhonda, 43 year old lover of all things Disney, and Robert, 45 year old partner in crime.

I will be traveling to Belgium the first week of March and really wanted to hit DLP while I was over there anyway. My business could not bok me over the weekend, so I was lamenting this when Bob suggested we head to WDW for the weekend. This was suggested around 11:30 on Friday. We had everything booked and were on our way around 4:30 that same day. Here are the gorey details:

Here you go Gigi and Vanessa!

Trip Report - WDW - February 1-3

Here's how it all went down. Bob calls me at work asking what I want to do for the weekend. I have no clue. The kids will be with their father, I've been in meetings all week. I'm tired. He suggests, jokingly, that we fly down to Florida and spend the weekend at WDW. I say "no way" and head back to my day-long meeting. While in the meeting, I think, "what the heck! Let's see if we really can go down there last minute". I text Bob from my cell phone. "Let's do it. I'll call you in half an hour". I leave the meeting for lunch, head to my office and check on flights for Southwest. I had to cancel my December trip when I discovered that I had mis-read Sharon's college schedule and booked the trip during her finals week, so I have a $740.00 credit with Southwest that needs to be used by July. They have flights available leaving Friday night at 7:55, arriving Orlando at 9:30. I call book the flights and still have $$$ left for another trip. I call Disney and the only place they have rooms are Contemporary in the Garden rooms and the Yacht Club. Yowsa! Pricey! I call Bob (while on the phone with Disney) and we decide on Yacht Club. Contemporary would have been nice, but they are doing construction plus we weren't planning on going to MK as it was closing at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday. We opted for Epcot, which meant the Yacht Club would be a quick walk over via the International Gateway. I have stayed at the Contemporary before (in 1979) and wanted to try something new. I had never been to any of the Epcot resorts, even for a visit, so it seemed like a good idea. Since I had picked up airfare, Bob said he'd pay the hotel and tickets and meals. Good deal!

Since we were booking the day of our arrival, we were not able to secure our tickets, but I was assured that I could get them at the front desk when we checked in. I call Quick Silver to book a town car so that we can save a little money over taking a cab from MCO. They were able to find me a driver at such late notice, which made me happy! It's now about 2:00 in the afternoon and I have a million things to do, so I wrap things up at work and head home about 2:30. I have to have the house cleaned, kids packed, me packed, and I need to be out the door in time to drop the kids off at their dad's work and then head over to the airport. On the drive home, I called my girlfriend Vicky and told her of our plans. She accompanied me on my 10 day trip in August 2006. As we were talking, I mentioned to her that Bob had always wanted to do the Segway Tour, and since we were going to be at Epcot all day, I thought maybe I would see if they had any openings. When I arrived home, I called Disney Tours and they did indeed have openings for the 9:30! Awesome! I called Bob and surprised him with the news. He was speechless (and if you know the man, you know that NEVER happens!). In the meantime, I packed my bag, got all of the paperwork together and the kids and I headed to Bob's to pick him up en route to dropping the children off with their father. We told them we were going to the mountains for the weekend. Bad mommy ..

