Jessica Johnson - June 2006

Day 5 and 6 - June 26 and 27, 2006

The wakeup call really did come too soon today. I'm so not a morning person, and we had to be at breakfast at 8:15 am, in Parrot Cay. I'm not even a big breakfast person, but I figured we should go, so I grabbed my yogurt and string cheese, and packed up the last few things, and we headed off, lugging the carry-ons behind us. Carla and Tom were the only other ones who'd made it to breakfast, so we chatted for a while, and I enjoyed my fruit while Chris had lots of other food (he lives for breakfast food). The meal passed quickly, and then, it was time to leave the ship- it's always hard leaving so early.

We headed into the terminal, where we found our luggage, and then wandered out with Carla and Tom to their van. They drove us back to the Radisson, and Chris headed out to the parking lot to get our car, while I took Carla on a quick round trip tour of the grounds. Back in the parking lot, we exchanged our stuff (Carla and I swap books a lot) and then said our goodbyes, as it would be a while until we saw each other again.

Chris and I waited a few minutes until Joe, Annette, Kyle and Steph pulled up with their car, and after discussing our plans for the day, we headed off. Steph, Annette and Kyle would be staying at the Omni, with us, but Joe had to fly home, so they had decided to go get breakfast and then drop Joe at the airport. Chris and I headed directly to the Omni, where he dealt with the luggage while I went in to check in.

I was really tired- I could barely keep my eyes open, so when I first got to the desk and the staff member told me the room wasn't ready, I kind of began to panic. Before I could even say we'd take another room that was ready- she had already found me a new one. I was so grateful, I was planning a nap very shortly. While she was checking me in, a guy came up to the counter next to me and proceeded to make quite the scene- so I think everyone was a little distracted at this point. She gave me my room keys, and I headed to a nearby chair to wait until Chris came in.

He showed up a few minutes later, with a bellman right behind him, so we all loaded into the elevator and headed to our room on the 16th floor. We were actually upgraded to a room with a balcony, so I took about a minute and a half to look at the view, and then closed the drapes, and sought out my pajamas. It turns out that our water shoes hadn't been dry enough, and my pajamas didn't fare well on the trip back. I ended up in a spare shirt of Chris's, and in very short order, I was sound asleep in bed- something that almost never happens! (I'm one of those people who takes hours to fall asleep on a good day, and I suffer from a lot of insomnia issues)

All was well until the phone rang at the same time the door opened. Well, it was Chris's cellphone- so luckily he hopped out of bed to answer it, and found the gentlemen who was wandering into our room. He seemed puzzled, and said, "Oh, I guess this isn't my room." And left. So, Chris answered the phone to discover that Annette had arrived and was in her room. We made plans to meet in the lobby in a bit and head out to The World.

Then, the phone in the room rang- it was the front desk wanting to know when our original check out date was. Chris explained that we'd been assigned a different room and it wasn't ready so we'd been put in this one, and they apologized profusely and said they'd straighten the system out, as it still had us in another room and was showing our current one as unoccupied. That settled, we got dressed and made our way down to the lobby to find Annette and Kyle. Steph decided she wanted to nap and enjoy the pool at the hotel, so the rest of us headed to Animal Kingdom, since neither Kyle or Annette had experienced Everest yet.

Annette had left her car parked out front, so we hopped in hers, and set off to the park. We parked, hopped on the tram that was conveniently waiting, and headed into the park. It turns out that they visit Animal Kingdom about as much as we do (which is practically never), so the group of us set off, sort of lost, for Everest. None of us thought to grab a map- just kind of did the- I think it's this way, and we were right, we did find it. The line time was listed as 80 minutes- but it was way shorter than it had been for the opening weekend we'd been at, so we got in line.

Yes, I got in the line too. Don't be so surprised- I wasn't planning to ride ;o) I just figured I'd wait with everyone, since I figured it could be a 30 minute wait. We made our way slowly through the line, grabbing fastpasses for later when we passed the machines. The line for Everest is pretty wind-ey, but it's interesting and you seem to always keep moving, so it wasn't bad at all. Except when it started raining. It was big, hard raindrops, but not cold, so we figured, what the hell, we've come this far, and continued to wait. Apparently they can shut the ride down if the weather gets bad enough- as every so often a warning came on announcing that your expedition may be shut down with no warning if the weather front gets worse. At the end of the line, luckily, you wind through a museum of sorts, and it was nice to not be in the pouring rain. We finally made it through the gates, and I headed off to the right to find the nice Cast Member who would let me out of this area- and as I emerged by the gift shop, I found the rain had stopped.

I did a quick tour in the gift shop, and then headed out to find a spot to wait. There's a little ampitheater like seating area, and I figured my butt was already wet, so there was no harm in climbing up onto a rock to sit, and that's exactly what I did. The others showed up pretty quickly, and everyone had loved the ride. The rain had stopped, so we figured it was off to Dinoland because Kyle wanted to ride Primeval Whirl. Chris had never been on it, so they set off, while Annette and I found a table out of the sun, with sort of an umbrella. When the boys were done, we sent them to buy us hotdogs for lunch, and as we were enjoying our lunch, it started raining again. Hard. I mean really, really hard.