Bob and I arrive at Raleigh/Durham Airport and get through security with no problems. We check the board only to find out that our flight has been delayed until 9:00 p.m.! ARGH! Our plane was coming in from Chicago and they had horrible weather issues on Friday that delayed everything. I napped in the terminal for about an hour (it was about 6:30 p.m.) and then checked the board again. Delayed until 9:20. I am NOT a happy camper right now! We read some magazines, did some Killer Sudoku puzzles and lamented our luck. Long story short - delay after delay after delay and we FINALLY board the plane at 10:10 p.m., a full 2 hours and 15 minutes after we were supposed to leave. After an uneventful flight, we arrived at MCO at 11:45. Our town car is nowhere. We call Quick Silver. The driver is there, he's just in the wrong place. We wait for him and he arrives about 20 minutes later. Carlos was a great guy with very limited English, so it was a quiet ride to the Yacht Club. We finally arrive at the resort at 12:45 a.m., totally exhausted and wondering how in the world we are going to make it through the day tomorrow (which is now officially "today"). For the first time EVER at Disney, we get a totally incompetent Front Desk Clerk who looks to be about 12 years old and seems confused when we inquire about purchasing our one-day tickets when we check in. I opt to go to the concierge desk when it opens at 7:00 a.m. (a mere 6 hours away!) and we get our room keys and head up to room 3089. Upon arrival, we try our key. Nope. We try again. Still a no-go. We try the second key. Nothing. We are at the far end of the building, a ways away from the desk, so I opt to call the resort from my cell phone. I get a lovely lady on the line that needs to know more information that my credit card company does just to release my room number. Come to find out, our front desk clerk really was incompetent! Dyslexic, too! LOL We were in room 3098. He wrote it down improperly on our paperwork. I felt bad hoping we didn't scare the crap out of whoever really was in room 3089! LOL We walk to our room, open the door, and it's FREEZING! They did not have the heat on. I turned it on; we did a quick brushing of the teeth and put a call in to Mickey to wake me up at 6:50 a.m. Then off to beddy- by. I woke up at 6:50 (thanks Mickey and Stitch!) and find out that Bob only got about 3 very restless hours of sleep. When I turned the heat on, it kicked in really well and the room was hot as Hades! I had no problem with it, but Bob did. I made him some coffee and told him to go back to sleep and I'd head down to concierge. He was grateful!

My concierge, Nick, was a really nice guy from Jersey. He sold me my one-day tickets and when I told him we were a little bummed about not going to the Magic Kingdom because it closed so early that night, be told me it was because they were having the Pirates and Princess Party and that the park would be open until midnight for it! SOLD! I bought two tickets to the party and then headed back up to the room to surprise Bob. He was ELATED! We were going to do our two favorite parks! We both relaxed and had some coffee and prepared for the day. We headed down to the lobby for a quick breakfast. While we were down there, we realized it was much warmer than we had anticipated and headed back up to the room to throw on some shorts. The plan was to be at the international Gateway for rope drop and then to head to Soarin' for fast passes before heading over to the Customer Relations building to check in for our Segway Around the World tour. We walked to Epcot at 8:40, went through security and then waited for the rope to drop. We got our Soarin¡¦ fast passes and headed over for our tour. I can't recommend the Segway tour enough! It is well worth the money (we got a discount because I have a Disney Visa, but the same discount applies if you have AAA also). We spent about 30 minutes learning how to ride the Segways, which is really easy and feels almost too natural after a while. I want one! I want one! ƒº We ran into Belle in Innoventions and said "bonjour" before heading over to the World Showcase for our tour. Our tour guide took us to each of the countries, beginning with Mexico. We got to go "behind the scenes" and since the World Showcase wasn't open yet we had the whole place to ourselves! We ran a slalom course around the arches in Italy, rode around the bridges at the Japanese gardens, had lots of photo ops, and had a fabulous time! We were so sad when it ended! It was supposed to be a two-hour tour, but we went a little long, so they gave each of us a fast pass for any ride in Epcot that day! Yippee! We also got these really cool "Segway Around the World" slider pins that you only get when you take the tour. That's a keeper!

After returning our Segway's, we headed over to The Land. We used our morning fast passes and rode Soarin'. Awesome as always! We then stopped for a frozen banana and a Nestle Crunch bar to tide us over until we ate lunch. We went to The Seas and I got to Ride "The Seas with Nemo and Friends". Last time I was at Disney, this ride was under construction. It was cute! I love how they have the Pixar fish swimming with the real fish at the end! How does Disney do it?!?!? We then walked over to the "Leave a Legacy" area to find our faces. We bought a spot in 2004 when we went to Disney to celebrate my 40th birthday. We took some pictures of our picture. LOL and then headed over to Spaceship Earth. I really like the changes they made! I was even able to take pictures of our custom made ending! I'll post them soon! All of the improvements were fabulous and we really enjoyed the ride. It was now 1:30, so we headed over to Test Track. The line was short so we didn't use our fast passes on it. Great ride as always, and I got a photo pass card with our picture from the ride on it. It's the only photo pass picture from the entire trip! Good thing I didn't spring a hundred bucks for the CD! LOL