We had sort of an umbrella, though it had holes in it, so we figured we'd wait it out. Besides, everyone knows it rains in FL for like 5 minutes, and then the sun comes back out- so why would we rush out with all those other people running for cover? Except, this time, the other people had the right idea. We waited, it rained harder. It would look like it was going to stop- and then the gods laughed and it got even harder. Finally, despite our metal umbrella overhead, we were soaked again, and we had to admit that the rain wasn't stopping. So, we joined the mass of people trudging out to the front of the park.

Outside the gates we stopped for a second to debate whether or not we should take the tram. Well, really only Annette and I debated, since we both agreed that we could wait in the huge tram line and get soaked, then get on a wet tram, or we could just walk to the car while getting soaked, but be there sooner. We both agreed that walking made more sense, so we just went in that direction and Chris and Kyle followed. They were busy talking about boy stuff anyway, so I don't think they noticed. We did beat the tram to the car, so they weren't too mad when we got there.

We all loaded into the car, and headed to the Boardwalk. For Annette and Kyle, no trip is complete without a stop at the Boardwalk Bakery, and really, who argues with brownies? So, we decided to send the boys down to get the goodies while we waited in the car, blocking the Magical Express parking area. (We did move when we saw the bus). The boys were back quickly with fruit and a brownie for me, and peanut butter cake for Chris. Kyle got his favorite Mickey cakes, Annette is a brownie girl, and Steph loves the peanut butter cake.

Back we went to the Omni and made plans to meet at David's Club for dinner at about 7. We parted ways in the elevator, as they were on the 7th floor, and Chris and I headed down the hallway to our room. The air was on, we were soaked, so it was cold! We got to our door, put the key in- nothing. Ok, so we tried again- nothing. Well, maybe it was my key, let's use Chris's- nothing. Crud! We headed back to the elevator, down the stairs, and back to the desk.

I explained to the nice staff person that our keys didn't work, and then we had to go through the whole saga again. It seems we were still booked into the room on the 7th floor, and our room was unoccupied. I did explain that our stuff was in the other room, and luckily he believed us, and re-did the keys. Back to the elevator, back up, then back down the hall, and YAY! The keys worked!

We both quickly stripped out of the wet clothes, and changed into the waffle weave robes hanging in the closet. We had nothing to do but dry out- so we pulled out the laptops and caught up on email. I munched on my fruit, and later my brownie, and Chris devoured his cake. Eventually it was time for dinner, so we got redressed (and silly me hadn't packed extra shirts, so I went to dinner in a PePe the King Prawn tshirt of Chris's) and headed to the lobby.

We found some chairs and waited for Annette, Steph and Kyle, and watched it pour outside. They showed up and we made our way to the restaurant where they said it would be a 45 minute wait. We found some seats, and spent the time talking about all the fun on the trip. Eventually we were seated at a table, and given our menus. Chris and I had been to David's Club on a previous trip and we loved the club sandwiches. Chris ordered chicken fingers as an appetizer, Kyle ordered them as his dinner. I had the filet, and Chris, Annette, and Steph all had clubs. They really are yummy sandwiches- but HUGE! The filet was wonderful, and we had a great time eating, and all left stuffed.

Kyle really wanted to check out the pool, so we said goodnight to Steph, and then headed back to our room to change into bathing suits. Chris and I beat Kyle and Annette to the pool area, and after stopping at the pool hut were told they were about to pull the inner tubes from the lazy river. We begged them to let us play a little, and then dumped our stuff. I love lazy rivers and had been waiting a while to do this one, so I grabbed a tube, and floated through- Chris grabbed a tube and joined me, and when he found another tube, grabbed that for Kyle. After my lap, I was happy (it's a long lazy river, and it's got a strong current) I had avoided all of the fountains and waterfalls on the route, after all, I didn't want to get too wet while I was swimming. I hopped out of my tube and said I'd wait for Kyle. When he showed up, I offered him my tube, but he waited for Chris to come around again, and they set off on a lap. Chris had been told that his previous lap was his last, but he was able to persuade them to let Kyle do one.

Annette and I, meanwhile, moved our stuff to the main pool, and went wading for a while, since the water was warm. Chris and Kyle came over to the main pool, and immediately set off swimming. Annette and I found some lounge chairs to sit on and chatted while the boys were off- we later learned they were climbing up the closed waterslide. They came out to take a break, and Chris hung out with us talking while Kyle went back in the water.

Eventually we were being eaten alive by some bugs, so we headed in for the night. We said some quick goodbyes in the elevator, with plans to meet in the morning for a last one, and then headed to our rooms. Chris and I played online for a little while, and I decided I was hungry, so ordered my own club sandwich, and a piece of Snickers cheesecake for Chris. The food arrived quickly, and after dissecting the sandwich, I had a bite or two of cheesecake and we got ready for bed.

The plan had been for us to get up and leave around 10 am, but when the wakeup call came, neither of us wanted to get up. So, we delayed it for an hour- and all too soon the time was up. We got up, got ready, and packed up the last minute stuff, and then called a bellman. Chris called Annette, and in a few minutes, we were in the lobby saying goodbye. We loaded up our car, and headed off for home- another trip over.

To see my photos: Disney Wonder Cruise Photos
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