After Test Track, Bob wasn't feeling well (lack of sleep and strange eating didn't set well with his stomach) so we skipped my favorite ride - Mission:Space. Next time! We headed back over to "The Land" and had some lunch at Sunshine Seasons. Bob had never eaten there, but I had and I loved it. I got the Seared Tuna salad and Bob got some sort of Udon noodle bowl. Delicious as always! We then road "Living with the Land". Although I still love the ride, I don't like it as much as I did in the old days when they had a live narrator on with you. We used our Segway fast passes to ride Soarin' again and then headed back to the room at 3:45 for a shower and a nap before going to MK for the Pirate and Princess Party. Along the way, we met up with Chip and Dale, and had some great photo ops with them. They were very frisky! We headed back out at 4:30 and for some strange reason decided to take the LONG way around so that we could hit Maelstrom on Norway. After, we walked to the front of Epcot and boarded the Monorail for the Magic Kingdom. I love riding the monorail! Always a blast! Upon our arrival at MK, we got our bracelets for the P & P party and headed onto Main Street. We made one quick stop in front of Tony's as Bob had never noticed the talking "Goofy" sitting on the benches nor the heart that's in the cement with Lady and the Tramp's paw prints in it. We then headed to Tomorrowland and boarded the TTA. This is always the first thing we do in Tomorrowland. When we were just about to disembark, the ride came to a halt. Some mechanical issue. We sat on it for about 10-15 minutes before a nice cast member came over and opened our door for us and let us out. We headed straight for Monsters Inc Comedy Floor. I texted my joke as per the instructions and we headed in after about a 5 minute wait. This was a new "ride" for both of us, and we really, really enjoyed it! It's funny and I love how the monsters interact with the audience! Amazing Disney Imagineering on that one! The guy sitting right next to me was one of the ones they picked on. The highlight of my whole day was when the baby monster came on to tell jokes submitted by the audience members. Mine was the first joke he told! He even said "Rhonda form Wake Forest, North Carolina sent this one in"! Awesome! My 15 seconds of Disney fame! LOL For those of you who want to know, the joke was:

What do you call cheese that's not yours?

"Nacho" cheese!

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

After the show, we rode Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. Bob get 103,000 points. I got 3,600. I'm the one who showed him the cheat sheet on how to score big on that ride. I THOUGHT I was aiming for the far off stuff. Do you think the Space Rangers care that I was an expert marksman on both the M-16 AND the M-60 sub-machine gun back in my Air Force days?!?!? Nooooooooooooooooooo. Bummer. We then headed over to Cosmic Rays for burgers and fries while enjoying many of the live shows going on all over the park for the party. After we dined, we headed over to Liberty Square to ride the New and Improved Haunted Mansion. It was AWESOME! I love the ¡§Escher Room¡¨ and the improvements to the bride story line, and Leota floats now! Very cool! We looped back around and rode it a second time just so that we could really pay attention to the details. After that, we headed over to Frontierland and hit BTMRR for THREE rides. There were NO LINES anywhere in the park. It was AWESOME! When we got off Big Thunder, the parade was looping though Frontierland, so we watched the last half and the headed over to Adventureland to ride Pirates. TWICE! Like I said - no lines at all. After pirates, we headed over to Sleepy Hollow for some caramel corn in a souvenir bucket (I collect these) and a funnel cake and sat out on the patio and enjoyed them while the fireworks were going off. After, we headed to Fantasyland (the most crowded land of all tonight) and rode Peter Pan's Flight, then took in Mickey's Philharmagic and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. When we got off Winnie, there were fireworks AGAIN, so we stayed there and took some pictures. Afterwards, we headed back over to Tomorrowland and rode Space Mountain (30 minute line - no fast passes given out during the party) and then Gave Buzz another shot. Although I did triple my score from last time (9, 400) Bob got 190,000, thus kicking my butt once again. My now, it was about 11:40 and we were done. We cut through Tomorrowland Noodle Terrace and headed to Main Street to do a little souvenir shopping. I got my dog the coolest dog bowl I the world! It has all of the Disney dogs on it, plus Stitch (why?!?!? I have no clue!) and I picked up some key chains for the kids and a 2008 magnet and drinking glass for myself. I also got the Mickey punch for my scrap booking and what I believe is the greatest Disney souvenir bargain I've ever seen - a set of four drink coasters - one depicting each park, for only $3.98! I also got a set of four lithographs, one of each park, for $10.00 with my $40.00 purchase. I will have them matted and framed to hang in my house. After our purchases, we headed to the Yacht Club bus and back to the resort. We were in bed at 12:30 and I was out like a light! The town car would be waiting for us at 8:15 for our flight back, so I wanted to get a good night's sleep.

As a p.s. Sunday morning could have been a complete and total disaster and was really a comedy of errors. We arose at 7:30 and had some coffee while we wrapped up packing. I totally forgot to go down to the desk to get our boarding passes printed. After filling out an on-line survey of our stay (where I mentioned the incompetent desk clerk and the temperature of the room upon our arrival) we went out to the Town Car that was waiting. We get in and it is immediately obvious to us that there is a problem with the engine or the transmission. It is acting as if the emergency break is engaged. The driver is concerned as we pull out, and even more so when we clear the Yacht Club area and CRAWL down the road. The driver calls Quick Silver, and nobody answers. He manages to pull into the Beach Club and tells us he can get another car there once he gets a hold of someone. It is already 8:30 and our flight leaves at 10:15, so we have no time to waste. MCO is notorious for sometimes needing 4 hours to clear security, and I didn't know if Sunday morning would be one of those times. We opt instead to disembark and have one of the Beach Club porters hail us a cab. The driver delivers up to MCO where the line for Southwest is about, oh, I don't know - maybe 7 miles long? We get in line and whine and complain to ourselves, totally oblivious to the fact that they have some of the boarding pass kiosks off to the side. We have no checked bags. This would have been a great option. Did we see them? Nope. Duh. After getting through the line, the lovely Southwest employee who helps us asks why we didn't use the kiosk since we weren't checking bags. The only self-serve kiosks we saw were in the Southwest area. We didn't see the ones that were off to the right of it (probably because the line wrapped around it twice). Being that Bob and I are both frequent flyers and pride ourselves on our ability to navigate any airport anywhere, we both felt likes a couple of a$$es. We get our boarding passes and head over to security. This line is only 3 miles long¡K.. (it¡¦s actually a series of 15 lines, each 1.5 miles long LOL). One of the TSA employees tells us that their busiest time is between 9-10 on Sunday mornings. I received a call from the owner of Quick Silver, who was gracious and apologetic. He cancelled all of our charges for the trip, so all Bob and I actually paid was the cab fare from Yacht Club to MCO. I have always used Quick Silver and have always had excellent service and will continue to use them in the future. After hanging up, and ffter choosing the wrong (i.e. slowest) line in the entire airport, we finally get up to the security area where we promptly remove our shoes, take out our 1- quart bags with our 3 oz. of liquids, and place our bags on the table for x-ray inspection. We both go through the machine without a hitch, but they stop my bag. Apparently I have something suspicious that I am trying to sneak onto the plane. Drat! My plan for world domination has been foiled again! After the lovely TSA employee did a complete and total unpacking of my bag, it was determined that my "2008" Walt Disney World magnet was the culprit! What a waste of time. We get through there, I re-pack my bag and we head to the "mini-monorail" to get to our gate and catch our flight, which took off on time and we arrived home, safe and sound, at 12:15 in the afternoon. We were exhausted but neither one of us was able to sleep on the plane due to the two unruly children parked directly behind us who insisted on kicking our seats. We said something to the parents a total of three times, to no avail. Their response? "What do you expect? They're cooped up on an airplane! Geez! Get a life!" Needless to say, Bob and I were happy that we were able to successfully raise four children (3 for me, 1 for him) who are able to make it through an entire hour and 20 minutes on the plane without thinking they run the show and with full awareness of the proper courtesies that are to always be given to others we are sharing the plane with.

Okay I'm done! Thanks for playing along!